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Nicolas Bourriaud1998
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5/7/2018 Relational Aesthetics - slidepdf.com
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/relational-aesthetics 1/18
Relational form
Artistic2c_!i_v~~~. whose f 9 :ms , patterns a_ndfu
~~ according t ~e ri q _d s :i ll li l . oc .! ._ a J~ntex
no1llii.unmtltaele.essenc~lt is the critic's task to study this
1n the present. A certain aspect of the programme of moder
been fairly and squarely wound up (and not, le t us h.
emphasise in these bourgeois times, the spirit informing
completion ha s drained the criteria of aesthetic judgement
heir t o o f t he ir substance. b ut w e goon applying them to pres
artistic practices. The new is no longer a criterion, except
latter-day detractors of modem art who, where the much-ex
present is concerned, ding solely to the things tha
traditionalist culture bas taught them to loathe in yesterday's
order to invent more effective tools and more valid viewp
behoves us to understand the changes nowadays occurring
socia l arena, and grasp what bas already changed and wha
changing, How are we to understand the types of artistic be
shown in .exhibitions held in the 1990s, and the lines. of
behind them" if we do not start out from the same situation
artists?
Contemporary artistic practice and its cultural planThe modern political era, which came into being w
Enlightenment, was based on the desire to emancipate ind
and people. The advances of technologies and freedom
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p re se nt o ffe rs him , s o a s to tu m the se ttin g o f his life (h is lin ks with
the p hy sica l a nd c on ce ptu al w orld ) in to a la stin g w orld . H e ca tc he s
t he w o rl d 00 the m ove: he is a tenant of culture, to b or ro w M ic he l
de Certeau's expression '. N ow adays , m odern ity exten ds in to the
p ra ct ic es o f c ul tu ra l d o- it -y o ur se lf and recycling, into the invent ion
o f the everyd ay and the developm en t of tim e lived , w hich are not
objects less deserv ing of a tten tion andex.am in a tio n than
Messianistic utopias and the form al "novelties" tha t typified
m odern ity yesterday . There is n othin g m ore absurd e ither than the
assertio n tha t con tem porary art do es n ot involve an y political
p ro ject, o r than the c la im tha t its su bvers ive aspects a re n ot based
on any theo re tica l terrain . Its p lan , w hich has jus t as m uch to do
w ith w orkin g condition s and the cond ition s in w hich cultural
o bjec ts are p ro du ce d, a s w ith the ch an gin g fo rm s o f so cial life. m ay
n everthe less seem du ll to m in ds fo rm ed il l the m ou ld o f cu ltu ra l
Darw in ism . Here , then , is the tim e o f the "dolce u top ia", to u se
Manrizio Cattelan's p hr as e . ..
Artwork as soc ia l in te r st i ce
The poss ib ility of a relational art (an a rt ta kin g as its the oretic al
ho rizo n the rea lm of hum an in te rac tio n s and its soc ia l con tex t,
ra ther than the assertion of an ind ependen t and private symbol ic
space), po in ts to a rad ica l u pheaval of the aesthe tic , cu ltu ra l an d
p olitic al g oa ls in tro du ced b y m od ern art. To sketch a soc io logy of
this, th is evo lu tio n s te ms e sse ntially fro m the birth o f a w o rl d- wi de
urban cu ltu re , an d fr~ rn the exten sion of this c ity m odel to m ore 01
less all cultural phenomena. The general grow th of tow n s an d
cities, w hich took off a t the en d of the Secon d W orld W ar, gave rise
n ot on ly to an extrao rd in ary upsurge of soc ia l exchan ges, b ut also
to m uch g rea te r in div idua l m obility (through the d eve lo pm en t of
n e tw orks and roads, a rid te lecom mun ica tion s, and the. gradua l
free in g-up of iso lated places, go in g w ith the open in g-up of
atti tude s), Because of the cram pedn ess of dw ellin g sp aces in th is
u rb an w orld , the re w as , in ta nd em , a-scal ing-down o f fu rn itu re a nd
o bje cts , n ow e mp ha sis in g a g re ate r m an oe uv ra bili ty . If, fo
period o f tim e, the artw ork has m an ag ed to com e across as a
lo rd ly i te m In this urban se ttin g (the dim en sion s of the w
w ell a s th ose o f th e ap artm en t" help in g to d istin gu ish b etw e
o wn er a nd th e c ro wd ), the d evelo pm en t o f the fu nctio n o f a
an d th e wa y t he y a re s ho w n a tt es t to a growing urbanisation
artistic e xp erim en t. W ha t is collaps ing before our very
noth ingo ther than this false ly aris tocratic co nception
arrang em en t of w o rks of art, assoc ia ted w ith the fee
t e rr i to r ia l a c qu is _ jt i on . ~ ): _wo r~ !t . iL~~LQP_ ;_ h ' : l I ? - g e . ~ pos
~ eard the coutem 01 . w ork.B .~ .~ ac:~ ~ ..~ _ ~ a _ ! ~ ~ ~ l ! r _ Q"o wn er's to ur" is a kin to t he c ol le ct or 's ). I tj .i lh en c ef or th p
- a ; ' i p e n O O C i f t im e to be l i v i d " _ $ - i J g b . . .r i ~ ~ ~ n ,: p ~ n i n g J 9 : . .(Jiscu saipn .The c ity has ushered in and spread the h
experience: it i s t he ta ng ib le s ym b ol a nd h is to ric al s ett in g o f
o f' s oc ie ty , th at "state oj encounter imposed on people",
Althusser's expression', c on tr as tin g w ith th at d en se a nd "troub
ju ng le w hic h the natural state o nc e w as , a cc or din g to J ea n-JROUsseau , a ju ng le h am p er in g a ny la sti ng encounter . On ce
the pow er of an . abso lu te ru le of c ivilisa tion , this sy
in ten s ive encoun te rs hasended up p roduc ing linked
p ra ctic es : a n. art form where the substra te is form ed b
s ub je ctiv ity ,! lIl d w hic h t ak es b ein g-to ge th er a s a c en tr al t he
"en coun te r" be tw een beholder and pic ture , an d the co
elaborat ion o f m ean in g. Let us , leave the m atte r of th e h is to
t hi s ' ph e nom e n on on o ne s id e: art has a lw ays been re la ti
v ar yi ng d eg re es , i.e. a fa cto r o f so cia bility an d a fo un din g p
o f d ia logu e .. On e of the virtual prop erties of the im ag e is i
of linkage (Fr. reliance), to b orro w M ich el M affe so li's term
logos, icon s . s ign s , all p roduce empathy and sharing ,
genera te bond'. A rt ( pr ac ti ce s stemming from pain tin
scu lp ture w hich com e across in the form of an exhib ition ) t
to be p ar tic ul ar ly s uit ab le w he n it co me s to e xp re ssin g this
o n c iv il is at io n , b ec au se it tightens the space of retations, u n
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decline of ignorance, and improved working conditions were al l
hilled to free humankind and help tousher ina better society, There
are several versions of modernity, however. The 20th century was
thus the arena for a struggle between two visions of the world: a
modest, rationalist conception, hailing from the 18th century,and a
philosophy of spontaneity and liberat ion through the i rrat ional
(Dada, Surrealism, the Situationists), both of which were opposed
to authoritarian and utilitarian forces eager to gauge human
relations and subjugate people. Instead of culminating in hoped-for
emancipation, the advances of technologies an d "Reason" made it
that much easier toexploit the South of planet earth, blindly replace
h um an la bo ur by machines, and set u p m o re and mor e s ophi s ti c a te d
subjugation techniques, all through a general rationalisation of the
production process. So the modem emancipation plan ha s been
substituted by countless fo rms of melancholy.
