Talk Real

Pavlenski cuts off his earlobe atop the roof of a psychiatric institution

Pavlensky Petr

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]ontroversial Russian artist and political activist Pyotr Pavlensky cuts off his earlobe with kitchen knife in protest at use of forced psychiatry on dissidents.

The knife separates the body from the earlobe. The concrete wall of psychiatry separates the sane society of the insane patients. By returning the use of psychiatry for political purposes, the police apparatus regains the power to determine the border between sanity and madness. Being armed with psychiatric diagnoses, a bureaucrat in a white robe cuts off from the society those pieces that prevent to establish a monolithic dictate of the norm, which is the same for all and necessary for everyone.

 

Bio

Krytyka Polityczna

Krytyka Polityczna (Political Critique) is the largest Eastern European liberal network of institutions and activists. It consists of the online daily Dziennik Opinii, a quarterly magazine, publishing house, cultural centres in Warsaw, Łódź, Gdańsk and Cieszyn, activist clubs in a dozen cities in Poland (and also in Kiev and Berlin), as well as a research centre: the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw.