ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explore with anaesthesis then is the theatricalised loss of sensation and sense – and with this the potentiality of a genre of negative critique that emerges as if in spite of itself. It argues that anaesthesis suggests an analytic frame for thinking the dissolution of the 'sensible fabric and intelligible form' of art in a capitalist paradigm in which constant work dissolves time and dissolves art's difference. The spectacle of anaesthesis continuously marks the passage of time, while theatricalising and capitalising on its apparent suspense: time seems to be suspended. The performance of gestureless action then becomes a theatre of anaesthesis, signalling an everyday performance of failed community in which sensible fabric and intelligible form break down. Anaesthesis then theatricalises the failure of one system of aesthetic meaning – one regime of sensation and sense – without substituting it for another.
