A theatre of re-individuation

In his text, A theatre of individuation, B. Stiegler (2012) contends that Simondon ignored that alongside processes on individuation there are also processes of de-individuation. Deindividuation and desingularization occur with the de-possession of human know-how and work control to machines or with digital technologies that imposes calculation on everything that constitutes the movement of life. Deindividuation is a becoming neutral, sleepy and lazy, nearly a zombie, a They incapable of seeing the sensational in experiences. Deindividuation is a collective and psychic threat to our society: the catastrophe of the sensible. On the other end, the individuation of a I without a we leads to anxiety (Simondon), and loneliness (Stiegler, 2012). And still according to Stiegler, Simondon did not realize that the individuating I is a being-towards-death. What is more, to use Deleuze (1968)'s terms, is individuation the realization of a potential, or the actualization of a virtual, the latter involving a creation of something that was not comprised in the pre-individual? Thus individuation of human beings is a complex process that requires precise descriptions in specific settings to better understand its unfolding. Stiegler (2005) sees in theatre, as opposed to television, an example of an opening to the extraordinary that restores libidinal energy, drawing on desire and no more on impulses (pulsions), a rare line of flight out of the standardization and desingularization imposed by present capitalist economy. Simondon refers to a theatrical metaphor to refer to the becoming of the living (‘le vivant'): "The living is agent and theatre of individuation; its becoming is a permanent individuation or rather a series of individuation surges progressing from metastability to metastability" (1964, p.12, our translation). We will wonder what we can understand of individuation if we look at theatre as a knot of individuation processes. We will draw on the example of a theatre piece: The Chronic Life, created and interpreted by Odin Teatret. The piece itself does not mean to be a work of art, rather to generate aesthetic experiences in the sense of Simondon ("the real aesthetic impression cannot be subjugated to an object", 1958, p. 194 - see Michaud, 2012). There is no obvious plot or drama, the spectator faces the fall of his/her usual understandings, and is invited to rethink his intimacy, his past or her fears and beliefs. But the piece itself results from a long process of individuation, starting from trial improvisations to the finished (but evolving?) piece, and actualizing again all the learning and inventions of a 40 year old troupe. We can also see the training of the actor as a long work of individuation, where actors are always invited to start new experiences and techniques, far from their comfort zone. So the performance is the singular convergence of several processes of individuation, merging with and disturbing each other. We will endeavor to document the various individuation processes in order to question, in this specific case and setting, how individuation happens, unfolds in the short and long period, as a transduction but also with echoes and specters of many realms and orders of magnitude.