FUGUE STATE
“Part of the reason I think that queer theory and love theory are related to each other as political idioms, is that queer theory presumes the affective incoherence of the subject with respect to the objects that anchor it or to which they’re attached. One thing that is very powerful for me to try and think about is how we could have a political pedagogy that deals with incoherence. Where the taking up of a position won’t be so that an individual can be coherent, intentional, agentive, and encounter themselves through their object, but that there would be a way that situational clarity can be produced without negating the incoherence of the subject. Training in one’s own incoherence, training in the ways in which one’s complexity and contradiction can never be resolved by the political, is a really important part of a political theory of non-sovereignty.”
Fugue State researches what a practice of ‘training one’s own incoherence’ could look like, and what the political currency of incoherence and illegibility within a performance practice could be. Based on Lauren Berlant’s suggestion to “train one’s own incoherence”[1], this work investigates incoherence as a method to be harnessed in order to foster political non-sovereignty. The following images were taken during rehearsals by Nils Amadeus Lange and are part of a work-in-progress for a piece that will premiere in 2025, co-produced by Tanzhaus, Zurich. The rehearsals were conducted in collaboration with Teo Ala-Ruona, Emmel Chemounay, Nils Amadeus Lange and Luc Häfliger.
[1] Lauren Berlant, “On the Risk of a New Relationality”: An Interview with Lauren Berlant and Michael Hardt. Reviews in Cultural Theory, Issue 2.3, 2008