[ISEA2011] Panel: Alexan­der Schwing­ham­mer & Daniel Wes­solek (Moderators) – How dare you? Acts of Deviance and Strategies of Discreditation

Panel Statement

Chair Per­sons: Alexan­der Schwing­ham­mer & Daniel Wes­solek                                                       Pre­sen­ters: Nicholas Salazar, Asko Lehmuskallio, Anna Lena Seiser & Se­bas­t­ian Sierra Barra

A vi­o­la­tion of the norm whether in­tended or by chance en­tails the dan­ger of fac­ing pun­ish­ment ei­ther through law en­force­ment, vi­o­lent re­sponse, stigma­ti­za­tion as ‘de­viant’ or ab­hor­rence by so­ci­ety. Gen­er­ally acts of de­viance mark in­fringe­ments of es­tab­lished pat­terns. How­ever linked to the no­tion of in­tended de­viancy being in fact an al­leged de­viance as an at­tempt to at­tract au­di­ences or con­sumers. De­viancy ap­pears to pos­sess the po­ten­tial be used as a method to gen­er­ate an image, such as giv­ing a brand a dash of re­bel­lious­ness by at­tribut­ing de­viance to it. De­viancy can be em­ployed by oth­ers as a de­scrip­tion, as well as it can be used as a self-de­scrip­tion (for eco­nom­i­cal rea­sons for in­stance). In con­trast to de­viancy that can be used ex­ter­nally and in­ter­nally, dis­cred­i­ta­tion is a per­for­ma­tive act of as­crip­tion by oth­ers. A key in­ten­tion of dis­cred­i­ta­tion seems to be the in­tended dam­age of the ‘good’ rep­u­ta­tion of some­one or some­thing. Dis­cred­i­ta­tion hap­pens on pur­pose. This panel ex­plores dif­fer­ent so­cial for­ma­tions, events, artis­tic en­deav­ours, sites, per­for­ma­tive be­hav­iours and fields of in­quiry that em­ploy strate­gies of dis­cred­i­ti­a­tion. There­fore a wide focus is used to map an un­der­rep­re­sented and di­verse field.

  • Alexan­der Schwing­ham­mer works as a re­search as­so­ci­ate for The­ory and His­tory of Vi­sual Com­mu­ni­ca­tion at the Bauhaus Uni­ver­sity in Weimar, Germany. His back­ground is in cul­tural, stud­ies, an­thro­pol­ogy and the­atre stud­ies. Re­search in­ter­ests in­clude per­for­mance the­ory, vi­sual cul­ture, the vi­su­al­ity of war, ideas on ap­pro­pria­tive acts and the an­thro­po­log­i­cal mo­men­tum of re­port­ing.
  • Daniel Wes­solek works as a re­search as­so­ci­ate in In­ter­ac­tion De­sign at Bauhaus Uni­ver­sity Weimar, Germany. He holds an MFA in Media Art & De­sign from Bauhaus Uni­ver­sity Weimar, an MA in Art The­ory from Tongji Uni­ver­sity Shang­hai and a BA in Dig­i­tal Media from Uni­ver­sity of the Arts Bre­men. His re­search cur­rently fo­cuses on glow­ing mat­ter, open de­sign and civil en­gage­ment.