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dc.contributor.editorMowitt, John
dc.contributor.editorBoguska, Rebecca
dc.contributor.editorHediger, Vinzenz
dc.date.accessioned2020-05-04T14:51:06Z
dc.date.available2020-05-04T14:51:06Z
dc.date.issued2019
dc.identifierBook_9783957960030_20200504_36
dc.identifier.urihttp://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/37578
dc.description.abstractDavid Bowie’s 2015 Blackstar has been understood by critics and fans alike to have a certain valedictory status. For them, perhaps for us, it is a 39-minute and 13-second farewell. A long goodbye. My angle is different. By situating the Bowie/Renck collaboration on “Lazarus” in the context of a meditation on the question once posed by Georg Stanitzek, “Was ist Kommunikation?” I consider the CD and the video as experiments in re-configuration. More specifically, by thinking about the distinctly cinematic iteration of the question of communication (citing here Captain’s “what we have here is … failure to communicate” from Cool Hand Luke) I propose that mediated communication embodies the Ich/Es modality of dialogue disparaged by Martin Buber. What this invites us to consider is whether “Lazarus” in particular isn’t the generation of an audiovisual tombeau from which or out of which communication strains are to be heard. Is it “saying” farewell? Is it “saying” anything? By drawing on Jacques Derrida’s appropriation of the crypt in the work of Abraham and Torok, I propose that “Lazarus” manages (and the feat is neither small nor insignificant) to communicate nothing. In effect, “Lazarus” is the very sound, not of a failure to communicate, but of a “speaking” emptied of what protects it from mediation. Here, Bowie’s gnomic persona assumes a political valence not typically ascribed to it.
dc.languageEnglish
dc.relation.ispartofseriesConfigurations of Film
dc.subject.classificationthema EDItEUR::A The Arts::AT Performing arts::ATF Films, cinemaen_US
dc.subject.classificationthema EDItEUR::A The Arts::AT Performing arts::ATJ Televisionen_US
dc.subject.othercrypt
dc.subject.othermediation
dc.subject.othercommunication
dc.subject.othermachine
dc.subject.otherDavid Bowie
dc.subject.othertombeau
dc.subject.otherJacques Derrida
dc.subject.otherfama
dc.subject.otherMartin Buber
dc.titleTracks from the Crypt
dc.typebook
oapen.identifier.doi10.14619/0030
oapen.relation.isPublishedBy4d4a8ec1-ecfe-4e5c-bc76-d4ece9897968
oapen.collectionScholarLed
oapen.pages48


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