relational aesthetics

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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



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



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



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



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"



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



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



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.



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.

86 87



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

898



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

91



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

92



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",

95



... 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

97



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

98 99



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 reform 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.

10 0



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

103



_ _ . . · . .• . . .. 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,


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.


10 4 105

relational aesthetics

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