Politics of form. Genealogy of a central thesis of modernity and history of its application

The present project comprises two specific goals the first is to write a genealogy of the claim that the aesthetic trick of montage, alienation and parody has a political effect and to complete a history of the application of this "thesis" in the 20th century, with three social groups being selected for a detailed analysis: the Dadaist film and exhibition practices of the 1910s and 1920s; the Expanded-Cinema Movement of the 60s and 70s in Vienna; art collectives such as FIA, SKART, OTPOR, LedArt and Magnet in the territories of former Yugoslavia during the wars (1989-2000). The second objective is to explain the permanence of the appearance of these politically oriented avant-garde practices in the context of a history of the transformations of perception since the 19th century. The project thus explains the massive presence of avant-garde practices in the 20th century out of transformations of perception that accompanied new forms of commodity mis en scene, as well as new media technologies such as photography and film and new forms of communications, transport and production.