The Distribution of the Nonsensical and the Political Aesthetics of Humour

Abstract

Humour occupies a prominent position within the aesthetic conditions of contemporary culture, both in term of art and popular media. In this article, I consider how Jacques Rancière’s political aesthetic project can contribute to an assessment of the political potential of humour as an aesthetic of dissensus or consensus. To this end, I suggest a modified form of Rancière’s notion of the “distribution of the sensible,” which I refer to as the “distribution of the nonsensical,” as a means to analyse the extent to which particular acts of humour can be thought to challenge or reinforce existing understandings of sense and nonsense. I demonstrate the application of this model through a comparative analysis of Duchamp’s Fountain, and the performance work of Andy Kaufman and Jerry Seinfeld.