Van Realpolitik naar Dingpolitik. Over publieke dingen en de res publica

Abstract

Abstract: From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik. Our notion of politics should no longer be limited to humans, but also include the many things to which humans are attached. Politics does not only require adequate representations of the people, but also of the objects they discuss. In Dingpolitik, as opposed to the cut-down realism of Realpolitik, these objects are turned into 'things', that is, they are not treated as 'matters of fact' but as 'matters of concern', giving way to their complicated entanglements. This understanding of 'things' is implicit in the etymology of the word 'thing' itself, originally meaning 'gathering' or 'assembly'. People met at the Thing, to discuss the things that divided them. A 'thing' thus drew together a specific representation of the people and their specific representations of the things they were concerned about. Such assemblies of humans and things cannot only be found in existing parliaments. A whole range of technologics of gathering may bring them together, from markets to museums. Practices of assembly may give rise to the Phantom Public, which is a rather more fluid and variable entity than the classic Bodypolitik. In such assemblies or assemblages, politics is about the respublica in a literal sense: the things (res) that gather a public (publica) around them. 

Vertaling: Sebo Uithol en Peter-Paul Verbeek. Dit is een ingekorte versie van de inleiding van de catalogus Making things public. Atmospheres of democracy onder redactie van Bruno Latour en Peter Weibel (Cambridge, MIT Press 2005). Dit boek verschijnt ter gelegenheid van de gelijknamige tentoonstelling, samengesteld door Bruno Latour en Peter Weibel, die van 19 maart tot 6 augustus 2005 te zien is in het Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) te Karlsruhe, Duitsland.