The value of utopian visions lies in their unfinished energy, not their completion.

Evidence

Szeemann was not interested in finished, fully materialized visions. Instead he was preoccupied with the energy generated by the gap between art and life, holding that “one could only learn from the model of art as long as art remained the Other—something that differs from life and transcends life, without being assimilated by life.” He was looking for records of an impulse that strained the bounds of representation. The writer Hans Müller offers a name for that impulse: “After all, individual stories of totality were still in place and even if no single grand idea was feasible, the great intensity—the Hauptstrom, as Beuys called it—the grand idea was still essential to energize society.” Hauptstrom translates to something like “main stream,” in the sense of electrical current. And the word Hang in the exhibition’s title, Der Hang Zum Gesamtkunstwerk, translates variously to “addiction,” “penchant,” or even “downward slope,” implying an innate tendency in humans to imagine ever-new, electrified visions of perfection. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 208

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘Hauptstrom’ and the ‘Hang’ (downward slope/addiction) — the positive re-framing that answers her chapter’s thesis: what to rescue from failed retreats without endorsing withdrawal.
• XREF: connects to: Utopian thinking’s value survives even where its theoretical basis is flawed. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2321