¿Qué es un aparato estético? (What is an aesthetic apparatus?)

An apparatus is a technical configuration of display. Therefore, what is displayed is already technically configured by a device (appareillé). Perspective, the museum, photography, cinema and analytical treatment can be thought of as “apparatuses”, since they configure the appearance of the event, on the one hand creating new conditions of temporality and on the other determining new structures of space, that is, transforming sensitivity each time. An apparatus function as a technical object according to Gilbert Simondon, that is, it produces individuation and sociability. Walter Benjamin was the first to envisage a theory of “apparatuses”, considering that photography and film did not only imply a change in the procedures of representation but also, and above all, a revolution in the conditions of perception. Jean-François Lyotard, for his part, in his Discourse. Figure elaborates the notion of the ‘writing block’: the ‘inscription surface’, that is, the set of technical configurations that allow the event to take place. It is from these and other authors that Jean-Louis Déotte has developed a theory that aims to rethink politics, aesthetics and the contemporary world from a technical point of view.