Theatrical Responses to Wall Building: David Hare, Robert Schenkkan, Stacey Gregg

The article focuses on the communicative situation of the socio-political double bind that generates politics of impasse. This is located outside the performativity of both agonism and deliberation. The impasse is neither a state of conflict nor of an agreement. Rather, it represents a state of inertia, whereby the amplification of sociopolitical forces causes them to weaken. Two cases of artistic research focusing on the performativity of the double-bind are presented. The Strachy (Fears) project explored the theme of art as a space that openly criticises social power relations, while being simultaneously dominated by the same types of power. The second project, Propojme se včera (Let’s Connect Yesterday), explored social rigidity in the face of a growing global polycrisis, of which society itself is the main instigator. Through artistic research, we explored whether it is possible to reverse communication based on self-destructive implosion and transform it into self-transgressing communication, making the invisible aspects of these social phenomena visible. The aim was not to ‘shoot the problem’ or escape it through art. Instead, we sought a performative reframing of the impasse that would transform the double bind into an affirmative and agonistic participation in social reality, with the potential to bring about social change.