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The connection between art and destruction has occurred in various ways throughout art's history. Most familiarly art is the focus of destruction by acts of iconoclasm insofar as art is the vehicle for religious imagery. As familiar is the destruction of art by oppressive regimes concerned with the aesthetic and intellectual freedom certain works may continue to symbolise. Alternatively of course, destruction may take place via interventions by art's public fighting a political or personal cause or, for the sake of the dismantling of 'the old order' symbolic works or edifices may be destroyed by revolutionary groups. There is also a more intimate history of unexplained defacing or acts of destroying of art works, whether in museums or public places, often referred to as 'art vandalism'. As pertinent are art actions and art movements whose raison d'etre is 'destruction'. This has taken various forms from large themed and ambitious auto destructive art movements to intricate counterpoints to the making of art, which involve the literal breaking with the tradition by breaking the made object. Modernity itself has been characterised as the 'destruction' of tradition. Thus far historically art and destruction, as well as creation, have never been far away from each other. This has been the inspiration for this collection of essays across the practice and theory of art and destruction

"Cultural transformation tends to be described in one of two ways: either with reference to what comes about, is created or emerges in the process of change or with reference to what is destroyed or obscured in that process. Within a performative paradigm, that is, from a perspective which focuses on the manner in which social and cultural reality is constituted or brought about by human activity, theorists have, in recent years, tended to underline the productive aspects of transformation by emphasising the creative thrust of performative processes and events. In so doing, this perspective has tended to overlook the extent to which a certain destructive element may in fact be inherent to such performative processes. Drawing upon a range of historical and contemporary constellations of socio-cultural change and a variety of different types of events and activities, the articles in this volume describe different forms of destruction and their respective role in processes of transformation."--Page 4 of cover

Pasolini was simultaneously a revolutionary Marxist and a man forever influenced by his religious childhood. So his question was: do the revolutionary becoming of history and political negativity represent a destruction of the tragic beauty of the Greek myths and of the peaceful promise of Christianity? Or do we have to speak of a subtraction where an affirmative reconciliation of beauty and peace becomes possible in a new egalitarian world? ; Alain Badiou, 'Destruction, Negation, Subtraction', in The Scandal of Self-Contradiction: Pasolini's Multistable Subjectivities, Geographies, Traditions , ed. by Luca Di Blasi, Manuele Gragnolati, and Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 6 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2012), pp. 269–77

Criticizes the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) policy adopted by the US & the USSR during the Cold War era. Argues MAD was ineffective at deterring US adversaries from using force below the nuclear level & from preventing USSR advances in Afghanistan & Africa during the final stages of the Cold War. The article cites Ronald Reagan's anti-MAD policies (1983) as the juncture when US policy changed from deterrence to defense. Currently, under the Bush administration & threat of terrorist attacks, US defense policy has evolved into a policy of pre-emption. However, it is still regarded as ineffective owing to the inability to correctly predict future threats & dissuade adversaries from using weapons of mass destruction when faced with a US attack. Finally, MAD is deemed inappropriate for rivals of Third World nations such as India & Pakistan. I. Sharp

Intro -- Destruction in the Performative -- Foreword & Acknowledgements -- Table of Contents -- Introduction: Destruction in the Performative -- I. Language, Music, Noise -- Recognition and Disrespect: Lordship and Bondage in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit -- Hegemonic Listening and Subversive Silences: Ethical-political Imperatives -- Two Saints and the Power of the Auditive -- Acoustic Violence in Contemporary German Theatre -- II. Embodiment, Identity, Ecstasy -- Asceticism Poses a Threat: The Enactment of Voluntary Hunger -- Salomania - Trans and Trans-temporal: A Queer Archaeology of Destructiveness -- Masochistic Self-shattering between Destructiveness and Productivity -- III. Things, Spaces, Networks -- Triggering Latency Zones in Modern Society: Richard Serra's Sculptures within the Urban Setting -- Creative Destructions: Gabriel Tarde's Concept of a Passionate Economy -- Code Decay: Organizational Performance and Destructivity -- List of Contributors.