Description: Nonfiction. Art. Criticism and Theory. Following the words of Giorgio Agamben (from his 2001 article "On Security and Terror"), security has become the basic principle of international politics after 9/11, and the "sole criterion of political legitimation." But security--reducing plural, spontaneous and surprising phenomena to a level of calculability--also seems to operate against a political legitimacy based on possibilities of dissent, and stands in clear opposition to artistic creativity. Being uncalculable by nature, art is often incompatible with the demands of security and consequently viewed as a "risk," leading to the arrest of artists, and a neutralization of innovative environments for the sake of security.
Brief description: Wolfgang Sutzl is a media theorist, philosopher, and translator based in Vienna. His work revolves around contemporary critique of violence. He teaches at various Austrian and international universities and is a faculty member of the Transart Institute's MFA program.