Bourriaud, N (2002) Relational Aesthetics.
Artwork as social interstice.
The “encounter” between beholder and picture, and the collective elaboration of the meaning.
Theatre and cinema bring groups together before specific, unmistakable images. There is no live comment made about what is seen ( the discussion time is put off until after the show).
Encourages an inter-human commerce that differs from the “communication zones” that are imposed upon us. The present-day social context restricts the possibilites of inter-human relations all the more because it creates spaces planned to end this
Art is a state of encounter.
Form and other gaze
Wiltold Gombroowicz (writer) How each individual generates his own form through his behaviour, his way of coming across, and the way he addresses. P21
When the individual thinks he is casting an objective eye upon himself, he is, in the final analysis, contemplating nothing other than the result of perpetual transactions with the subjectivity of others. P22
Producing a form is to invent possible encounters; receiving a form is to create the conditions for exchange…p23
Serge Daney “all form is a face looking at me” p24
Participation and transitivity
growing number of stands offering a range of services, works proposing precise contract to viewers, and more or less tangible models of sociability. P 25
Spectator “participation”, theorised by Fluxus happenings and performances, has become a constant feature of artistic practice.
Fluxus artists focused on performance and also emphasized the projection of clear concepts through the implementation of simple actions. As in Happenings, the artwork depended upon the performance of viewers, who participated in the artwork. Obviously, including the audience was a radical departure from traditional performance, where there was a finite division between the performers and the audience
A work may operate like a relational device containing a certain degree of randomness, or a machine provoking and individual and group encounters
“society of the spectacle” p31
The aura of artworks has shifted towards their public
The “beholder” is encouraged to take up a position within the arrangement, giving it life, completing the work, and taking part in the formulation of its meaning. P59
Michael Fried: “The experience of the literalist art is an object in a situation, one which, virtually by definition, includes the beholder”