Boredom

[Bernard Roddy]

Heidegger came into view for me first because he took seriously boredom. And reading The Basic Concepts of Metaphysics was a way to deal with existence itself by way of live performances I was conceiving and interested in witnessing. The term, of course, only begins to make sense once one gives up the usual uses that are given it in everyday remarks. A student resists the boredom of philosophy, and one has to think again about what it was that boredom consists in, particularly when the student's interests would themselves seem so very boring. It was not a subjective conception, but rather a new way of thinking about what it was that one witnessed in boredom. And to become open to this experience, teaching itself had to first be given up as an exercize in instruction. Teaching was among the things that prevented thought, particularly where performance art were concerned. Now, I would also say that Heidegger bears the brunt of the burden of resisting the temptation of technologies, of the virtual, of screens and projections, whereever these are implemented in performance. Boredom, as one knows it while witnessing such dilutions of performance, is of no value. It calls for a new language in order for its effective dismissal. Boredom, as it was discovered in its constructive form, in its liberating expression, seemed most adept at posing questions in the presence of "durational" performance. I'm not sure durational works continue to work the same way they have in the past, but a phenomenology that leaves one without recourse to anything but a free-fall into anxiety and doubt, making possible the renewal of freedom, becomes possible when we begin, I think, to find boredom of interest, productive of thought, capable of saying something.

Bernard Roddy

Chicago