Christina Manning Lebek

Major Project: The Politics of Enthusiasm: The Nature of Enthusiasm and its Significance to the Art of Tania Bruguera

Enthusiasm is a ‘rapturous intensity of feeling in favour of a person, principle or cause’ and its critics since antiquity have contended that its passionate nature causes it to be devoid of reason and therefore suspect and unsound. Yet enthusiasm, and its inherent ability and desire to influence, has occupied the minds of philosophers, writers, performers, revivalists, orators, politicians, and revolutionaries throughout history. French eighteenth-century writer Diderot describes enthusiasm as ‘a living fire which prevails by degrees, which feeds from its own flames and which, far from becoming feebler as it expands, acquires new strength in proportion to the extent that it spreads and communicates itself.’ Enthusiasm is a potent force of change.

Focusing on the work of behaviour artist Tania Bruguera, this dissertation seeks to contribute to the discussion surrounding artists as agents of social change. In particular, it asks the question what is the usefulness of enthusiasm as a political method to participatory artists today?

To answer this I consider historical examples of enthusiasm. I look at the way that it is inseparable from action, how its expressions are located in the body. I examine the nature of enthusiasm when it operates in art as non-traditional forms of education. Lastly, as it was in the eighteenth century when Hume was writing, I argue that enthusiasm is a friend of civil liberty today. In the words of Kant, it unbridles the imagination. Enthusiasm enables us, through art, to envision what we want to make of our future.