TWent ie th century a va nt-g ar de , f ro m Dadaism t o t he S it ua ti on is t
International, fell within the tradition of this modem project
(changing culture, attitudes and mentalities, and individual andsocial living conditions), but it is as wel l to bear in mind that this
project was already there before them, differing from their plan in
many ways. Fo r modernity cannot be reduced to a rat ionali st
teleology, any more than it . can to political messianism. [5 it
possible to disparage the desi re to improve living and working
conditions. on the pretext of the bankruptcy of tangible attempts to
do as much-shored up by totalitarian ideologies and naive visions
of history? What used'to be called the avant-garde has, needless to
say , developed from the ideological swing of things offered by
modem rat ionali sm; but i t Isnow re-formed on the basis of quite
different philosophical. cultural an d social presuppositions. It is
evident that today's art is carrying on this fight, by coming up with
perceptive, experimental, critical and participatory models, veeringin the direction indicated by Enlightenment philosophers,
Proudhon, Marx, the Dadaists and Mondrian. If opinion is striving
to acknowledge the legitimacy and interest of these experiments,
this is because they are no longer presented l ik e t he pre
phenomena of an inevitable historical evolution. Quite
contrary, they appear fragmentary and isolated, like orpha
overall view of the world bolstering them with the clou
ideo logy,
I t is not moderni ty that i s dead, but its ideal is tic and te le
version.
Today's fight for modernity is being waged in the same
yesterday's, barring the fact that the avant-garde has
pat roll ing like some scout, the t roop having come to a
standstill around a bivouac of cer tainties. Art was. inte
prepare and announce a future world: today it is modelling
universes.
The ambition of artists who include their practice wi
slipstream of historical modernity is to repeat neither its fo
its claims, and even less assign to art the same functions as
task isakin to the one that Jean-Francois Lyotard allocated
modem architecture, which "is condemnedtocreate a sminor modi ficat ions in a space whose moderni ty i t inher
abandon. an. overal l reconstruct ion of the space inhab
humankind:", What is more, Lyotard seems to half-bemo
state of affairs: he defines il negatively, by using t
"condemned". And what, on the other hand, if this "condem
represented the historical chance whereby most of the ar
known to u s m an ag ed to spread their wings, over t he p as t t
or so? This "chance" can be summed up in just a few
_!!..C!!2!i : .,!8o inh ab j_ !b e_ w orld in a .bel_!erw~X . iQ§tea~of t
construct it based !:n a p re c on c e iv ed ~ ~ ofjlis.tori9AU~~
t erwise put, e role of artworks is DQ longer to f o r n U m . !
" i n d utojlian r~~t.ie5, but to.a.S :~ua H¥_be .JYa):sofllY,ing,-and
~~~tion. w~_the existing_real, what&.v,~rhe sca le ~os~artist. Althusser said that one always catches the world s tra
-move; Deieuze, that "grass grows from the middle" and n
the bottom OJ the top. The artis t dwells in the circumstan
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and literature which refer each individual person to his or her space
of private consumption, and also unlike theatre and cinema which
bring small groups together before specific, unmistakable images.
'
(A:ctuaH~' th~re ~s no live co~ment made about what is seen...(.h.ediscussion time IS put off until after the show). At an exhibit ion, on
the othe r hand, even when inert forms a re involved, there is the
possibility of an immediate discussion, in both senses of the term.
Iee and perceive, ICOmment, and Ievolve in a unique space and
time. Art is the place that produces a specific sociability. Itremains
to be seen what the status of this is in the set of "states of
encounter" proposed by the City. How is an art focused on the
production of such forms of convivial ity capable of re- launching
the modem emancipation plan, by complementing it? How does it
permit the development of new politicaland cultural designs?
Before giving concrete examples, it is well worth reconsidering the
place of artworks in the overall economic sys tem, be it symbolic or
material, which governs contemporary society. Over and above its
mercantile nature and its semantic value, the work of art represents
a social interstice. This interstice term was used by Karl Marx to
describe trading communities that elude the ca it' c nomi
context ~'I . rem~ om t e law of profit: barter,
mere andising, autarkic types of ~Iie inter~tice is a
space in human relat ions which f its more or less harmoniously and
openly into the overall system, but suggests other trading
possib ili tie s than those in effect within this system. This i s the
precise nature of the contemporary art exhibit ion in tne-3('ena o{
representat ional commerce: i t creates free areas • .and time sI!ans
. wh~~.!..hm c$!rasts with those struc~n¥.J'y"e da life, ~ it
_.:ncourage~ an illter-l1up):l!.!!cOl}lll1erc~ t at dj{f~rs_ frQm....th.e
"communication zones" that are imposed upon us. The p~!~nt-day
social Context restricts the ossibilities of inter-hUiruin relations all--- f e m o r e because it creates sp;~es planned to this end. A~to~;tic
public toilets were invented W keep -;6-eets clean. The same spirit
underpins the deve lopment of communication tools, while city
streets are swept clean of all manners of relational dros
neighbourhood relationships fizzle. The general mechanisa
social functions gradually reduces the relat ional space. Jus
years ago, the te lephone wake-up call service employed
beings, but now we are woken up by a synthes ised voice
automatic cash machine has become the trans it model for telementary of social functions, and professional behaviour p
are modell ed on the effic iency of the machines replac ing
these machines carrying out tasks which once represented s
opportumnes for exchanges, pleasure and squab
Contemporary art is definitely developing a political projec
i t endeavours to move into the relat ional realm by turning it
issue.
When Gabriel Orozco puts an orange on the sta lls of a d
Brazilian market (Crazy Tourist, 1991) , or sl ings a hammock
MoMA garden in New York (Hamoc en fa morna, 1993)
operating at the hub of "social infra-thinness" (l' infrarnince
that minute space of daily gestures determined
superstructure made up of "big" exchanges, and defined
Without any wording, Orozco's photographs are a docum
record of tiny revolutions in the common urban and semi-ur
(a s leeping bag on the grass , an empty shoebox, etc. ) .They
thi s sil ent , sti ll li fo nowadays formed by rela tionships w
other. When Jens Haaning broadcasts funny stor ies in
through a loudspeaker in a Copenhagen square (Turkish
1994), he produces in tha t spli t second a micro-communi
made up of immigrant s b rought toge the r by col lective l
which upsets thei r exil e situat ion, formed in re lat ion to th
and in it. The exhibition is the special place where such mom
groupings may occur, governed as they are by differing priAnd depending on the degree of participation required
onlooker by the art ist, along with the nature of the works
models of sociability proposed and represented, an exhibit
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give rise to a specific "arena of exchange". And this "arena of
exchange", must be judged on the basis of aesthetic cri teria , in
other words, by analysing the coherence of i ts form, and then the
symbolic value of the "world" i t suggests tous , and ofthe image of
human relations ref lected by it. Within this social in terst ice, theartist must assume the symbolic models he shows: All
representation (though contemporary art models more than it
represents, and fits into tbe 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 tbe
object and the subject ofan 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 cwcounter.
