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    What is Relational Aesthetics / Relational Art?.

    The term 'relational aesthetics' was coined in 1996 by Frenchtheorist and curator Nicolas Bourriaud.

    Relational aesthetics is a theory of aesthetics in which artworks

    are judged based upon the inter-human relations which theyrepresent, produce, or prompt (Bourriaud 2002:112).

    According to Bourriaud, relational art encompasses "a set ofartistic practices which take as their theoretical and practicalpoint of departure the whole of human relations and their socialcontext, rather than an independent and private space."(Bourriaud 2002:113) A relational artist might, for example,convert a gallery space into a temporary stand for servingcoffee, with the addition of background music, suitablelighting, books to read, and comfortable chairs. The artwork

    here consists of creating a social environment in which peoplecome together to participate in a shared activity. Bourriaudclaims "the role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary andutopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and modelsof action within the existing real, whatever scale chosen by theartist." (Bourriaud 2002:13). In relational art, the audience isenvisaged as a community. Rather than the artwork being anencounter between a viewer and an object, relational artproduces intersubjective encounters. Through these encounters,meaning is elaborated collectively (Bourriaud 2002:17).

    Bourriaud believes this collective encounter can be bothdemocratic and microtopian.

    Relational Art..."main feature is to consider interhumanexchange aesthetic object in and of itself." -Bourriaud.

    "Relational Aesthetics is a way of considering the productiveexistence of the viewer of art, the space of participation that artcan offer." -Bourriaud.

    Relational Artists propose as artworks:a. moments of sociability.b. objects producing sociability.

    In Relational Art, the artist is no longer at the center. They areno longer the soul creator, the master or even the celebrity. Theartist instead, is the catalyst. They kick-start a question, frame apoint of consideration, or highlight an everyday moment. And

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    then, they wait. They wait for a response from the randomstranger, the passer-by, the usual suspect - you and I.

    "(Relational Aesthetics)...refers to artwork that is open-ended,interactive and resistant to closure. Relational Art takes place intime and space and creates interactive communicativeexperiences and intersubjective encounters in which meaning is

    ellaborated collectively." - Legier Biederman.

    "Contemporary Art is a buffer zone of time in whichinteraction (relational engagement) can take place, andinteraction between humans and art (humans and humans; artand humans) becomes a form of special 'limited time only'chance, therefore still commodified but in a radically differentway.

    This goes to reinforce Bourriaud's understanding of the

    relational in art - that contemporary art serves to look at thingsnot only in a different way, but through a whole set of newcategories, new forms of paradigm shifts that collide withearlier modernist understandings of art." - Robin Campbell.