Some of the following essays were originally published inmagazines -for the most part in Documents sur l'art, andexhibition catalogues'. but have been considerably reworked. notto SIl)' re-ordered. here. Others are previously unpublished, Thiscollection of essays i~also rounded off by a glossary. which readersmay refer to whenever a problematic concept rears its head. '10make the book that much easier to come to grips with, may wesuggest to tum right away to the definition of the word "Art".

I. '1..: par~d1jlmcestt).'thlue (f~lix Guattari cl L'¥t)- WJJ; pllhh~hccl h) lbe m..~.11 .;

('1t;,::#I(~. 1993: 'Rehlti01l .!cnm' v,'JJ; /y'lbl~hcd In 0:.: (<I.t..iIlo!!UI: (or Il}l' 3n1 L}'~mCUlltmlpUnllJ J\n Blenn/nl, 19'):5.

10

Relational form

Artistic activity is a game, whose forms. patterns and functionsdevelop and evolve according to periods and social contexts: it isnot an immutable essence, It is we critic's task to study this activityin the present. A certain aspect of the programme of modernity hasbeen fairly and squarely wound up (and not. Jet us hasten toemphasise in these bourgeois times. the spirit informing it). Thiscompletion has drained lite criteria of aesthetic judgement we areheir to of their substance, but we go on applying them to present -dayartistic practices. The new is no longer a criterion, except amonglatter-day deuuctors of modern art who. where the much-execratedpresent is concerned, cling solely to the things that theirtraditionalist culture bas taught them to loathe in yesterday's art. Inorder to invent more effective tools and more valid viewpoints, itbehoves us to understand we changes nowadays occurring in thesocial arena. and grasp what bas already changed and what is stillchanging. Ilow are we (0 understand the types of artistic behaviourshown in exhibitions held in the 1990s. and the lines of thinkinbehind them, if we do not stan om from tbc same situation as theartists?

Contemporary artisuc practice and its cultural planThe modem political era. which came into being with theEnlightenment. was bused on the desire to emancipate individualsand people. The advances of technologies and freedoms, the

11

decline of ignorance, and improved working conditions were allbilled to free humankind and help to usher in a better society, Thereare several versions of modernity, however. The 20th century wasthus the arena for a stmgglc between two visions of the world: 3modest. rationalist conception. hailing from the 18th century, and aphilosophy of spontaneity and liberation through the irrational(Dada. Surrealism. the Situationists). both of which were opposed10 authoritarian and utilitarian forces eager to gauge humanrelations and subjugate people. Instead of culminating in hoped-foemancipation, the advances of technologies and "Reason" made itthat much cesicr to exploit tae South of planetearth, blindly replacehuman labour by machines. and set up more and more sophlsricaredsubjugation techniques, all through a general rarionalisntion of theproduction Pf'O(.'lCSs.So the modena emancipation plan has beensubstluned by countless forms of melancholy.Twentieth century avam-garde. [rom Dadaism to the SituationistInternational, fell within the tradition of this modem project(changing culture, attitudes and rnentaliries. and individual andsocial living conditions), hut it is as well 10 bear in mind that thisproject was already there before them. differing from their plan inmany ways. For modernity cannot be reduced to a rationalistteleology. any more than it can to political messianism. I~ itpossible to disparage the desire to improve living and workingconditions. on the pretext of the bankruptcy of tangible attempts todo as much-shored up b)' totalitarian ideologies and naive visionsof history? What used to be called the avant-garde has, needless tosay, developed from the ideological swing of things offered bymodern rationalism: but it is now re-formed On the basis of quitedifferent philosophical. cultural and social presuppositions. It isevident that today's art is carrying on this fight. by corning up withperceptive. experimental, critical and participatory models. veeringin ibe direction indicated by Enlightenment philosophers.Proudhon. Marx. the Dadaists and Mondrian. If opinion is strivingto acknowledge the legitimacy and interest of these experiments.

12

dlis is because they are no longer presented like the precursoryphenomena of an inevitable historical evolmion. Quite to thecontrary. they appear fragmentary and isolated. like orphans of anoverall view of the world bolstering them will. the clout of anideology.It is not modernity that is dead, but its idealistic and teleologlcalversion.Today's fight for modernity is being waged in llle same terms asyesterday's. barring the fact that the avant-garde bas stoppedpatrolling like some scout. the troop having come to a cautiousstandstill around <I bivouac of certainties. Art was intended toprepare and announce a future world: today it is modelling possibleuniverses.The ambition of artists who include their practice within theslipstream of historical modernity is to repeat neither its forms norits claims. and even less assign to art the same functions as il. Theirtask is akin to the one that Jean-Francois Lyotard allocated to post-modern architecture. which "is condemned to create {( series ofmil/or modifications III a Sp(ICe whose modem it)' il inherits, andabandon all overall reconstruction oj the space inhabited b)'humankind", Whm is more, Lyotard seems to half-bemoan thisstate of affairs: he defines it negatively, by using the termcondemned . And what. on the other hand. if this "condemnationrepresented the historical chance whereby most of l])e an: worldsknown to us managed £0 spread thcir wings. over the past ten yearsor so'! This chance" can be summed up in just a few words:learning to inhabit tire world ill a better way. instead of trying toconstruct it based OIl a preconceived idea of historical evolution.Otherwise put, the role of artworks is no longer 10 form imaginaryand utopian realties. but to acrnally be ways of living and modelsof action within the existing real, whatever the scale chosen by theartist. Althusser said that one always catches the world's train on themove: Dclcuzc. that "grass grows from the middle and not fromthe bottom or the top. TIle artist dwells in (he circumstances the

JJ

present offers him. so as to tum the setting of his life (his links withtJ)e physical and conceptual world) into a lasting world. He catchesthe world on the move: he is a tenant (if culture, to borrow Michelde Certeau's expression', N'owadays. modernity extends into thepractices of cultural do-tr-yourself <IUdrecycling, into the inventionof the everyday and tbe development of timc lived. which arc notobjects less deserving of attention and examination thanMessianistic utopias and the formal "novelties" that typifiedmodernity yesterday, There is nothing more absurd either than theassertion that contemporary art does not involve any politicalproject. or than the claim lllat its subversive aspects are not basedOil any theoretical terrain. us plan. which has just as much to dowith working conditions and the conditions in which culturalobjecr.s arc produced, <IS with the changing forms of social life. maynevertheless sccm dull to minds formed in the mould of culturalDarwinism. Here, then, is the time of the "dolce utopia. 10 uscMaurizio Cauclan's phrase".

rtwork as social intersticeThe possibility of a relational art (an art taking as i~ theoreticalhorizon Uae realm of human interactions and its social contextrather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolicspace). points to a radical upheaval or the aesthetic. cultural andpolitical goals introduced b)' modem UTI. To sketch a sociology ofthis. tlui> evolution stems essentially (rum the birth of a world-wideurban culture. and from the extension of this cit)' model (0 more orless all cultural phenomena. TIle general growth of towns andcities, which took off at thc end of the Second World Wtlr. gave risenot only to an extraordinary upsurge of social exchanges. but alsoto much greater individual mobility (through the development ofnetworks and roads, and telecommunications. and die gradualfreeing-up of isolated places. going with the opening-up ofattirudes). Because of the crampedness of dwelling spaces in thisurban world. there was, in tandem. a scaling-down of furniture and

I

objects, now emphasising a greater manoeuvrability. If, for a longperiod of time. the artwork has managed to come across as a luxury,lordly item in this urban seuing (the dimensions of the work. :l<;

well as those of the apartment. helping to distinguish between theirowner and the crowd). the development of the function of anworksand the way they are shown anest to a growing urbanisation of theartistic experiment. What is collapsing before our very eyes inothing other than this falsely aristocratic conception of thearrangement of works of art. associarcd with the feeling ofterritorial acquisition. In other words. it is no longer possible toregard the contemporary work as a space to be walked through (the"owner's tour" is akin to the collector's). It is henceforth presentedas a period of time to be lived through. like an opening to unlimiteddiscussion. The eity has ushered in and spread the hands-onexperience: it is the tangible symbol and historical setting of the stateof society, thar "slate of encounter imposed on people". to useAlthusser's expression .contrasting with thor ctcnsc and "trouble-free"jungle which the natural state once W3<;. according to Jean-JacquesRousseau, ajunglc hampering any lasting encounter, Once raised tothe power of an absolute rule of civilisation, this system ofintensive encounters hill> ended up producing linked artisticpractices: an an form where tne substrate is formed by inter-subjectivity, and which takes being-together as a central theme. theencounter" between beholder and picture. and tilt: collectiveelaboration of mean mg. Let 1I~ leave the mailer of the hj~toticity ofthis phenomenon on one side: 3f1 has always been relational invarying degrees, i.e. a factor of sociability and a founding principleof dialogue. One of the virtual properties of the image is its powerof linkage (Fr. reliance). (0 borrow Michel Maffesoli's term: flags,logos. icons, signs, all produce empathy and sharing. and allgenerate bond'. Art (practices stemming from painting andsculpture which come across in the form of an cxhibuion) turns outto 00 particularly suitable when it comes to expressing this hands-on civilisation, becau ..se i~lightens the space of retations. unlike TV