( ; r~\ "" " "" " "' - i'Relational aesthetics and random materialism
Relational aesthe tics is part of a materi alisti c t radition. Be ing
"material is tic" does not mean sticking to the tri teness of facts, nordoes it imply that sort of narrow-mindedness that consists in
reading works in purely economic terms. The philosophical
tradition that underpins this relational aesthetics was defined in a
noteworthy way by Louis Althusser , in one of his las t wri tings, as
a "materialism of encounter", or random materialism. This
particular materi alism takes as its point of departure the world
contingency, which ha s no pre-existing origin or sense, nor
Reason, which might allot it a purpose. So the essence of
humankind is purely trans-individual, made up of bonds that l ink
individuals together in social forms which are invariably historical
(Marx: the human essence is the set of social relat ions) . There is no
such thing as any possible "end of his tory" or "end of art", because
the game is being forever re-enacted, in relat ion to i ts function, in
othe r words, in relat ion to the players and the system which they
construct and critic ise. Hubert Damisch saw in the "end of a rt "
theor ies the outcome of anirksome muddle between the "end ofthe
game" and the "end o f p la y". A new game is announced as so
the social set ting radical ly changes, without the meaning o
game itself being challenged' . This inter-human game which
our object (Duehamp: "Art is a game between all people
periods") nevertheless goes beyond the context of what is"art" by commodity. So the "constructed situations" advocat
the Situationist International belong in their own right t
..game", in spite of Guy Debord who, in the final analysis, d
them a n y art is tic character . For in them, quite to the contra
saw "art being exceeded" by a revolution in day-to-day
Relational aesthetics does not represent a theory of art, this
imply the statement of an origin and a dest inat ion, but a the
form.
What do we mean by form? A coherent unit, a str
(independent entity of inner dependencies) which shows the
features of a world . The artwork does not have an exclus ive h
it, it is merely a subset in the overall series of existing forms.materialistic philosophical tradition ushered in by Epicnru
Lucretius, atoms fill in parallel formations into the void, fol
a slightly diagonal course. Ifone of these atoms swerves off c
it "causes an encounter with the next atom and from encou
encounter a pile-up, and the birth of the world" ... This
forms come into being, from the "deviation" and random enc
between two hitherto parallel elements. In order to create a
this encounter must be a lasting one: the elements forming
be joined together in a form, in other words, there must hav
"a sett ing of elements on one another ( the way ice 'sets ')".
can be def ined as a las ting encounter". Las ting encounters
and colours inscribed on the surface of a Delac roix paint in
scrap objects that litter Schwitters' "Merz pictures", Chris Bperformances : over and above the quali ty of the page layou
spatial layout. they tum out to be lasting f rom the moment
their components form a whole whose sense "holds good"
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moment of their bi rth, stunng up new "possib ili tie s of li fe". All
works, down to the most critical and challenging of projects, passes
through this viable world state, because they get elements held apart
to meet: for example, death and the media inAndy Warhol. Deleuze
and Guattari were not saying anything different when they defined
the work of art as a "block of affects and percepts". Art keeps
together moments of subjectivity associated with singular
experiences, be it Cezanne's apples or Buren's striped structures. The
composit ion of this bonding agent, whereby encountering atoms
manage to form a word, is, needless to say, dependent on the
his torical context . What today 's informed public understands by
"keeping together" is not the same thing t ha t t hi s public imag ined
back in the 19th century, Today , the "glue" i s le ss obvious, as our
visual experience has become morecomplex, enriched by a century
or-photographic images, then cinematography (introduction of the
sequence shot as a new dynamic unity), enabling us to recognise as
a "world" a collection of disparate element (installation, for instance)
that no unifying matter, no bronze, links. Other tec_hnologies m,!.>:.a l l OW t h e human s in! to reco nise~ es of~'~orld-.forms" s~ll
n . own: fo r example , c~ u~ucience pu t for.\ :\!a rdthe notien -ef -
prog , [h-a:r-rnflecLth~.J!p'pr9achof . some art i st 's wa)' of working.
An artist's artwork lb.u_S.~_qui.:..r~she_status.of an ensemble of units to
be re-activated by the beholder-manipulator. Iwant to insist on the
' i;;stabiUty and the diversity of the concept of "form", notion whose
outspread can be witnessed in injunction by thefounder of sociology,
Emile Durckhenn, considering the "social fact" as a "thing" ... As the
artistic "thing" somet ime offers itself as a "fac t" o r an ensemble of
facts that happens io the t ime or space, and whose unity (making ita
form. a world) can not be quest ioned. The set ting is widening; after
the isolated object, i t now can embrace the whole scene: the form of
Gordon Mana-Clark orDan Graham's work can not be reduced to the"things" those two art is t "produce"; i t is not the s imple secondary
effects of a composition, as the formalist ic aes thet ic would like to
advance, but the principle act ing as a trajectory evolving through
signs, objects, forms, gestures ... The contemporary artwork's
is spreading out from it s mate rial form: i t is a link ing elem
principle of dynamic agglutination. An artwork is a dot on a
Form and others' gaze
If, as Serge Daney writes, "al l form isa face looking at us"
does a form become when it is plunged into the dimens
dia logue? What is a form that is essent ial ly relational? It
worth while to discuss this quest ion by taking Daney's form
a p oi nt o f reference, precisely because of its ambivalence: as
ar e looking a t us, how are we to look at them?
Form is most often defined a s an outline contrasting with a c
But modernist aesthetics talks about "formal beauty" by refer
a sor t of (con)fusion between s tyle and content , and an inv
compatibil ity of the former with the latter. We judge a
through its plastic or visual form. The most common criticism
with new artistic practices consists, moreover, in denying the
"formal effectiveness", or in singling out their shortcomings"formal resolution". In observing contemporary artistic pra
we ought to talk of "formations" rather than "forms" . Unl
obj ec I. that is closed in on itself by the intervention of a styl
signature, present-day art shows that form only exists
encounter and in the dynamic relat ionship enjoyed by an
proposition with other formations, artistic or otherwise.
There are no forms in nature, in the wild state, as it is our ga
creates these, by cutting them out in the depth of the vis ible.
are developed, one from another . What was yes terday regar
formless or "informal" is no longer these things today. Wh
aesthetic d.iscussion evolves. the status of form evolves alon
it,and through it.
In the novel s of poli sh write r Wito ld Gombrowicz, we seeach individual generates his own form through his behavio
way of coming across , and the way he addresses others. Thi
comes about in the borderl ine area where the individual s tr
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with the Other, so as to subject him to what he deems to be his
"being". So, for Gombrowicz , our "form" is merely a rela tional
property, linking us with those who reify us by the way they see us,
to borrow a Sartrian terminology, When the individual thinks he is
casting an objective eye upon himsel f, he is, in the final analysis,
contemplating nothing other than the result of perpetualtransactions with the subjectivity of others.
The artis tic form, for Some, side-steps this inevi tab ili ty, for it is
publicised by a work . Our persuasion. conversely, is that form only
assumes it s texture (and only acquires a real existence) when it
introduces human interactions. The form of an artwork issues from
a n e go ti at io n with th e intelligible. which is bequeathed to us.
Through it, the artist embarks upon a dialogue. The artisticpractice
thus resides in th e invention of relations between consciousness.
