In his book “Conflictual Aesthetics. Artistic Activism and the Public Sphere” (2019), Oliver Marchart traces trajectories of artistic activism in theater, dance, performance, and public art, and investigates the political potential of urbanism, curating, and “biennials of resistance.” Because, as Marchart claims, activist undercurrents are not a new phenomenon in the arts, even if a new wave of artistic activism has emerged in recent years in response to the ever-increasing dominance of authoritarian neoliberalism. In his book he traces trajectories of artistic activism in theater, dance, performance, and public art, and investigates the political potential of urbanism, curating, and “biennials of resistance.” At the Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien, Marchart will present his book from 2019 and talk about the activistic potential of (film) works in the context of the exhibition „Image Wars. The Power of Images.“

Oliver Marchart (*1986 Vienna, lives in Vienna) is a philosopher and since 2016 Professor of Political Theory at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Vienna. He has authored numerous publications, such as “The Society of Precarity. Precarious Protests. Politics and Economy Under the Banner of Precarity” (2013) and he is the co-editor of “Making Democracy—Negotiations of Freedom, Equality, and Solidarity in Every Day Life” (2020). His focus of work is theory of democracy, political history of ideas, political discourse analysis, and populism.