What’s left of the Shoah? A history of ruins and memories in Agamben, Lanzmann, Philipsz and Haacke

Abstract

This article brings to the surface considerations about the fact that natural life, at the heart of the modern State, came to be linked and governed by the notions of the political, and that this politics took power from the human. Thus, we intertwine the Agambenian concepts present in his Homo Sacer III. Remnants of Auschwitz: the witness and the archive (1998) to the following productions: the 11-year long research of French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann and his film Shoah (1985); the sound installation Study for Strings (2012), by Susan Philipsz, for Documenta 13; and Hans Haacke’s installation Germania (1993) for the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, whose form weaves dialogues with reminiscences of the Third Reich. We also extend the reflections on biopolitics, relating this issue to the social occupation of being (bios) in the city (polis).