Dossier - Key Performance

THE IMPORTANCE OF FANTASIES IN SOCIETY
The interference between passion and rational comprehension
The confusion between reality and imagination as regards the expression of our fantasies is truly
problematic as far as the setting in which morals should reign is concerned. This interference
between our passion and our rational comprehension is potentially dangerous for the blossoming of
our imagination. It is even more so in the realm of our rational activity, when our fantasies cannot
unfurl in the field of the imagination.
This confusion that exists within our societies does not seem about to fade any time soon and it
suddenly seems necessary to identify separate spaces.
The need for “unproductive expenses”
In George Bataille’s book, The Accursed Share, rituals and art are closely linked to the concept of
“unproductive expenditure”. Indeed, this concept as presented in this book raises the issue of the
importance of rituals and art as activities of sheer expenditure and total waste.
The locations where collective and intimate fantasies are being expressed are also found in activities
of “unproductive expenditure” such as rituals, games, shows, arts, and sexual activity beyond the
purpose of reproduction. These activities have their own aim, and create spaces where passion can
flourish.
Death appears as the most obvious example of “unproductive expenditure”. It represents the loss and
the visible blending of the body with the world, its ostensible disappearance through decomposition.
From then on, it also acts as a metaphor of the blending feeling of the body with the world. This feeling
appears like a quest within our desires for loss or abandon, which is at least partially achieved through
various types of “unproductive expenditure”. Death thus appears like a metaphor of the poetic and
erotic experience.
The stage experience aims to reflect the metaphoric value of the artistic experience and George
Bataille’s words in his introduction to Eroticism: “Poetry leads to the same space as all forms of
eroticism, to the blending and fusion of separate objects. It leads us to eternity, it leads us to death,
and through death to continuity (...)”
The artistic space as a necessary space of absolute freedom
Rituals and art can both be seen as an outlet for collective and individual fantasies. These spaces of
“unproductive expenses” therefore become spaces of particular types of freedom – individual or
collective – which move away from the moral standpoint governing our rational behaviour.
I see the artistic space as a necessary space of absolute freedom, which reflects our passion and
fantasies, away from our orderly rational activity.
This space, just as the ritual space, also allows us to face our fantasies, to express them, to
discover them, and to question them. It is essential that we candidly question the passions within
ourselves, and in which type of spaces we wish to experience them.
Our denial of our own fantasies, in particular those that violently clash with our morals,
including in the original source of fantasies - imagination – also leads us also to condemn the
expression of some fantasies in the artistic field. If the expression of fantasies, exempt of denial (if that
is at all possible), in a definite field such as art or a ceremony, seems necessary in every society, it is
also possible that an honest, conscious acknowledgment of our impulsions also allows an openminded
perspective and greater tolerance.