Queer life-worlds and the art of David Wojnarowicz

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe article proposes an analysis of bio- and necropolitics through the notion of intensity in the framework of a Deleuze-and-Guattari-inflected queer theory. One aspect of biopower thus revealed is the power to both animate and deaden, to regulate movement and stoppage, to sensitivise and desensitivise. The article further argues for an alternative, more-than-human or cosmopolitical ecology of affects and affiliations. What is crucial for bioresistance is the capacity to learn to be affected in ever new ways, and art is singled out as the laboratory of such learning. The more ways an entity learns to be affected, the more connectivity it is capable of, and the more potential ‘lines of flight’ or social and cosmic refigurations become possible. The theoretical propositions are juxtaposed with selected works by David Wojnarowicz, not so much for the sake of interpretation as with a view to revitalizing and, perhaps, redirecting contemporary queer thinking and activism. I particularly emphasize the ways in which Wojnarowicz’s work can mobilize a deprivatisation and deatomisation of affects and desire. In order to effectively resist current bio- and necropolitics, I propose, queer must seek to expand the ways of being alive and being-alive-to, ways to affect and be affected.