Driftworks

Here is a course of action: harden, worsen, accelerate decadence. Adopt the perspective of active nihilism, exceed the mere recognition-be it depressive or admiring--of the destruction of all values. Become more and more incredulous. Push decadence further still and accept, for instance, to destroy the belief in truth under all its forms. In this collection of essays and interviews from 1970-72, Jean-Francois Lyotard explores and drifts, as we drift, between art and politics, the 'figural' and representation, silence and libidinal energy. Art becomes a deconstructing force that deals not with the signified of things but their form or plastic organization; and politics is the overturning of a mystified or alienated reality. The artists' reaction to capitalism, and their function, isn't anymore to create new good forms, but to deconstruct and accelerate their obsolescence. It is necessarily a critical activity. In his essays dealing with Freud, Lyotard develops his thought on the