Barbie as a Discourse Machine. Three Sketches

Abstract

The following considerations emerge from fragments which were taken from a collection of materials for a theater project, which the section „Psychodrama“ of the Akademie für technische Mannigfaltigkeiten (ATM) uses to take a look at the connectedness of modes of existence of crisis and psychologically caused speech disorders. In this context, Barbie plays the role of a discourse engine and regulatory authority, directing the gaze and tilting her head. This text seeks to share the idea of Barbie‘s involvement as a discourse machine, which is used conspicuously when the culture that she has subscribed to as an artifact and attribute holder negotiates specific crisis scenarios in which her relationship with the ‘new’, the ‘Other’ and the ‘Alien’ is discussed. Facing the topic on the „border“ between art and science and choosing the drama as its „place“ and as its approach the critical acknowledgment and reflection of popular culture and its products as reach-wide, analytically absolutely serious negotiating places discursive settlements. In order to demonstrate this thesis of Barbie as a symptom of crisis, two objects are to be used, which use the doll, but above all the concept ‘Barbie’, to reflect in different ways on the relationship of one‘s own culture to the ‘Other’. The thoughts presented here are loose and open, a work in progress, and thus the presentation is about a temporary state of affairs during an ongoing process. The examples presented are a selection for testing the field and, like the theses of the text anyway, do not claim to be complete, but they do raise a certain, albeit only presumed, representativeness.