Each particular artwork is a proposal to l ive in a shared. world, and
the work of every artist is a bundle, of relations with the world,
giving ris e to other rela tions, and so on and so forth . ad in f in i tum,
Here we are at th e opposite end of this authoritarian version of ar t
which we discover in the essays of Thierry deDuve', for whom any
work is nothing other than a "sum of judgements", both historical
and aesthetic, stated by the artist in the act of its production, To
paint is to become part of history through plastic and visual
choices. We are in the presence of a prosecutor's aesthetics, here.
for which the artist confronts the history of art in the autarky of his
own persuasions. It is an aesthetics that reduces artistic practice to
the level of a' pettifogging historjcal criticism. Practical
"judgement", thus aimed, is peremptory andfinal in each instance,
hence the negation of dialogue, which, alone, grants form a
productive status: the status of an. "encounter". As part of a
"relationist" theory ofart, inter-subjectivity does not only represent
the social setting for the reception of art, wh~ch is its"environment", its "field" (Bourdieu), but also becomes the
quintessence of artistic practice.
As Daney suggested, form becomes "face" through the ef
this invent ion of rela tions, This formula, needless to add, c
mind the one acting as the pedestal for Emmanuel Le
thinking, for whom the face represents the sign of the ethical
The face . Levinas asserts , is "w h at ord ers m e to se rve a n
"whatforbids me to kill"', Any "inter-subjective relation." prby way of the form of the face, which symbolises t h e r espon s
we have towards others: "the bond with others is only m
responsibility", he writes, but don't ethics have a horizon oth
this humanism which reduces inter-subjectivity to a kind o
servili ty? Is the image, which, for Daney, is a metaphor of th
only therefore suitable for producing taboos and proscri
through the burden of "responsibili ty"? When Daney explain
!Ia ll f or m is a f ac e looking at us", he does not merely mean t
are responsible for this. To be persuaded of as much, suffic
revert to the profound significance of the image for Dane
him, the image is notvimmoral" when it puts us "in the place
we were not'", when it "takes the place of another". W
involved here, for Daney, isnot solely a reference tothe aes
of Bazin and Rossellini. claiming the "ontological realism"
cinematographic art , which even if it does lle at the ori
Daney's thought , does riot sum it up..He maintains that form
image, is nothing other than the representation of desire. Pro
a form is to invent possible encounters; receiving a form isto
the condi t ions for an exchange, the way you return a servi
game of tennis. Ifwe nudge Daney's reasoning a bit further
is the representative of desi re in the image. It is the horizon
on which t he i m ag e m ay ha ve a meaning, by poin t ing to a
world, which the beholder thus becomes capable of discussin
based on which his own desire can rebound, This exchange
summed up by abinomial: someone shows something to sowho returns it as he sees fit. The-work t ries to catch my ga
way the new-born child "asks fat" its mother's gaze. In
commune, Tzvetan Todoroy has shown how the essen
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soc iabi li ty is the need for acknowledgement., much more than
co~petition ~d viOJei1~}Yii~~~;;;;- ar t i s t shows - ~ - - s o m e t i i ii 1 g , h e' l i S e S ' a t r a n s i t i v e eiiilCwhlch p la c es h is work between the "look-at-me"
arid the " look-at- that". Daney's most recent writ ings lament the
end of this" Show/See" pairing, which represented the essence of
a democracy of the image in favour of another pairing. this oneTV-re la ted and authorit ari an, "Promote /receive", marking the
advent of the "Visual". In Daney's thinking, "all form is a face
looking at me", because it is summoning me to dialogue with i t.
Form is a dynamic that is included both, or turn by tum, int ime and
s pa ce . F orm can only come about from a meeting between two
levels of reality. For homogeneity does not produce images: it
produces the visual, otherwise put, "looped information".
L Jean-Francn is Lyota rd : "The post mode rn expla ined (0 children", London,
TUrnaround, 1992,
2, Michel de Certeau: Manieres defaire, Editions Idees-Gatlirnard.
3. Louis Altnusser: E c ri ts p h il o so p h iq u es e t p o l it iq u es , Editions Stock-IMEC, 1995, p, 557.
4. Michel Maffesoli: La contemplation du maude. Editions Grasser, 1993.
5. Hubert Damisch: Fenetre jaunt: cadmium. Editions du Seuil.6.Thierry de Duve: Essais dates . Editions de La Difference, 1987.
7' Emmanuel Levinas: E t h iq ue e t injihi, Poche-Biblio, p. 93,
g, Serge Daney: Perseverance. Editions P.OL. 1992, p. 38-
9. Tzvetan Todorov: La Viecommune, Bditions du Seuil, 1994.
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The aesthetic paradigm
(Felix Guattari and art)obvious visual and plast ic , not to say sculptura
appears to be l itt le bothered by syntac tical c l
Guattari's language may seem obscure. This is b
not shrink from coming up with neologisms ("n
"ritourne lli ze") and por tmanteau words , or usin
German terms as they spr ing to mind and f low fro
does he shrink f rom embarking on proposi tionsthe reader , or juggling with the lesser meanings
word. His phrasing is thoroughly oral, chaot
outrageous" (delirant), off-the-cuff and littered
short-cuts, qui te unl ike the conceptual order tha
the writings of accomplice and fellow Gilles Del
Felix Guattari's work, cut short by his untimely passingldoes not
form a set of clear-cut pieces, with a sub-set dealing specifically
with the is sue of aesthe tics. Art, for him, was a form.of li ving
matt er rather than a ca tegory of thought, and this 1if fe rence
informs the very spiri t of his phi losophical undertaking. Over
and above genres and categories, he wrote: "The important thing
is to know whether a work makes an ef fect ive contr ibut ion to a
changing production of statement (production d'enonciation]",
and not to delimit t he spec if ic boundar ies of this or that type of
utterance. The psyche on the one hand, and the socius on the
other are constructed on product ive agencies, with art being just
one of these, even ifi t enjoys a special place. Guattari's concepts
are ambivalent and supple, so much so that they can be
translated into many different systems. What is thus involved is
the defin ition of a potential aesthet ics, which only assumes a
real consistency provided that it can be given a permanent
transcoding. For while the practitioner in La Borde's psychiatric
clinic has always granted a predominant place to the "aesthetic
paradigm" in the development of his thinking, he has writ ten
very l it tle about art , properly so-called, apart from the paper for
a lecture on Balthus, and one or two passages in his major
works, incorporated within a more general subject matter.
This aesthetic paradigm is nevertheless being practised already
in writing itself. The style, if we may use this word, or let us
rather say the Guat ta ri sc riptoria l f low, encompasses every
concept in a raft of images. The processes of thought are usual ly
described here as physical phenomena, endowed with a specific
texture-drifting "plates" and dovetailed "planes", "machinery",
and so on. Serene materialism, where, to be effective, concepts
must assume the finery of tangible reality, and become
terri torial ized on images. Guattari's wri ting is informed by an
Guattari may sti ll seem significant ly under-est ima
he is often reduced to the role of Deleuze's foi l, y
seem easier to acknowledge his specific contribu
authored wri tings, f rom Anti Oedipus (1972)
Philosophy? (1991) . .. From the "ritournelle" c
masterful passages dealing with types of subjec
Guatta ri signature stands out quite cl early, r in
louder in the contemporary phi losophical debat e
extreme particularness, and the attention it
"production o f subjectivity" and its preferred
works, Fe lix Guatt ar i' s thinking l inks up r ight
product ive machinery with which present-day art
t he current dearth of aesthe tic thought, it thus see
increasing ly useful, whatever the degree of
affecting this operat ion may be, to proceed to a ki
of Guattari's thinking in the domain o f p resent-
creating a "polyphonic interlacing", rich in possib
quest ion, hencefor th , of thinking about art with
with the toolbox he has bequeathed us.
