Fearless Art in the Age of Fear: Electronic Disturbance Theater’s Parrhesian Gestures

At the core of the performative matrix of Electronic Disturbance Theater 1.0 and 2.0 has been the parrhesian gesture. While Foucault’s analysis focuses mainly on parrhesia as “fearless speech,” our work has and does explore fearless art. Our parrhesian gestures create an art that is not concerned directly with the “care of the oneself,” but instead focuses on the care of the social, of the public agora, or what is left of it under the signs of neo-liberalism(s)—almost total privatization of life and the spaces of life. While the parrhesiastes’ courage places them in danger and even at risk of death for speaking the truth to power, the parrhesian gesture of fearless art creates a space for power to speak the un-truth of its uncaring condition for all social-selves.