AFK: reclaiming the holy through art

• Main Author: Torgeir Fjeld
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tankebanen forlag 2020-01-01
• Series: Inscriptions
• Subjects: girard; afk; street-art; sacred; unconscious
• Online Access: https://www.tankebanen.no/inscriptions/index.php/inscriptions/article/view/53

Answering to the claim that our contemporary era has lost a connection to the domain of the sacred René Girard held that, contra Sigmund Freud, the myth of Oedipus was not primarily a story of patricide, but a hidden narrative of victimisation and expulsion. As an arch-example of mob logic the myth and Sophocles' play serve to gloss over a brutal and ritualistic sacrifice by claiming that it was the victim who acted in violation of the law; according to Girard the charges against king Oedipus were retroactively invented to justify the initial act of expulsion. In the street-art of AFK we encounter images that activate feelings of persecution and exile, uncovering a possible path to regain our connection to the holy.