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Subjectivity pursued and produced agencies within the system of collective facilities f
ideologies and categories of thought , a creat ion tha
simila ri ties with artis ti c activit y. Guatta ri' s co
aesthet ics would be incomprehensible if we did not
effort to de-naturalize and deterritorialize subjectivity
his earmarked domain, the sacrosanc t subject, a
disconcerting shores with their proliferation of mecha
and existential territories in the process of being formdisconcerting because the non-human is an intrinsic
contrary to the phenomenological plans with. wh
th ink ing is riddled . Proliferation , because it turn
henceforth possible to decipher the entirety of the cap
in terms of subjectivity. Wherever this system holds s
forcefully i t i s caught in it s net s, and kidnapped on
immediate interests. For "just like the social machine
arrayed under the general heading of collective fac
technological machines of information and communic
at the heart of human subjectivity": Wemust thus l
enhance and reinvent" subject ivity, for otherwise w
transformed into a rigid collective apparatus at the exc
of the powers that be.
De-naturalising subjectivity
The idea of subject ivity is certainly the main thread of Guattari's
research. He would devote his l ife to dismantl ing the tortuous
mechanisms and systems of subject ivity and put ting them back
together again, exploring i ts const ituents and escape modes, and
even going so far as to make i t the keystone of the social edifice.Psychoanalysis and art? Two sorts of subjectivity production, inter-
connected, two operational systems, two preferred tool systems,
which arejoined together in the possible solution to the "Malaise of
Civilisation"... The pivotal position given by Guattari to
subjectivity defines his conception of art, and art's value, frdm start
to finish. In the Guattari order of things, subjectivity asproduction
plays the role of a fulcrum around which forms of knowledge and
act ion can freely pitch in, and soar off inpursui t of the law~of the
socius. Which, incidentally, is what defines the field of vocabulary
used, to describe artistic activity. In it there is no hint of the
fetishization that is common in this level of discourse. Art, here, is
defined as a process of non-verbal semiotization, not as a separate
category of global production. Uprooting fetishism to assert art as
a line of thought and an "invention of life possibilities" (Nietzsche):the end purpose of subjectivity is nothing other than an
individua tion st ill t o be won. Artis ti c pract ice forms a speci al
terrain for this individuation, providing potential models for human
existence in general. Th is is where we can define Guattari's
thinking as a colossal undertaking involving the de-naturalisation
of subject ivity, i ts deployment in the area of product ion, and the
theorisat ion of i ts inclusion in t he f ramework of the general
economy of trade. There is nothing less natural than subjectivity.
There is also nothing more constructed, formulated and worked on.
New forms of sub jecti vi za tion are created the same way that a
visual artist creates now forms from the palette at his disposal' .
What matte rs is our capac ity to crea te new arrangeme9t s and
Status and operation of subjectivity
This declaration of the defacto naturalisation of huma
is an input of paramount importance. Phenomenology
the unsurpassable symbol of reali ty , beyond which
exist, whereas structuralism saw in it at time
superstitious, and at others the effect of an ideology.
Here Guattari offers a complex and dynamic reading
with the deification of the subject which is common c
phenomenological vulgate, but just as imperv
fossilisation being brought about by the structuralists,
at the crossroads of the interplay of signifiers. We m
Guattari 's method consists in bringing to boil the str
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by Lacan, Althusser and Levi-Strauss: byreplacing ~e static order
by structural analyses, and the "slow movements" qf Braudel ian
history by the novel , dynamic and undula tory l inkages which
matter takes on when it is reorganised by the effect of heat.
Guattari's subject ivity is determined by a chaot ic order, and no
longer , as i t was the case for the s truc tura li sts , by the quest for
cosmoses hidden beneath everyday institutions. "A certain balancestill has to be found between structuralist discoveries, which are
certainly considerable, and their pragmatic management, so as not
to remotelyfounder in social post-modem abandonism'",
This balance only comes about provided that the socius is observed
at its proper temperature, at the heat of inter-human relationships,
and not artificially" cooled", the better to single out the structures ...
This chaotic urgency gives rise to a certain number of operations.
The first consists in unsticking the subjectivity of the subject, and
doing away with the bonds that make i t the natural att ribute of this
latter. So a mapping of ithas to be drawn which spills considerably
beyond the limits of the ind iv idual. But it is by extending the
territory of the subjective to the regulatory impersonal machinery
of sociabi li ty that Guattari can calIon i ts "re-s ingularization",
going beyond the traditional notion of ideology. Only k mastery ofthe "collective agencies" of subjectivity makes itpossible to invent
particular agencies. Real individuation proceeds byway of the
invention of eco-mental recycling devices, just as the
demonst rat ion of economic a li enation by Marx enables him to
work on an emancipa tion of man within the wor ld of labour . All
Guattari does is ind icate the deg ree to wh ich subjectivity is
alienated and dependent on a mental superstructure, and point to
liberation possibilities.
This Marxist backdrop turns out to be readable even in the terms
whereby Guattari defines subjectivity: "All theconditions making it
pos sib le fo r indi vidual andlor coll ecti ve agencies to be in a
position to emerge as sui-referential existential Territory, adjacent
90
to or in a relat ion of del imitat ion with an othern
subjective": Otherwise put, subjectivity can only b
presence of a second subject ivity. It does not fo
except on the basi s of the other t er ritories i t com
evolving formation, it is modelled on the differenc
itself, on the principle of otherness. It is in this p
definit ion of subject ivity that we find the perspecGuatta ri infl ic ts on phi losophical economy.
explains, cannot exist in an independent way, and
ground the exist ence of the subject . I t only exi s
mode: association with "human groups, socio-econ
informational machines", Involved here i s de
intuition. Ifthe force of Marx's impact, in his These
consisted indefining the crux of man as "the set of
Guattari, for his part, defined subjectivity as the se
are created between the individual and the vehicle
he comes across, be they individual o r collec
inhuman. This is a decisive breakthrough: the
subjectivity of the subject was sought, and we fin
off-centre, caught in "a-significant semiotic s
Guattari shows himself to be still reliant onst ructura lis t references. Just as in the Levi-S tr
signifier reigns supreme in Guattari's
subconsc ious' ". The "produc tion of col lecti v
provides as much by the score , se rving to cons
terri tories" with which the individual can ident if
fluid signifiers that make up the product ion of s
and foremost , t he cultural environment ("fam
environment , rel igion, art , sport"); then, cul tur
( "things made by the media and f ilm industry, e
gadgets , spare parts of the subject ive machinery .
the set of informational machinery, which
semiological, a-linguistic chord of contemporary
"operat ing in tandem with or independent ly of t
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It 'U
produce meanings". The process of singularisation consists, as it
happens, in incorporating these signifiers in personal "existential
territories", as tools helping to invent new relations "to the body, to
fantasy, to time passing, to the 'mysteries' of life and death", and
helping, too, to withst and the uni formization of thinking and
behaving'. From this angle, social productions must ~e put through
the sieve of a "mental ecosophy". Individual subjectivity is thusformed from the processing of the products of this machinery: as
the outcome of dissensus, of gaps and differences; of alienat ing
operations, it cannot be separated from allthe other social relations,
just li ke problems connect ed with the envi ronment cannot be
detached from all other production relations. This determination to
handle ex istence like a network of in terdependent factors,
stemming from a unifying ecology, defines Guattari 's relationship
with the art thing: i t is just one field of sensibi li ty among others,
associated with a global system. His thinking on ecology also led
Guattari to become aware, before most people in the "aesthetics
t rade", of the obsolescence of the Romantic models sti ll in force
when it comes to describing modem art. Guatta ri 's version of
subjectivity thus provides aesthetics with an operational paradigm,
which is in return legitimised by the practice of artists over the pastthree decades.
