Early wanted – how do you become immortal?

The philosopher and art -based artist Boris Groys have been concerned with immortality, for example in the conversation band “Politics of Immortality” (2002) or in the anthology “Kosmism” (2018). In his new essay “becoming a work of art”, Groys formulates a recipe that could work with life after death. His basic thesis: by transforming people into a work of art, he becomes immortal.

But how does a person become a work of art? Groys assumes that a person has two bodies. The “inner”, the purely biological body always leads a second, which presented in public, externally visible, “narcissistic” body. In the event of becoming a works of art, the first body is used to the mere tool for the management of the second body-for maintaining the image and the external image.

The first body is insignificant, mere self -image. The structure of meaning, i.e. becoming a works of art of the second, survives the first and thus makes the biological body immortal: “The narcissistic desire”, writes Groys, “seems to fall together with the desire for unpleasant”: “If I sacrifice my inner myself to my picture that does not belong to me, but others (…), I sacrifice my living, dying body (…) (…) I exist and will not disappear after my death. “

Even the mythological narcissus has “sacrificed its inner world for its external picture, which is accessible to everyone”. So when the narcissist brings a victim – one against himself and for society – he is not selfish. Rather, the concentration on self-and reflection is a sign of low self-confidence, expression of the desire for social integration: »Today’s narcissus makes selfies and distributes it via Facebook and Instagram. The production of the pictures is the production of life after death. ”But the narcissist does not expect a reward for his victim, he is enough. This distinguishes him from the non-narcissists who demand wages and recognition for their social commitment.

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Based on the myth of the narcissus, Groys draws a historical line of the narcissistic artwork practices from Jesus Christ to social media selfies and identity policy to the Egyptian Osiris myth and in Quentin Tarantino’s two-part film “Kill Bill”, a mixture of Eastern and Western with a lot of martial arts. For Groys, combat training is an “active form of waiting”, a “narcissistic practices par excellence”. The training is an practice on self, full of asceticism and messianism. He also finds such training in the political sect, from revolutionaries in the waiting.

Modern art is opposed to this, because according to Groys, she was understood to be understood by her protagonists as a search for the natural, untrained and unconventional self. “Educated people present themselves as uneducated, as if they were” unsuspecting about what society awaits “. This is how you produce artistic modernity: “The strategic positioning of the” natural “body of the artist in public space (him) turns into a work of art – no training is required.” Successful contemporary artists are narcissists for Groy’s workers who are no longer aesthetically competent, but on questions of “soul design”.

Ultimately, Groys’ book of great, old philosophical question is devoted to how his own impotence should be countered in the face of death. His proposal to burn itself into the cultural memory of mankind by means of the work and thus to consume loan from the postumen during his lifetime is daring but productive.

From mummification in ancient Egypt to the storage of Lenin’s body in the Moscow mausoleum to the social media account, the tradition of musalization of “public corpses” for works of art, into whom the artist and the terrorist are also in line, is left behind, because both left manifests that they should make immortal. So the living author no longer differed from the dead: by “emptying”, the narcissistic artists become “pure form” during their lifetime, in which they overcome their time and save their individuality into eternity.

The gesture of mere criticism remains foreign – he is an observer who wants to conceptually reconstruct relationships. He should shake existing errors more than the numerous complaints of the ideology criticism.

One point that is unfortunately neglected is the question of work: If Groys writes, “we are expected to explain our inner life to others”, then the presentation of the ego means a steady work. But some become millionaires with the self-design, others remain unpaid. There are public bodies with different (market) value-an inequality that continues the class contradiction.

In capitalism, everyone is now encouraged to do an equally abstract work of self -representation in addition to regular wage labor, the wages of which are in social recognition. Groys also sees that. But what if someone is unable to do this work? The fact that he then lacks a cornerstone of social existence would be one of the consequences of which a continuation of the Groys thoughts could take on.

Boris Groys: Become a work of art. From the English v. Janine Ortiz u. Carl Hegemann. With a conversation between Boris Groys and Carl Hegemann. Alexander Verlag, 224 pages, born, 28 €.