Garbage as Testimony to Desubjectivation in Rafael Spregelburd's "Spam"

Abstract

In this paper we aim to analyze the issues of the archive and the construction of memory as key instances of the desubjectivation process in Rafael Spregelburd’s Spam. The attempts to (re)build a voice from (its own) waste (junk mail/spam) and from the diverse technological artefacts and media that configure this subjectivitity, which is always mediated or deferred, leads us to consider both notions, on the one hand, as scenic devices –that is, to inquire about intermediality relations in contemporary theater and, especially, in the playwright’s own production– and, on the other hand, as theoretical matters related to the figure of the “in-between”, which is present throughout the whole piece. Therefore, we will dedicate a significant part of the analysis to stage directions,which are configured as interval and deferral between the theatrical text and the staging, as well as an intratextual interruption.