group.sex

The texts in group.sex discuss political groups and languages, abstract radicalism and art, feminism and bohemianism, social hierarchies, and telematic friendship. In his text “Remarks on the RAF Spectre”, German sociologist and cultural critic Klaus Theweleit discusses “the unreal linguistic situation in post-war Germany” and analyzes modes of mutual exclusion and hierarchy as they occured within groups such as the RAF (the Red Army Faction).

“It’s not just the languages that had closed down, the streets were closed as well. The very thing that had been gained – the streets, publicity, openness and linguistic diversity on all sides – disappeared into the gutter of history in two, three years. ... In the groups that remained publicly relevant, the ‘K-Groups’ and the RAF, which were shifting towards the centre of the political movement as the remaining ‘radical’ groups, language and thought became restricted. This led to what I would now call ‘abstract radicalism’, a radicalism that limited itself to gestures, claims, demands, revolutionary attitudes broadcast in statements, slogans, but hardly any analysis was carried out. ... things had to ‘be right’ only in a mindlessly abstract sense. The ‘concrete’ emigrated from radical left-wing politics (and found a home, for a time, in the women’s movement).” Klaus Theweleit

Edited and designed by artist Eva Grubinger, the book contains a pictorial insert entitled Sacher Torture, an image series illustrating modes of exclusion from a group.