The Nightmare of Participation (Crossbench Praxis as a Mode of Criticality)

by Markus Miessen ; prologue Eyal Weizman ; conversation with Chantal Mouffe ; interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist

---

Auteur(s)

Markus Miessen, prologue, Chantal Mouffe, Hans Ulrich Obrist

Uitgever, jaar

Berlin ; New York : Sternberg Press, 2010

Omvang

304 p., geïllustreerd, 18 cm.

ISBN

9781934105078

---

This third part of Miessen’s “Participation” trilogy encourages the role of what he calls the “crossbench practitioner,” an “uninterested outsider” and “uncalled participator” who is not limited by existing protocols, and who enters the arena with nothing but creative intellect and the will to generate change. The book calls for a format of conflictual participation—no longer a process by which others are invited “in,” but a means of acting without mandate, as uninvited irritant: a forced entry into fields of knowledge that arguably benefit from exterior thinking. Sometimes, democracy has to be avoided at all costs.

---