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246: Relational Aesthetics and Its Philosophy, Relationally
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This one-day course will discuss and engage with the various (specifically Deleuze & Guattari [D&G], Foucault, and Guattari) philosophical texts (all of them a chapter and two essays) — which he himself draws upon — that inform Nicolas Bourriaud’s theory called “relational aesthetics”. We will explore how Bourriaud uses these philosophers’ works in ways that either complicate them or reduce them. We will also discuss how Bourriaud’s theorization has lead to engaged and explorative works — but also (pre-)commodified and exploitive works. Indeed, we will engage with Bourriaud’s theory both critically. Note: All readings will be (are) posted on-line. It will be useful to come to this course with a good understanding of Bourriaud’s theory (and how it has been deployed). Un-relatedly, a guest speaker on D&G will sum up the one-day course. Date: January 18, from 2-5 |
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Texts/essays to be read:
Deleuze and Guattari, _What Is Philosophy_ (selections)
Guattari, “The New Aesthetic Paradigm,” in _Chaosmosis_
Guattari, _The Three Ecologies_ (selections)
Guattari, “Cracks in the Street,” in _Flash Art_, summer 1987
Foucault, “Aesthetics of Existence,” in _Foucault: Philosophy, Politics, Culture_
All text (are already or will be) available on aaaag.org at least two weeks prior to class.
Sounds like fun!
Invite people to sign up for this class: the friends and family network
I will be posting the texts (see above) by this week (or there abouts): just in case people want to read them and have a virtual class.
-Robert
PS: Any questions? robtsum@gmail.com
This class will be scheduled for Sunday, January 18 (immediately after the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest class). Details and readings are coming this weekend.
Please read this before the “relationality” and philosophy” class (in the new January 2009 Artforum) …
This month in Artforum: Prospect.1 New Orleans. International biennials of contemporary art have long ventured into the cities that serve as their hosts, but few have reckoned with so loaded a locale as Prospect.1 New Orleans. More than three years after Hurricane Katrina, much of the Crescent City remains in disrepair, making it a setting where critical designations such as “site-specific work” and “socially committed practice” can seem tenuous at best. On the occasion of New Orleans’s first biennial—and the largest ever in the United States, curated by Dan Cameron and featuring more than three hundred works by eighty-one artists—artist Glenn Ligon and Artforum senior editor Elizabeth Schambelan take stock of the show and ask how any such exhibition or artwork might truly engage its context.
“Perhaps it’s not surprising in a place so full of contradictions, so creolized, so invested in masquerade, that I sometimes mistook life for art.” —Glenn Ligon
“More problematic than Prospect.1’s relation to the tourism economy is its relation to the tourist optic—a detached, indulgent mode of viewing that can and does aestheticize all that comes before it, the more picturesquely decrepit the better.” —Elizabeth Schambelan
Thanks, Robert
PS: You will want to bring the new Artforum to class, as well as the other readings.
All the readings for this class, which are listed in the class summary/proposal above, will be posted to aaaarg.org by Monday, January 5, 2009. The readings will be listed under the author’s last name with the title of the essay or chapter following.
All the readings MUST be done before class, and a re-reading of Bourriaud’s _Relational Aesthetics_ would be helpful — esp. pages 11-24 (already on aaaarg.org), 33-35, and 79-104.
If you have any questions and/or concerns, then please contact me, Robert Summers, at robtsum@gmail.com
Thanks, Robert