Ralational aesthetic perspectives
| materialising the social |definition of form | definition of Relational
Aesthetics |
Nicolas Bourriud's term Relational Aesthetics (2002)
refers specifically to audience involvement with art work that took social
relations its basic form, to bring about social change through art.
Relational Aesthetics is where
the conversation is the primary material of the intervention.
Definition of Relational Aesthetics:
Relational art: human interactions with social context.
Louis Althusser – description of R.A. is that it is a
‘Materialism of encounter’ humankind is made up of bonds that link individuals
together in social forms. (p18)
Tangible models of sociability.
Quotes:
Marx- Human essence is made up of social relations.
Duchamp-“ Art
is a game between all people of all periods”. (p19)
“Art
keeps together moments of subjectivity associated with singular experiences”,
(p20)
Duchamp
‘it’s the beholder who makes pictures.(p26)
Jean-Luc Godard “it takes two to make an image”.
Relational
form (structure, a lasting encounter): letting go of
traditional culture and inventing more ‘effective
tools and viewpoints’ to grasp what is changing, to set free advances in
technologies, improve working conditions and help to show people a better
modern society. An art form where the is
formed an underlying layer of inter-subjectivity, and which takes
being-together as a central theme.
Forms come into being through encounters. It is the
beholders eye that brings the work to life.
Participation and Transitivity
(p25)
It is the Relations between individuals and
groups, artist and the world, between the beholder and the world. If Duchamp says ‘it’s the beholder who makes pictures and Jean-Luc Godard “it takes two to make an image”. Then R.A. takes this one step further,
where dialogue with the image and between the viewer, is the actual origin of
the image making. (26)
The social model of art practice
(Stephen Willets) diagram on p13B. Artist – audience- Context – Artowrk. These
interconnections proves the point that its “art that makes art not the artist”.
Characteristics of R.A. :
Being viewable only at a specific time. All that remains is the documentation that
should not be confused with the work itself.
The work prompts meetings and invites appointments, managing its own
temporal structure. The artwork exists
by virtue of observation (and or activity).
18th
Century was a world controlled by moderate rationalist
ideals with their own set of aesthetic judgements. Where the role of artworks
was to form imaginary and utopian realities. Aristocratic believe that art is a
collectors luxury asset. Reading things in purely economic terms. Art was an interface between society, god and
order, then between man and the world.
R.A. ..‘developed from the Renaissance onwards,
where the importance to the physical situation of the human being in the world’
(p27 R.A.)...
20th
Century world was a philosophy of spontaneity, liberation
through irrational dada, surrealism and situationists, against authoritarian
that set free advances in technologies and learn to inhabit the world in a
better way and for artists to actually find models in order to do this. Art is
now the encounter between the beholder and the picture. This opened up radical aesthetic attitudes
and considerations where Urban culture opened up outstanding social exchanges
and individual mobility. ‘Art is a period of time to be walked through,
like an opening to unlimited discussion…’ (p15).
Branding is a mechanism to create collective
bonds between a product and a group of people.
These two ideal still clash
Tate
tanks Conference - Inside/Outside: Maretialising the social saturday 21st July
2012 10.30-17.30.
..specifically took place within
walls of the designed art space and operated in relation to the behavioural
rules of that particular mind set. What does it mean when an artist work
intervenes in the social and political relationships that exist in the real
world of every day life? How can this be brought into the museum? How can it be
displayed and how does it relate to social rituals engendered by the
architecture and rules of the specialist space?
…’Role
of the art object in social aesthetics= brings Into play modes of social
exchange, interaction with the viewer inside the aesthetic experience he of she
is offered, and processes of communication in their concrete dimensions as
tools that can be used to bring together individual and human groups.’p165
artworks
that make the viewer conscious of the context in which they find themselves
(happening, environments, site specific installation).
Sustained
interest? Does it bring us face to face with reality?
Does
the work critique what needs to be critiqued?
Suzanne Lacy:
She sees the
audience as ‘Advisors’ who are asked questions and engage in the
work/project. The collaboration aspects
of the relationships extend beyond the work. It has to do with the individual
voice and experience of the work. The relational concern for Suzanne is how she
positions herself within the work and this social practice.
Her
description of relation aesthetics is the crafting of the social practice, it
is visible in the choreography of social relationships, the production of the
work – which are all relational aesthetics.
Leaving Art
2010 Suzanne Lacy:
Afterword by
Kerstin Mey: she probes contemporary preoccupations with dialogic, relational
and socially engaged aesthetic strategies, and expands art praxis in the public
domain. A departure from the territory of institutionalised art…..Lacy promots
values through ‘accessible’ visualisations of myth and narratives..’Locally
sited’ interactions with broad and diverse audiences about issues directly
relevant to their own lives based on engagement.
Marko Daniel conference video materialising the social. http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/insideoutside-materialising-social-part-1-0
Testing ways
to interact with others and what it means to the public. Testing the mecanics
of debate and public conversation.
Fugations (fleeting) conversations, discussions, ephemerality of a
space, allowing encounters, exchanges and debate is the event it is a
disruption of the continuity of being an
experiment with the format of a symposium (or ‘culture clinic’), for reflection
and drawing attention to the folding boundaries of art as an event.
