Play in the System: The Art of Parasitical Resistance

Acknowledging the difficulty for artists in the twenty-first century to effectively critique systems of power, Anna Watkins Fisher theorizes parasitism—a form of resistance in which artists comply with dominant structures as a tool for practicing resistance from within.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 16 October 2020
Publisher: Duke University Press

In the twenty-first century, where disruption and dissent have been co-opted and commodified in ways that reinforce dominant systems, what does artistic resistance look like? Anna Watkins Fisher explores this question in her book, The Play in the System. Fisher argues that artists who embrace parasitism, or tactics of complicity that effect subversion from within hegemonic structures, hold the potential for resistance. She traces the ways in which artists on the margins, such as hacker collectives like Ubermorgen and feminist writers and performers like Chris Kraus, have abandoned the radical scripts of opposition and refusal long associated with anticapitalism and feminism. Instead, Fisher finds space for resistance in the mutually, if unevenly, exploitative relations between dominant hosts who give only as much as required to appear generous and parasitical actors who take only as much as they can get away with. The irreverent and often troubling works that result from these interactions raise necessary and difficult questions about the conditions for resistance and critique under neoliberalism today.

In the twenty-first century, where disruption and dissent have been co-opted and commodified in ways that reinforce dominant systems, what does artistic resistance look like? Anna Watkins Fisher explores this question in her book, The Play in the System. Fisher argues that artists who embrace parasitism, or tactics of complicity that effect subversion from within hegemonic structures, hold the potential for resistance. She traces the ways in which artists on the margins, such as hacker collectives like Ubermorgen and feminist writers and performers like Chris Kraus, have abandoned the radical scripts of opposition and refusal long associated with anticapitalism and feminism. Instead, Fisher finds space for resistance in the mutually, if unevenly, exploitative relations between dominant hosts who give only as much as required to appear generous and parasitical actors who take only as much as they can get away with. The irreverent and often troubling works that result from these interactions raise necessary and difficult questions about the conditions for resistance and critique under neoliberalism today.

Weight: 636g
Dimension: 152 x 228 x 30 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478009702