Biopolitics, Deleuzianism and the destiny of aesthetics

In the second half of the eighteenth century, the emergence of a concept of 'life itself' as living not only has an impact on the economical and political fields but deeply touches on traditional understandings of the work of art as well. The birth of aesthetics within philosophy is just a consequence of, not the reason for, new practices and procedures in the field of art. Until now, the strict rules of Poetics had governed and distributed mimesis, keeping the different arts separate whilst subsuming their subjects under the idea of an organic unity. With the aesthetic and biopolitical turn in the second half of the eighteenth century, every measure is lost.