The aesthetic of resistance: from Michel Foucault to Vivienne Westwood

Abstract

Given the sensation of hopelessness towards the future, this investigation is centered on a movement whose motto is precisely «no future»: punk. Its identity is expressed through aesthetic means such as their lyrics and ways of dressing. Punk uses these elements to declare itself as a counterculture, generating an active resistance à la Diogenes, which is, radically authentic. By manifesting itself as a critic of the given reality, punk resists through its appearance, it imagines new ways to become visible in the world. The critic puts in crisis the limits about identity and through this collective critic punk generates community. In a society that praises individualism, the punk from british designer Vivienne Westwood pleads for elaborating collective spaces through wardrobe.