Prothese 4

Topic: Entertainment
Pages: 124

The phenomenon of entertainment culture seems to carry an inherent danger. Warnings against entertainment as a mere pastime have existed for a long time. The pleasant images, sounds, and ideas of popular and entertainment culture are said to be deceptive, perhaps even deadly. In any case, they are seen as obstacles to the effectiveness of ethics and the formation of good citizens.

The epochal catastrophes of the 20th century were accompanied by an increase in entertainment media, by the entertaining colonization of everyday life through electronic voices and images. In the cinema, one sits in the dark, surrendering to the projection of a false world. In the technical and electronic world of this era, Plato’s cave of passive ignorance reemerges as the pinnacle of cultural life. At least, this is what cultural pessimists whispered, fearing for the critical autonomy of individuals now surrounded by media in the face of the spectacular worldview of the culture industry.

The 20th century has come to an end, and individuals still exist. However, cinema has lost much of its former radiance. In recent decades, the localized, spectacular world of cinema has increasingly been replaced by a ubiquitous game of attention, where there are many projectors and many screens, many transmitters and receivers. In the resulting chaotic swirl of information, mechanisms for selection and recognition, which assign relevance to information, are largely absent.

Thus, there has been much talk and writing about the “attention economy,” caused by the innovation of a horizon of general interconnectedness. The shortening of communication paths necessary for linking information creates a situation of general competition. It is this competition that gives the “attention economy” its suffix, turning the structure into an economy. But competition is best among equals and over common ground. Thus, it could be concluded that interconnectedness makes attention a new final authority. The universalization of imaginary relationships in the brave new world society grants attention a metaphysical stature.

Questions such as what entertains, how one is entertained, who is entertained, and so forth have become core issues of social existence—if they weren’t always so. Rather than remaining a threat to the social, entertainment has become the very substance of social life. The fourth issue of Prothese magazine brings together works that focus on the theme of entertainment.

We extend our thanks to Horst Bredekamp for his invited contribution on the concept of representation and to Julia Christ from the Parisian journal K. Les Juifs, l’Europe, le XXIe siècle for kindly allowing us to print the dialogue between her and Bredekamp. Both contributions were written over a year ago, but in the context of the debates surrounding the documenta, they appear to be of heightened relevance.

Content:
Julian Litschko / Quarantine
Hannah Essler / Entertain Us! A Double Serious Demand.
Fabian Endemann / Just Stay Calm: Thoughts on the Train as a Public Space
Paul Weinheimer / Everything Has Its Price: The Commodification of Love as a Form of Entertainment
Natascha Maier / Salty Traces
Clara Palmberger-Süsse / Comfort Bread
Jan Grollmuss / The Pink Ladder
Stephan Kamp / On the Arbitrariness of Involuntary Perception
Marie L. Jessen / Civilizing Banksy – Bomb Hugger, How Have You Fared?
Marie Egger / The “Memefication” of Artworks – On the Concept of Art Memes
Dorothea Douglas / We (All) Are the People – Reflections on the Representation of the People in the Work of Hans Haacke
Jenny Schäfer / Disney
Vé-Tocha Schorre / Junkanoo; Carnival
Christoph Steinweg / Noise from the Archives
Dagmar Rauwald / With Mask Without Mask
Shirin Weigelt / The Corset, or: Who Wears Whom Here?
Horst Bredekamp / On the Endangerment of a Critical Concept of Representation
Catalina Rueda / All Full!
Fabian Hammerl / Photo Series from the Series "Things As They"