merely selecting a mass-produced object and inc
personal linguistic system, thus redefining the ar
of responsibility towards the real. Or, alternativel
aesthetics of Roger Caillois, who put forms prod
growth and mould on the same footing as those
project", Guattari's theses may head in the sa
refusing the Romantic idea of genius and depicti
operator of meaning, rather than a pure "creator"
divine inspiration, but they do not tal ly with
anthems about the "dea th of the author". For G
problem is involved here . It is the processe
production which need redefining with a
collectivisation. Because the individual does not
on subjectivity, the model of the Author
disappearance are of no import ance : "Device
subjectivity may exist in the scale of megalopolis
scale of an individual's linguistic games'?', The R
between individual and society, which informs ar
and i ts mercant ile system, has become truly nul l
"transversalist" conception of creative operatio
figure of the author in favour of that of the artist-c
describe the "mutation" under way: Duchamp
Beuys and Warho l all constructed their work
exchanges with social movements , unhinging t
tower" myth allocated to the artist by the Roman
not haphazard if t he gradual demateria li za ti on
throughout the 20th century , came with an ups
within the sphere of work. The signature, whi
art is tic economy the exchange mechanisms of
exclusive form of i ts dis tribut ion, turning i t int
implies a loss of "polyphony", of that rough for
represented by many-voiceness, in favour of a st
fragmentation. In Chaosmosis, in order to lament
refers to a pract ice current in archaic societies
93
Subjectivization units
I f Kant admit ted l andscapes and a ll natural forms in the f ie ld of
applied aesthet ics, we know that Hegel reined in this domain by
reducing i t exclusively to that specific class of objects formed by
works of the mind. Romantic aesthetics, from which iwe may veryI
well not have really emerged", postulates that the work of art , as a
product of human subjectivi ty, expresses the menta l wor ld of a
subject . During the 20th century, many theories discussed this
Romantic version of creation, but without ever totally toppling its
foundat ions. Let us mention the work of Marcel Duchamp, whose
"ready-mades" reduced the author's own action or interference to
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grvmg a large number of proper names to one I and the same
individual.
Polyphony is nevertheless restored at another Ievel.jn these sets of
subjectivization which bind heterogeneous arenas together. These
blocks, " individual - group - machine - mul tiple exchanges' !"
which "offer a person the possibility of getting back together as an
existential corporeity, and becoming particular once again" in theframework of a psychoanalytical therapy. Suffice i t to accept the
fact that subjectivity does not stem from any homogeneity. On the
contrary, it develops it by cuts, segmenting and dismembering the
illusory un its of psychic life. "It is not familiar with any
predominant agency of determination steering other agencies in
accordance with an unambiguous causality"," When applied to
artistic practices, this fact causes the total collapse of the notion of
sty le . Endowed with the author it y of the signature , the art ist i s
usually introduced as the conductor of manual and mental faculties
coi led around a single principle, i ts style. The modem, western
art is t is defined, first and foremost, as a subject whose signature
acts as a "unifier of states of consciousness", producing a calculated
muddle between subject ivit y and style . But can we s ti ll ta lk in
terms of the creative subject, the author and his mas~ery,when the
"components of subjectivization", which "each work more or less
on their own behalf?", on ly appear unified by the effect of a
consensual illusion, the accredited guardians of whicf are signature
and style, guarantors of the goods? '
The Guattari subject is made up of independent plates, l inking up
with different pairings drift ing towards heterogeneous fields of
subjectivis at ion. The "Integrated World Capita lism" [IWC]
described by Guattari only cares about the "existential territories"
wh ich it is art's mission to p roduce. Through the exclusive
enhancement of the signature, a factor of behavioural
homogenisa tion and reif icat ion, it can car ry on in i ts role , i .e .
transforming these te rr it or ies into products . Otherwi se put,
wherever art proposes "life possibilities", IWC presents us with the
bill. And what ifreal s tyle, asDeleuze and Gua
the repetition of reified "making" but the "mov
Guattari contrasts the homogenisation and stand
of subject ivity with the need to involve the bein
processes". This is the primary principl e of
articulating particular worlds and rare life forms
differentness, before moving i t over into theGuattari argument proceeds from this preliminar
of soc ial rel ati ons. Nothing is possibl e with
ecological transformation of subjectivities, with
the various forms of founding interdependence
such, i t l inks up most of the century 's avant-ga
for a joint t ransformat ion of a tti tudes and
Dadaism, Surrealism, and the Situationists, allth
a tota l revolution, pos tula ti ng that nothing co
infrastructure (the devices of product ion) if
(ideology) were not likewise far-reachingly refa
plea for the "Three Ecologies" (environmental,
under the aegis of an "aes thetic paradigm" l ik
various human claims and challenges, thus lies
of modem artistic utopias.
The aesthetic paradigm
The critique of scientistic paradigm
In Guattari's "schizoanalyt ical" world, aesthet
of i ts own. It represents a "paradigm", a flexib
of operating on several levels and on di
knowledge. And, first and foremost, as the pe
it to propound its "ecosophy"; as a subjectivity-
as an instrument used for enriching
psychoanalytical practice. Guattari calls upon
the hegemony of the "sc ienti st ic superego",
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... r- n l'
'. '.
ana ly ti ca l pract ices in formulae. What he has aga inst t he "psy
people" i s the way they tum towards the pas t by manipula ti ng
Freudian and Lacanian concepts as so many insurmountabl e
certainties. The subconscious itself is likened to an "Institution, a
collective amenity"... Permanent revolut ion in method? "The
same should go [ ... ] f or painti ng and li tera tu re, a reas within
which the task of each concrete performance is to evolve,
innovate, and usher inforward-looking openings, without their
authors managing to lay claim to guarant4ed theoretical
foundations or the authority of a group; school, conservatory or
academy'": The only thing that matters is the "W<fk in progress".
Thought origina tes f rom an ar t, which i s not syuonymous with
rhetoric ... So i t should come as no surprise to read the definit ion
given by Deleuze/Guattari to phi losophy, "the art of forming,
inventing, and manufacturing concepts'"',
In a more general way,it was Guattari's intent to reshape the
whole of science and technology based on an "aesthetic
paradigm". "My in ten tion consi sts in conveying the human
sciences and the social sciences from scientist ic paradigms to
ethical-aesthetic paradigms", he explains. An intent that isakin to
a form of scienti fic scept icism. For him, theories and concepts
merely have the value of "models of subjectivization", inter alia,
and no certainty is irrevocable. The primary criterion of
scientificity, as stated by Popper, is falsifiability, is it not?
According to Guattari, the aesthet ic paradigm is cal led upon to
contaminate every chord of discourse, and inoculate the venom of
creat ive uncertainty and outrageous invention in every field of
knowledge. Denial of claimed scientific "neutrality": "what will
hence forth be on the agenda is the clearance of ' futuristic ' and
'constructivist' fields of virtuality'i", Portrait of the\psychoanalyst
as an artist: "just as an artist borrows from his precursors and his
contemporaries the features that sui t h im, so I int ite those who
read me tofreely accept and reject my concepts'r'ci
96
Ritournelle, symptom and work
Like Nie tzsche' s aes thet ics, f rom which G
originate, the lat ter only considers the creator 's
there is no sign of considerations to do with a
apart from those pages dealing with the not ion
takes for example the fact of looking attelevision
the TV set is to expose "your feeling o f per
temporary break-up. The TV viewer thus exists a
several subject ive nodes: the "perceptual fascin
electronic image scanning; the "capture" obta
content, enlivened by perceptive "parasites" happ
the telephone, for example; and lastly, the "w
aroused by the programme, perceived as an "
working like an "attractor" within the
significational chaos".
