A provocative theory of the gimmick as an aesthetic category
steeped in the anxieties of capitalism.
Repulsive and yet
strangely attractive, the gimmick is a form that can be found
virtually everywhere in capitalism. It comes in many guises: a
musical hook, a financial strategy, a striptease, a novel of ideas.
Above all, acclaimed theorist Sianne Ngai argues, the gimmick strikes
us both as working too little (a labor-saving trick) and as working
too hard (a strained effort to get our attention).
Focusing on this
connection to work, Ngai draws a line from gimmicks to political
economy. When we call something a gimmick, we are registering
uncertainties about value bound to labor and time—misgivings that
indicate broader anxieties about the measurement of wealth in
capitalism. With wit and critical precision, Ngai explores the
extravagantly impoverished gimmick across a range of examples: the
fiction of Thomas Mann, Helen DeWitt, and Henry James; photographs by
Torbjørn Rødland; the video art of Stan Douglas; the theoretical
writings of Stanley Cavell and Theodor Adorno. Despite its status as
cheap and compromised, the gimmick emerges as a surprisingly powerful
tool in this formidable contribution to aesthetic theory.