Glitching the State: The Mechanics of Resistance in Ricardo Piglia’s La Ciudad Ausente

Henry Osman

doi:10.5070/r71141459

Abstract

Torture is a storytelling device in that it attempts to (re)narrate and extricate the lives of others, often in the name of a potentially fallacious official memory. In the torture chamber, violence is posited as a search for knowledge whose veracity is not always necessary. States around the world have used torture to extract information and reaffirm their own narrative; due to this legacy of state violence, many post-trauma works aim to reveal the extent of the practice and the damage it causes as a form of resistance. This is particularly relevant to contemporary Argentina, where the legacy of state violence, particularly forced disappearances and torture during the military junta’s Dirty War (1976-1983), is still being dealt with in the public sphere and in institutions such as the Supreme Court, which last year controversially allowed the early release of hundreds of convicted human rights abuses.&nbsp

Highlights

Torture is a storytelling device in that it attempts tonarrate and extricate the lives of others, often in the name of a potentially fallacious official memory
This is relevant to contemporary Argentina, where the legacy of state violence, forced disappearances and torture during the military junta’s Dirty War (1976-1983), is still being dealt with in the public sphere and in institutions such as the Supreme Court, which last year controversially allowed the early release of hundreds of convicted human rights abuses.[1]
The central narrative of the novel follows Junior, a reporter who is investigating Elena, a cyborg narration machine created by her husband, a fictionalized version of twentieth century Argentine author Macedonio Fernandez

Summary

Introduction

Torture is a storytelling device in that it attempts to (re)narrate and extricate the lives of others, often in the name of a potentially fallacious official memory. States around the world have used torture to extract information and reaffirm their own narrative; due to this legacy of state violence, many post-trauma works aim to reveal the extent of the practice and the damage it causes as a form of resistance This is relevant to contemporary Argentina, where the legacy of state violence, forced disappearances and torture during the military junta’s Dirty War (1976-1983), is still being dealt with in the public sphere and in institutions such as the Supreme Court, which last year controversially allowed the early release of hundreds of convicted human rights abuses.[1] Ricardo Piglia’s 1992 novel La ciudad ausente uses science fiction to mine. I cannot make something glitch—all I can do is magnify it, exacerbate the errors that it reveals and embrace its chaos

Glitching the State

Conclusion