Plural subject ivity here is "ri toumellized", "ca
looks at, a prelude to the formation of an "exi
Here aga in, contempla tion of form comes acro
kind of "suspension of the will " (Schopenhauer)
thermodynamic process, a phenomenon of c
accumulation of psychic energy on a "motif", wit
Art fixes energy, and "ritournellizes" it, diverting
life: a matter o f repercussion and ricochet. . A
between a will and a material'" , art, for G
compared with the thoroughly Nietzschean activi
outlining texts in the chaos of the wor ld. In other
of "interpreting and assessing" ... The "existentia
for aesthet ic contemplation, in a broad sense, c
components of subjectivity and guide them. Art
and around which subject ivity can reform itself
ligh t spots are brought together to form a beam
single point. The opposit e of thi s condensa tio
provides the most conclusive example, is neuro
"ritournelle", hallmarked by fluidity, "hardens" in
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psychos is , too , which makes the per sona li ty implode by making the
"partial components" leave subjectivity " in hallucinatory, delir ious
lines?" ... Which suggests to us that the object itself is neurotic:
unlike the fluidity of "ritournellization", whose successive
crystallisations bounce on supple partial objects, neurosis
"ha rdens" wha teve r i t touches . In tegr ated cap ital ism, which turns
existenti al terri tories into goods and shunts subjective energy
towards product s, thus func tions in neuro ti c mode . It p roduces an
" immense void in subjectivity" , a "machine- like solitude?". rushing
into spaces lef t vacant by the deser tification of direct trading areas .
A vo id which can only be filled by drawing up a new cont ract wi th
the inhuman, i .e . the machine.
Guattar i's thinking isorganised around an analytical perspective, the
cur e for which forms the d is tant horizon. Inva riab ly , the me thod of
part ia l hea ling emerges to r e-fo rm the shat te red p ic tu re of forms of
subjectivization. Art i s never tha t fa r removed f rom the symptom,
but does not ove rlap with i t. Th is lat te r "operates like an existentialI
r itournell e f rom the momen t when i t i s r epeated", when the
ritournelle "isembodied in a 'hardened' representation.for example,
an obsessive ritual". But i f the ana logy between th~ s ick pat ient 's
assumption of independence and artis tic creation is at t imes pushed
very f ar, Gua ttari figh ts shy of "likening psychosis to a work of art,
and the psychoanalyst to an artist" ... Excep t tha t both deal with the
same SUbjec tive ma te rial , which must be brought fo rward in order
to "hea l" the d is ast rous e ffect s of homogenisa tion , tha t v io lence
wielded by the capitalis t system towards the individual; suppression
of forms of dissen t and d isagreement t hat can only be founded by
his subjectivity. In any event, art and psych ic l ife ar e interwoven in
the same agencies. Guattar i only descr ibes art in immater ial terms
the bet te r to ma te rial ise the mechan isms of the psyche. In analysis
a s in a rt is ti c act iv ity, " time stops being suf fered; i t is worked,
oriented, as theobject of qualificative changes". I f the analyst 's role
consists in "creating mutant foci of subjectivization", the formula
might easily be applied to artis ts .
The work of art aspartial object
The work o f art is on ly of i nterest to Guatt ari inso
a matter of a "passively representativ e image",
product. The work gives a mater ial quali ty to exis
with in which the image t akes on the role of subje
or "shi ft er", capab le of deter ring our percep tion b
up aga in" to o ther pos sibi li ti es : tha t o f an "operat
subjectivity". Here again, the work of art canno
exclusive, even i f it o ffers the model o f t hat "p
which i s the part icular f ea tu re of aes thet ic s, tha
experience of the time span" ... This type of kn
possible provided that we do not see mere
contemp lation of the artwo rk. Guattari prowls
Nie tz sche , t ransposing the v ital ism of the German
problem that besti rs us to ex ceed ourselves is be
psycho-eco logical a rea of vocabular y f or which h
In aesthetic contemplation he thus sees
"subjectivization transfer" . Borrowed from Mikha
concept earmarks the moment when t he "matte
becomes "formally creative'?' , a split-second in th
between author and beholder.
Here , Gua ttari 's pos tu la te s tum out to be very aki
by Marcel Duchamp in h is famous 1954 Houst on
creative process'?': the behold er is the join t crea
ven turing into the mysteries of c reat ion by way o
of art", which is the "difference between what
planned to make and what he did". Duchamp
phenomenon in terms not unlike those of psyc
indeed a question of a "transfer" of which "the a
aware", and the r eact ion of the beholde r in f ront o
in a kind of "aesthetic osmosis wh ich takes place
ma tter : colour, p iano , marb le, e tc ." This transitio
work of art was taken up by Guattari, who t
pedestal f or h is own hunches about the fluid natur
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whose component par ts ope ra te , a s we have seen, by tempora ri ly
clinging to heterogeneous " ex is tent ia l t err itor ie s" . The work of a rt
doesn 't hal t the eye . I t' s the spe llbind ing, par a- hypnot ic process of
the aesthe ti c way of looking tha t c rystal li se s a round i t the d iffe rent
ingredients of subjectivit y, and redistribu tes them tbwards new
vanishing point s. The work i s the oppos it e of the buff~r def ined by
c la ssica l aes thet ic per cept ion, exe rc ised on fini shed I objects andI
closed en tities. This aest hetic fluid ity cannot be d et ach ed from a
questioning addressed at the work's independence. Guattari defined
thi s lat te r a s a "partial object", which der ives advantage solely f rom
a "relative subjective autonomization", like object a in the Lacanian
subconsci ous", Here, th e aestheti c object acquires the status of a
"partial enunciator", whose assumption of autonomy makes it
possible to "foster new fields of reference". This definition embraces
the development of art forms in a very f ru it fu l way: the theory of the
aesthetic par tial objec t as "semiotic segment" sep arate from
col lect ive subject ive product ion so as to s ta rt "work ing on i ts own
behalf' perfectly descr ibes the most widespread artis tic production
methods today: sampling of pictures and data, recycling now
socialised and historicized forms, invention of collective
ident it ie s . .. Such a re the procedures of pre sent -day a rt , s temmingfrom a hyper -inflat iona l sys tem- of image ry . These st ra tegies for
par ti al objec ts incorpora te the work in the continuum of a device of
existence, ins tead of endowing it with the traditional independence
of the masterpiece in the system of conceptual mastery. These works
are no longer paintings, sculptures or installations, a ll t erms
corresponding with categor ies of mastery and types of products, but
simple surfaces, volumes and devices, which are dovetailed within
s tr ateg ie s of exi stence. Her e we ar e bordering on t he limits of t he
def in it ion of a rt ist ic act iv ity proposed by Deleuze and Gua ttari in
What i s Phi losophy: "knowledge o f the world through percep ts and
affects" ... For how could the very idea of a par ti al objec t r efe rr ing
to a s ingu la ri sa tion movement of the heterogeneous ingredien ts of
SUbjectivit y brin g on an i dea of totality: " the partial enunciator"
101
that forms the work of art does no t depend on a
human activity, so how could it be limited
a rr angement suggested by the level of " aff ec ts "
be fu lly an a rtwork , i t must a lso put fo rward con
the working of these affects and percepts,
experience of thought . For want of such , the ca
against by function is inevitably reformed amate rial s tha t g round thought . So i t would seem
in the light of Guattari's writings themselves,
construction of concepts with the help of per
a imed at a knowledg e of the world ...
