Spectacle of Endings: In an “Endless Present”

Abstract

This Introduction to the special issue on “Creative Endings” thinks across intensities and temporalities to consider the force of “endings” in the contemporary political moment: the multiple timespaces within them, endings as temporalities in their own right, experienced forcefully, unequally, and as generative of dynamic emotional resonances. Whilst often stated, endings remain under-theorised in the discipline. Yet endings are a central form through which the assemblage of representations, materialities, structures and the more-than representational are organised in the orchestration and deliverance of political work. This introduction, and the various papers that follow, begin to address the gap in thinking, by introducing intensities and temporalities as ways to work with both the representational and more-than-representational forces of endings, drawing upon examples from contemporary politics. From here, we propose the creative arts, in occupying the threshold of the representational/more-than-representations, as well placed to intervene on endings. We think the creative arts can help us to know, represent, and intervene in various ends within the current political moment, through their attunement, specifically, to liveness, form and feeling.