Performative construction of authority: Network of senses in Videla's public appearances, images and representations

Abstract

This article makes an approach to the representations of the figure of Jorge Rafael Videla from the analysis of emblematic images that are significant for their high degree of performativity. I am interested in detecting relationships between the images produced or reproduced in the media and those constructed in the artistic field, in order to address the broad problem of representations of repressors. The concepts of “performativity” and “theatricality” constitute part of the theoretical framework and are also tools of analysis. I will therefore focus on the analysis of Videla's public interventions in three press conferences and two photographs that are paradigmatic for different reasons. And, since the theatre is the place of representation par excellence, I will then study Vidé/la muerte móvil (2016, by Vicente Muleiro, directed by Norman Briski), a play in which the construction of the figure of the dictator enlightens the problem of representations of repressors without evading the "putting into body" of the main character that refers to Videla. The general question that interests me is what elements have been theatricalised over the years for the construction of the figure of the dictator and what significance they have had.