relational aesthetics

Artists and/or Artisans.. isn't this what it is all about?

is it about art? or is it about the people?

let me try to explain my (maybe uncommon) point of view.

What i am currently experimenting on is the "not_human".

Separate aesthetics from concept, move the *new* aesthetics *inside* the
concept
by performng, basically, three steps:

eliminate humanity
substitute it with artificial life
let artificial life express itself.

Let me make an example:
The context is "relationshps".

Create an "universe" in which relationships are not_human,
meaning that they follow paradigms which are parallel to the
human ones, but different in nature and substance:

love becomes force of gravity, sexual attraction becomes body_mass,
intercommunication becomes acceleration, and so on..
Nature gets redefined, physics get redefined, spirituality and
mysticism get both redefined..

The visual/sound components of the aesthetics don't make any
practical sense to the "user" of the work: 3D shapes representing
the artificial benigs running around, changing dimensions and
colors according to these new re-defined artificial_feelings,
and the universe itself reacting tho the universal_mood of
the "population";
the sound of the universe is the sound of automas chit-chatting,
having sex, arguing, looking for one another…

(this is a short description of a work i just completed in the shape of
a mini-website and a gallery installation. for anyone interested/curious
it can be found at:

http://www.artisopensource.net/Socializers/index.html

)

*Where* is the work of art?

is it in the visuals/sounds? is it in
the existence of the artificial_life itself? is it in the
artificial_universe's time/physics/space/…?

Is the *next step* just "not_human"? Or are we about to cross a
border which is all about a major advance in the meaning(s) of the
word "conceptual"?

and then, leaving for a second my possibly too extreme point of view:

getting back to the first line of this message: did Duchamp "decide" the
divorce of the Artist from the Artisan? I think not, as he moved the
discourse to the "concept".

We are experiencing the deep evolution of the digital tools, day by day.

Digital art forms and disciplines are evolving fast: ask me what net-art
is
and i will give you a different answer each day.

We are also in the process of re-mixing: some of us are not distant from
what
some "april-fool" artists do all the time. One gossipy example comes up to
mind right away: Cattelan. Does he do art? does he do communication?
does he fool everyone with his "works"? is he famous just because he
"knows people"? ;)

You take, for example, the works of 0100101110101101.org and tell me in what
they are different: they both grab a pop-concept (an icon of the public-mind)
and distort it, focusing on communication and on, again, public-mind communication
so as to produce the work of art.

does the concept of "frame", "gallery", "visitor" etcetera make sense anymore?
Is the work of art in the *work_of_art* or is it in the identification of
the icon?

Are they talking to *ME* with their works? or are they talking to everything
that is around/inside/over/below me, so that I get the message, too?

And this is just an example.

ciaociao
salvatore [xDxD]


(oh, by the way… hello to all, as this is my first message on this list
:) )


>– Original Message –
>To: rhizome <[email protected]>
>From: Christina McPhee <[email protected]>
>Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: relational aesthetics
>Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 23:41:53 -0700
>Reply-To: Christina McPhee <[email protected]>
>
>Bishop is critical of Gillick's scenarios as sort of feel good
>contexts without a context. Wallpaper: in front of (?) the wall,
>people can do something else together, parallel play.
> Hirschorn quite the other way, setting up situations that "give of
>myself, to engage myself to such a degree that viewers confronted
>with the work
>can take part and become involved, but not as actors" (Hirschorn,
>interview with Okwui Enwezor, 2000) ; while another 'antagonist',
>Santiago Sierra, forces viewers into actors 'behind the wall".
>
>'[at the Spanish Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2003)] "Wall Enclosing a
>Space" involved sealing off the pavilion's interior with concrete
>blocks from floor to ceiling. On entering the building, viewers
>were confronted by a hastily constructed yet impregnable wall that
>rendered the galleries inaccessible. Visitors carrying a Spanish
>passport
>were invited to enter the space via the back of the building, where
>two immigration officers were inspecting passports. All non-Spanish
>nationals, however, were denied entry to the pavilion, whose interior
>contained nothing but gray paint peeling from the walls, left over from
>the previous year's exhibition. The work was 'relational' in
>Bourriaud's sense but it problematized any idea of these relations
>being fluid
>and unconstrained by exposing how all our interactions are, like
>public space, riven with social and legal exclusions."
>
>
>-christina

The trained seal of approval that is Relational Aesthetics (The Institutional
Theory + Suspension Of Judgement - Radical Commitment) is unlikely to get its
coat based on the chinstroking of Octoberistas. Pointing out that there is
someone behind the curtain doesn't help. That someone still has social
relations.

Despite Bourriaud's protestatations, RA is deeply, achingly, embarrasingly
managerial. It is the managerial mode of regard embodied in materials that
managers recognise: assets, particularly human assets.

And RA is auratic. Because without the aura of management -uh- art, what
differentiates the social and aesthetic incompetence of RA from just actual
social and aesthetic incompetence?

Both these qualities can only increase if people need their passports or
whatever as part of the beautific images of managerialism that RA give us as
works. Managers' egos will not be deflated by an "art" of ever stronger
management of Real People in ever more tighly controlled additions (or
revelations) of managerial value (or power) in social situations.

Bishop's assessment of British art criticism in the 1990s is depressingly
accurate but there is an account of art from that time that gives us something
to work with. Julian Stallabrass's concept of the Urban Pastoral (from "High
Art Lite") is far too close to the bone of RA to leave unused.

- Rob.

PS - In a probably futile attempt to dodge a Tindalosian Fisking, I would like
to point out that my own art is not RA, and because of the technical and
indexical content it has it would not make very good RA-art. But is frequently
concerned with various scales of relationships.