This article explores the affirmative dimension of necropolitics by looking at the articulation of the dead as an aesthetic and political subject in the work of the art-activist collective “the party of the dead.” Since 2017, their performances have exposed and challenged an aesthetic order based on the erasure of mortality in Russia. I draw on Rancière’s distinction between “politics” and “the police” to foreground the sensory aspect of that order and call it “necropolice.” In the logic of necropolice, death is insensible, immortality reigns—and therefore life is expendable. Focusing on the visual style, political statements, and ritualistic aspects of “the party’s” artistic practice, the article shows that in trying to speak as the dead, the activists fail to speak as truly dead. That failure is productive—it affirms death as the limit of experience. I conceptualize that affirmation as necropolitical by complementing Rancière’s notion of “politics” with Georges Bataille’s theory of sovereignty, which underlies Mbembe’s formulation of necropower. If sovereignty consists in the transgression of limits, then in the aesthetic order, where death is insensible and so omnipresent, it is the suspense of the illusion of immortality that constitutes the essence of necropolitics.

中文翻译：

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死灵政治学和死灵警察：俄罗斯的死亡、不朽和艺术激进主义


本文通过观察艺术活动家团体“亡灵派对”的作品中将死者作为美学和政治主题的表达来探讨死灵政治学的肯定维度。自 2017 年以来，他们的表演揭露并挑战了俄罗斯基于抹杀死亡的审美秩序。我借鉴朗西埃对“政治”和“警察”的区分来突出该秩序的感官方面，并将其称为“死灵警察”。在死灵警察的逻辑中，死亡是无感的，不朽是统治性的——因此生命是可以牺牲的。文章着眼于“党”艺术实践的视觉风格、政治声明和仪式性方面，表明活动家们试图以死者的身份说话，却未能以真正的死者的身份说话。这种失败是富有成效的——它肯定了死亡是经验的极限。我将这种肯定概念化为死灵政治，将朗西埃的“政治”概念与乔治·巴塔耶 （Georges Bataille） 的主权理论相辅相成，这是姆本贝对死灵权力的表述的基础。如果主权在于超越界限，那么在审美秩序中，死亡是无意识的，无所不在，那么不朽幻觉的悬念构成了死灵政治的本质。