Arts of ExistenceaAnd Infamous Lives

Abstract

This article seeks, based on Michel Foucault's considerations, the dimension of an aesthetic of existence to relate it to infamous lives, in two planes that seem to be linked, namely, first, to highlight the obscure lives that were only illuminated when placed as objectives of the speeches made for the purposes of classification, control and exclusion; second, the possibility of transformative experiences in relation to marginalized subjectivities. We will examine the extent to which Foucault's research would lead to the virtuality of an aesthetic and ethical displacement, of the modification of a way of life, of a style of existence. After recognizing the aesthetic dimension in Foucault linked to the art of existing, we intend to weave a text that is also composed of considerations about the aesthetics of the philosopher Étienne Souriau, presented in the book Les Existences Moindres, by David Lapoujade, in the sense that two French thinkers seem to converge in the same direction, which links art to the transformations of the self, that is, both elaborate an understanding of aesthetics crossed with modes of existence, seeking to reflect how the lives deprived of the right to exist, could still find spaces for creation and transformation.