Performing Abjection in Wafaa Bilal’s Domestic Tension

Hany Ali Abdelfattah

Abstract


This paper is a psychoanalytic literary study of the online performance Domestic Tension (2007) by the Iraqi-American artist Wafaa Bilal. Fundamentally built on the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection is well suited to be the critical tool to analyse the online performance Domestic Tension. This paper questions the performance as a manifestation of abjection that espouses Bilal’s anti-Iraq War stance, by exposing the killing of thousands of Iraqis by the US drones. Furthermore, it investigates how the Brechtian theatrical techniques are used to restrain the cathartic experience of the viewers-cum-shooters, inviting them to ‘disavow’ Bilal’s body, abstain from any cannibalistic desires, and finally to think of the consequences of the US invasion of Iraq.

 

Keywords: Domestic Tension; Wafaa Bilal; Julia Kristeva; Abjection; Cyborg


Full Text:

PDF

References


Ali, H. M. (2013). The Abject Lover of the Courtly Love Era. 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature®, 19(3).Beardsworth, S. (2012). Julia Kristeva: psychoanalysis and modernity. Suny Press.

Becker, C. (2013). Introduction: drawing the line. In Wafaa Bilal, Shoot an Iraqi: art, life, and resistance under the gun. New York: City Lights Books.

Beyst, S. (2002). Hermann Nitsch' Orgien Mysterien Theater. 1/9/2002. Online. Web. Retrieved Dec. 30 2017 from< http://d-sites.net/english/nitsch.html>.

Bilal, W. (2013). Shoot An Iraqi: art, life, and resistance under the gun. City Lights Books.

---. “A Virtual Jihadi.” Online. Web. Retrieved April 1 2019 from< http://www.wafaabilal.com/html/virtualJ.html>.

---. “The Paintball Project.” (2017). Online. Web. Retrieved Mar. 30. 2019 from.

---. (2013). Shoot an Iraqi: art, life, and resistance under the gun. New York: City Lights Books.

Carroll, R., and Stephen Prickett, eds. (2008).The Bible: authorized king james version. OUP Oxford.

Covino, D. A. (1996). The Abject body: toward an aesthetic of the repulsive (Doctoral dissertation).

Felluga, D. (2019). Introduction to Julia Kristeva: modules on Kristeva. Online. Web. (2002). 12 Jan.

https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/kristevadevelop.html.

Freud, S. (1955). Totem and taboo: Some points of agreement between the mental lives of savages and neurotics (1913 [1912-13]). In The Standard Edition of the

Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIII (1913-1914): Totem and Taboo and Other Works (pp. VII-162).

Gajanan, M. (2016). Feuds. TIME Magazine, 188(25–26), 34. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=120052871&site=ehost-live.

Gilbertson, L. (2003). Andy Warhol's beauty# 2: demystifying and reabstracting the feminine mystique, Obliquely. Art Journal, 62(1), 24-33.

Gillespie, L. (2021). The Body as Real—Nostalgia Without Memory. In The Psychosocial Imaginaries of Defence Nationalism (pp. 143-173). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Guler, S. D., Gannon, M., & Sicchio, K. (2016). Superhumans and cyborgs. in crafting wearables (pp. 145-159). Apress, Berkeley, CA.

Hadley, B. (2017). Social Media as Theatre Stage: Aesthetics, Affordances, and Interactivities. In Theatre, Social Media, and Meaning Making (pp. 53-112). Palgrave

Macmillan, Cham.

Joodaki, A. H., & Elyasi, Z. (2015). Deconstructing Phallogocentrism in Shahrnush Parsipur’s Touba and the Meaning of Night: A Psycho-Feminist Study. GEMA Online®

Journal of Language Studies, 15(2).

Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D., Iyer, R., & Haidt, J. (2012). Disgust sensitivity, political conservatism, and voting. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3(5), 537-544.

Ingram, A. (2012). Experimental Geopolitics: Wafaa Bilal's domestic tension. The Geographical Journal, 178(2), 123-133.

Klein, N. (2007). The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of disaster capitalism. Macmillan. Education for Meaning and Social Justice 21.1, 53.

Kristeva, J. (1982). Approaching abjection. Oxford Literary Review, 5(12), 125-149.

---. (1982). Powers of horror: an essay on abjection. Trans. Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Colombia UP, 1982.

Kroker, A. & Cook, D. (1987). The Postmodern scene: Excremental culture and hyper-aesthetics. New World Perspectives.

---. & M. Kroker, eds. (1987). Body invaders: panic sex in america. New York: St. Martin's.

---. (1993). Spasm: virtual reality, android music, and electric flesh. New York: St. Martin's.

---. & Kroker, M. (2016). Exits to the posthuman future: dreaming with drones. In Critical Posthumanism and Planetary Futures (pp. 75-90). Springer, New Delhi.

Kutzbach, K., & Mueller, M. (2007). The Abject of desire: the aestheticization of the unaesthetic in contemporary literature and culture. BRILL.

Levin, L. (2014). Performing ground. in performing ground (pp. 67-95). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Lewis, P. (2009). Machine rebellion begins: killer robots destroyed by the US jet. The Register. Co.UK. Sept. 15. online. web. 18 Feb.2017.

Lydersen, K. (2013). A Note on the writing of shoot an Iraqi. in Wafaa Bilal, shoot an Iraqi: art, life, and resistance under the gun. City Lights Books.

Haraway, D. & Manifesto, A. C. (1991). Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in The Late Twentieth Century. In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention

of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp. 149-181.

Mi, L. S. (2019). Narrating the Diasporic Self as Shaman. Japanese Language and Literature, 53(2), 253-282.

Michaels, J. H. (2013). Shock and awe. in the discourse trap and the US military (pp. 81-106). Palgrave Macmillan, New York. (pp. 81-106).

Newell, J. (2013). Abject cyborgs: discursive boundaries and the remade in China miéville's iron council. Science Fiction Studies, 40(3), 496-509.

Oketch, F. O. (2013). Art and conversation: disturbation in public space (Doctoral dissertation, Oxford University, UK).

Oliver, K. (2014). Kristeva and food. in: thompson p.b., kaplan d.m. (eds) Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht.

---, K. (2009). Animal lessons: how they teach us to be human. Columbia University Press.

Parker-Starbuck, J. (2011). Shifting the balance: ‘abject’ bodies. In Cyborg Theatre (pp. 52-93). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

“Sandbox Studio. Online. web. n.pag. Retrieved Mar. 30 from<(https://seechicagodance.com/organization/flatfile-gallery.>

Snæbjörnsdóttir, B., M. Wilson, and K. O’Reilly. (2017). Interview "Falling asleep with a pig."

Satkunananthan, A. H. (2015). The Baby’s Not for Burning: The Abject in Sarah Kane’s Blasted and Helen Oyeyemi’s Juniper’s Whitening. 3L: Language, Linguistics,

Literature®, 21(2).

Stevens, L. (2014). Alienation in the information age: Wafaa Bilal's domestic tension. Australasian Drama Studies, (65), 77.

Wilke, S. & Wilke-Gray, C. L. (2017). Performing hunger: fasting in franz kafka’s hunger artist as poetic practice. In German Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene (pp. 147-

. Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

Wolfreys, J. (2003). Critical keywords in literary and cultural theory. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Zylka, R. R. (2010). Power performance: benevolence and violence in the work of chris burden, barbara t. smith, yoko ono, and wafaa bilal (Doctoral dissertation,

University of Southern California).




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/3L-2021-2701-02

Refbacks



 

 

 

eISSN : 2550-2247

ISSN : 0128-5157