[arg_discuss] Sophie Calle - with text

[Christy Dena]

>>Again, *PLEASE* do not provide URL's to articles / texts on their own,
>especially to non-text documents like PDF's. Put the URL, but also
>copy/paste the text (Acrobat Reader current version has an intelligent
>text-select cursor which makes this easy).

Geez, I have to work now Adam! ;) Some text supplied now:

Yes, I'm looking at Nicolas Bourriaud's 'relational aesthetics' and its
relation to ARGs! There is a definate mix there. Here are some pieces
online:

"Relational aesthetics was formulated at an auspicious moment in the
technological arc of '90s art. Midway between the critical and socially
diffuse ethos of institutional critique at the beginning of the decade and
art's full-tilt into entertainment and digital production by decade's end,
it might be said that Bourriaud anticipated the future by looking backward."
(Bennet Simpson)

"My ideas about relational aesthetics started from observing a group of
artists--Rirkrit Tiravanija, Maurizio Cattelan, Philippe Parreno, Pierre
Huyghe, Vanessa Beecroft. Relational aesthetics was a critical method, a way
of approaching the art of the '90s, as well as a general sensibility that
these artists shared. One of the most important ideas for me is what I
called the "criterion of coexistence." Take the example of ancient Chinese
and Japanese painting, which always leaves space open for the viewer to
complete the experience. This painting is an ellipses. I like art that
allows its audience to exist in the space opened up by it. For me, art is a
space of images, objects, and human beings. Relational aesthetics is a way
of considering the productive existence of the viewer of art, the space of
participation that art can offer." 
(Nicolas Bourriaud)

"Commerce, trading, the market, is a much more important metaphor for art
than we like to believe. For my part, I tend to think well of metaphors of
commerce and trading. In early civilization, the trader or the merchant was
always bringing things from outside culture, from other cultures, into the
market at the center of the city. Traders disrupted things, they brought
disharmony, difference, new objects and ideas. It's no coincidence that art
is dealing with this complex at this point. We have a global culture,
dominated by exchange. The problem arises when the market becomes abstract,
when you feel that you can have no control over it." (NB)

>>Isn't that a nice way of looking at 'advertainment'?...

From:
Bourriaud, Nicolas. 'Public Relations: Bennett Simpson Talks With Nicolas
Bourriaud', Artforum (April 2001). Reproduced online at
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_8_39/ai_75830815

****************
" Relational Aesthetics = Aesthetic theory consisting in judging artworks on
the basis of the inter-human relations which they represent, produce or
prompt.(see co-existence criterion)"

" Co-existence criterion = All works of art produce a model of sociability,
which transposes reality or might be conveyed in it. So there is a question
we are entitled to ask in front of any aesthetic production: 'Does this work
permit me to enter into dialogue [ Could I exist, and how, in the space it
defines?] A form is more or less democratic. May I simply remind you, for
the record, that the forms produced by the art of totalitarian regimes are
peremptory and closed in on themselves (particularly through their stress on
symmetry). Otherwise put, they do not give the viewer a chance to complement
them. (see: Relational (aesthetics))."

From: http://www.gairspace.org.uk/htm/bourr.htm
*****************
Some quotes here:
"The possibility of a relational art (an art taking as its theoretical
horizon the realm of human interactions and its social context, rather than
the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space), points to a
radical upheaval of the aesthetic, cultural and political goals introduced
by modern art."

"The exhibition is the special place where such momentary
groupings may occur, governed as they are by differing principles. And
depending on the degree of participation required of the onlooker by the
artist, along with the nature of the works and the models of sociability
proposed and represented, an exhibition will give rise to a specific "arena
of exchange". And this "arena of exchange", must be judged on the basis of
aesthetic criteria, in other words, by analysing the coherence of its form,
and then the symbolic value of the "world" it suggests to us, and of the
image of human relations reflected by it. Within this social interstice,
the artist must assume the symbolic models he shows. All representation
(though contemporary art models more than it represents, and fits into the
social fabric more than it draws inspiration therefrom) refers to values
that can be transposed into society. As a human activity based on
commerce, art is at once the object and the subject of an ethic. And this
all the more so because, unlike other activities, its sole function is to be
exposed to this commerce.

Art is a state of encounter."

"There is no such thing as any possible "end of history" or "end of art",
because the game is being forever re-enacted, in relation to its function,
in other words, in relation to the players and the system which they
construct and criticise."

"What do we mean by form? A coherent unit, a structure (independent entity
of inner dependencies) which shows the typical features of a world. The
artwork does not have an exclusive hold on it, it is merely a subset in the
overall series of existing forms. In the materialistic philosophical
tradition ushered in by Epicurus and Lucretius, atoms fall in parallel
formations into the void, following a slightly diagonal course. If one of
these atoms swerves off course, it "causes an encounter with the next atom
and from encounter to encounter a pile-up, and the birth of the world"...
This is how forms come into being, from the "deviation" and random encounter
between two hitherto parallel elements. In order to create a world, this
encounter must be a lasting one: the elements forming it must be joined
together in a form, in other words, there must have been "a setting of
elements on one another (the way ice 'sets')".

"Form can be defined as a lasting encounter".

From: 
http://www.dynamitefamily.com/charlie/os_readings/relationalaesthetics.pdf

Cheers,
Christy

-----Original Message-----
From: arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org [mailto:arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org] On
Behalf Of Adam Martin
Sent: Wednesday, 21 June 2006 10:41 PM
To: Discussion list of the IGDA ARG SIG
Subject: Re: [arg_discuss] Sophie Calle

Hugh Davies wrote:

> Hi
> just to butt in - I also believe that the work of Sophie Calle and other
> artists concerned with relational aesthetics have a great deal to offer
> ARG's. If your not across it already - you might find some interesting
info
> in the attached article. Its not by me but the author and source are 
> listed.

(sorry, the listmanager seems to prevent attachements despite attempting 
to override it)

For archival reasons, it would be much better anyway if you could just 
copy/paste in the full text.

Thanks,
Adam

-- 
Adam Martin
CTO, Mind Candy Ltd

tel: 0207 501 1904 - fax: 0207 501 1919
www.perplexcity.com - www.mindcandydesign.com
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