For an artis tic, ecosophic practice
The ecosophic fact consists in an ethical-cum-poli
between the environment, the social and su
quest ion of re -fo rming a lost pol it ical t err itory ,
by the deterritorializing violence of "I
Capitalism". "By exacerbating the production
immater ia l goods , to the det riment o f the consi st
and collective existential Terri tories , the contemp
given rise to an immense void in subjectivity wbecome more and more absurd and without
ecosophic practice, geared to ideas of
interdependence, aims to re- form these existentia
on operation al met hods of subjectiv ity h ithe
underplayed . Ecosophy may c la im " to replace
which used to mis takenly d iv ide the soc ia l, the p
into sectors'?", From this angle, art is sti ll a
insofar as it provides a "plane of immanence?",
organised and very "absorbent" , for the exercise
the more so because contemporary art has devel
of a denial o f the independence (and thus of
given it by the formalist theories of "moder
Clement Greenbe rg was the prime advoca te.
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Nowadays, art is not defined as a place that imports methods and
co~~epts, ~ zone of forms of hybridisation. As one of the driving
spints behind the Fluxus movement, Robert Fil liou said that art
offers an immediate "right of asylum" toall deviant practices which
cannot find their place in their natural bed. So many forceful works
of the last three decades only arrived in the realm of art for the
simple reason that they had reached a limit in other realms. Marcel
Broodthaers thus found a way of carrying poetry on in imagery;and Joseph Beuys found a way of pursu ing po litics in fo rm.
Guatt ar i seems to have recorded these .shif ts, this capac ity of
modern art to embrace the most varied of product ion systems. He
readily criticises art as a specific activity, conducted by a particular
corporate body. The experience of the clinic accounts for a lot in
this astonishment in front of this fragmentation of bowl edge, this
"corporatist subjectivity" that is in the end quite recent, a
corporatist subjectivity that leads us, for example,!into a reflex of
"sectorization", to "aestheticize a cave art in which everything
suggests that i t had an essential ly technological and cul turalrange".
The exhibition Primitivism in 20th Century Art, recently held at the
MoMA in New York, thus fetishizes "formal,formalist and in the
end rather superficial correlations", between works that arewrenched out of their context, "on the one hand tribal, ethnic and
mythical, on the other cultural, historical and economic". The root
of artistic practice lies in the production of subjectivity; it matters
little what the specific production method may be. But this activity
nevertheless turns out to be determined by the 'enunciative agencychosen.
The behavioural economy ofpresent-day art
"How do you render a school class as an artwork?", asks
Guattari" . .. He thus poses the final problem of aesthet ics, that of
i ts use, and i ts possible injection into fabric rendered rigid by the
capitalist economy. Everything conspires to make I us think that
102
moderni ty has been constructed, from the late
the idea of " li fe as artwork". Based on Osc
moderni ty is the moment when "it is not art im
imitating art"... Marx isheaded in the same dir
the cl assi ca l dist inct ion between Praxis
transformation) and poiesis (the necessary, ser
producing and transforming matter). Marx thou
that "praxis moves constantly into poiesis , an
on, Georges Bataille built his work on th
"renunciation of existence in exchange for func
the capit al is t economy. The three orders -s
act ion- shatter human existence by calibrating
preordained categories". Guattari's brand of
posits the totality of existence as a precondition
of subject ivit y. In it, th is la tte r takes pride
earmarked by Marx for labour, and which Ba
experience, in an effort involving the individua
formation of lost subjectivity. For "the only acce
of human activities," writes Guattari, "is th
subjectivity that isforever self-enriching its r
world/": A defin ition that ideally applies t
contemporary artists: by creating and staging d
including working methods and ways of being,
objects which hitherto bounded the realm of ar
material. The form holds sway over the thing, a
categories. The production of gestures wins out
of material things. These days, beholders are pr
threshold of "catalyst-like time modules", rathe
immanent objects closed in on their world of r
goes asfar as to come across as a world of sub
move, like the mannequin of his own subjectivit
the terrain of special experiences and the synth
work , a development that fo reshadows the
moderni ty. In this behavioural economy, the a
1
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_ _ . . · . .• . . .. I iI i. II iI .l il ir 'L _ j · . ~ i t; I I i1 J I I I I I IZ _ ' • • · Ii IO e e_ _ I II II 'l II Ir r • • , . ' I I i IJ I S I ' I I I I II l ' l I l X i i I T I I I I t li i i " l I I i . tll l l l 1 1 s • • '. c ll'IIiII-----------------------
Ii
Ikind of deceptive aura, an agent of resis tance to i ts commercial
dis tribut ion and a mimetic parasite of the same. :
In a menta l wor ld where the readymade represent s a par ticul ar
model, as a coll ec tive product ion ( the mass -produced object )
assumed and recycled in an auto-poietic visual device, Guattari 's
l ines of thinking help us to consider the changes current ly under
way in present-day art. But this, however, was not the primary aimof their author, for whom aesthet ics must above all else go hand in
hand with societal changes, and inflect them... Thepoetic function,
which consists in re-forming worlds of subjectivization, possibly
would not have any meaning if it , t oo, were not able to help us to
negotiate the "ordeal of barbarity, mental implosion, and chaosmic
spasm which are taking shape on the hori zon, t o tum them into
riches and unforeseeable pleasures'?"...
14. The three ecologies.
15. Deleuze/Guattari, What is philosophy, Verso, London, 1994
16. The three ecologies.
17. Chaosmosis.
18. Chaosmosis. See also: Felix Guattari, "Cracks in the Street"
Summer 1987.
19. Chaosmosis.
20, Felix Guattar i, "Refonder les pratiques sociales", in Le
"L'agonie de la culture", October 1993,
2L Chaosmosis.
22, Mar ce l Duchamp , "Le p rocessus c reat if " in Duch amp
F1ammarion, Paris,
23, Chaosmosis.
24. The three ecologies,
25. Chaosmosis.
26. What isphilosophy.
27, Chaosmosis.
28, Georges Bataille, "L'Apprenti sorcier", in Denis Hollier, L
Editions Idees-Gallimard.
29, Chaosmosis.
30, Chaosmosis.
J
1t
l1I;1
* Chance i s impor tant , but only in r el at ion to p roduct ion, Once. exh ib it ed , t he work
leaves the world of contr ivance, and everything in i t s tems from ~ interpretat ion.
I, Felix Guattari, Chaosmosis: An ethicoaesthetic paradigm, Indiaha Press , I only refer
t o p reci se works when the s en tences quo ted r ef er to a development i n the autho r. For
example, some quotations wil l not be annotated, because their co~tent refers to several
passages or several books. '
2. Chaosmosis.
3. Chaosmosis.
4, Chaosmosis.
5, Felix Guattari, The three ecologies, Athlone Press, 2001,
6, L'inconscient machinique. Essai de schizoanalyse, Recherches, Paris, 1979,
7. The three ecologies,
8. Marc Sherringham, Introduction a laphilosophie esthetique, Editions Payot, Paris, 1993,
9. Roger Caillois, Coherences aventureuses, Editions Idees-Gallirnard.
10. Chaosmosis.
11, Chaosmosis.
12. Chaosmosis.
13. The three ecologies,
10 4 105