Paper short abstract:

The aim of this paper is to explore the issue of an ethics of obligation grounded in precarity in the light of the Judith Butler’s performative theory of assembly.

Paper long abstract:

I will use the theory to describe the phenomenon of the protest graffiti and stickers that emerged on the Polish streets in 2020 in the aftermath of the mass political demonstrations.

According to Alfred Gell, an art object is endowed with the ability to “produce an effect” in its immediate vicinity, so it is not merely a material trace of someone else’s intentional action but it has the ability to generate a network of social relations (nexus) in its immediate vicinity.

The causality of an art object consists in its ability to “captivate” the viewer. Importantly, however, the causality of the art object involves establishing an asymmetrical power relation between human and the object. The human being is to be, as it were, “caught by the object” so that the complex relations of domination and subordination linking the human participants in the exchange transaction can also be altered in this way.

In this paper I would like to argue that iconoclashes mediated by the protest graffiti insriptions are the results of the unwanted, hostile cohabitation that – although not chosen by anyone – still requires the ethics of obligation.