1$

and literature which refer enc hindi vidual person to his or her spaceof private consumption, and also unlike theatre and cinema whichbring small !,'1'OUpS together before specific. unmistakable images.Actually, there is no live comment made about what is seen (thediscussion time is pUl off until mel' the show). At an exhibition. ontJle other hand. even when inert forms arc involved, there is thepossibility of an immediate discussion. in both senses of the term.j see and perceive, I comment. and Ievolve in a unique space andume. Art is the place that produces a specific sociability. II remainsto be seen what me status of this is in the SCt of "states ofencounter" proposed by the City. Hov .... is an art focused 00 (heproduction of such forms of conviviality capable of re-launchingthe modem emancipation plan. by complementing it? How does itperrmt the development of new politicaland cultural designs?Before giving concrete examples. it is well worth reconsidering theplace of artworks in the overall economic system, be it symbolic ormaterial. which governs contemporary society, Over and above itsmercantile nature and its semantic value. the wort of an representsa social interstice. This interstice term was used by Karl Marx todescribe trading communities lbm elude the capitalist economiccontext by being removed from the law of profit: barter,merchandising. autarkic types of producuon. ere. The interstice is aspace in human relations which fits more or less harmoniously andopenly into thc overall system. but suggC.'lt~ other tradingpossibilities (hun those in effect within this system. This is theprecise nature of the contemporary ali exhibition in the arena ofrepresentational commerce: it creates free areas, and rime spanswhose rhythm contrasts with those structuring everyday life. and itencourages an inter~human commerce that differs from dlecommunication zones" that are imposed upon us. The present-daysocial context restricts the possibilities of inter-human relations all(he more because it creates spaces planned to this end. Automaticpublic toilet." were invented (0 keep streets clean. TIle same spiritunderpins the development of ccmmunication tools. while city

16

streets arc swept clean of 1I11 manners of relational dross. andneighbourhood relationships fizzle. The general mechanisation ofsocial functions gradually reduces the relational space. Just a fewyears ago. the telephone wake-up call sen' ice employed humanbeings. but now we are woken up by a synthesised voice ... Theautomatic cash machine! has become the transit modcl for (he mostelementary of social functions. and professional behaviour patternsare modelled on the efficiency of the machines replacing them,uiese machines carrying out tasks which once represented so manyopportunities for exchanges. pleasure and squabbling.Comemporary an is dcfinuely developing a political project whenil endeavours to move into the relational realm by rumina it into anissue.

When Gabriel Or07'<:o puts all orange on the stalls of a desertedBrazilian market (Crazy 10uriSI. 1991). or slings a hammock in theMoMA garden in Kcw York (Hamoc en ta mama. 1993). he i~operating at the hub of "social infra-thinness" (l'inframince social).Lbat minute space of daily gestures determined by thesuperstructure made up of "big" exchanges, and defined by it.Without an)' WOrding, Orozco's photographs are a documentaryrecord of tin)' revolutions in the common urban and semi-urban life(a sleeping bag on the grass. an empty shoebox. etc. ). They recordthis silent, still life nowadays formed by relationships with theother. When Jcns Haaning broadcastS funny stories in Turkishthrough a loudspeaker in a Copenhagen square (Tarkish Jokes,1994). he produces in that split second a micro-community, onemade up of immigrants brought together by COllOC1i\'claughterwhich upsets their exile situation. Iormed in relation to the workand in it. The exhibition is the special place where such momentarygroupings may occur, governed as they are by differing principles.And depending on the degree of parucipation required of theonlooker by the artist, along with the nature of the works and themodels of sociability proposed and represented, an exhibition will

tr

give rise: to a specific "arena of exchange". And this "arena ofexchange". must be judged on the basis of aesthetic criteria. inother words. by analysing the coherence of its form. and then thesymbolic value of the "world" it suggests to us. and of the image ofhuman relations reflected by it. Wilhin thrs social interstice. theartist must assume (he symbolic models he shows. Allrepresentation (though contemporary art models more than itrepresents. and fits into tbe social fabric more than it drawsinspiration therefrom) refers to values thut can he transposed intosociety. As 0 human activity based on commerce, an is 3l once (heobject and the subject of all ethic. And this all the more so because.unlike other activities. its sole june/ion is to 1)(> exposed to thismmerce.

Art is a state of encounter.

Relational aesthetics (ltul random materialismRelational aesthetics is part of a materialistic tradition. Being"materialistic" does not mean sticking to the triteness of facts. nor<.1008 it imply that sort of narrow-mindcdncss thot consists inreading works in purely economic terms. The philosophicaltradition that underpins this relational aesthetics was defined in anoteworthy way by Louis Althosser, ill one of his last writings. as3. materialism of encounter", or random materialism. Thisparticular materialism lakes as its point of departure she worldcontingency, which has no pre-existing origin or sense. norReason. which might allOt it a purpose. So the essence ofhumankind IS purely trans-individual. made up of bonds that linkindividuals together in social forms which are invariably hlstorical(Marx: the human essence is the set of social relations). There is nosuch thing as any possible "end of his tory" or "end of art", becausethe game is being forever re-enacted, in relation to its function. illother words. in relation to the players and the system which the)'construct and criticise. HlIbeJ1 Darnisch saw in the "end of art"theories the outcome of an irksome muddle between the "end of the

18

gamc and the "end of play". A new game is announced as soon asthe social sening radically changes, without the meaning of thegame itself being challenged'. This inter-human gam« which formsour object (Duchamp: "An is a game between all people oj allp·erjods") nevertheless goes beyond the context of what is called"art" by commodity, So the "constructed situations" advocated bythe Sltuationist Inremational belong in their own right to thisgame. in spite of Guy Debord who, in the final analysis, deniedthem any artistic character, For in tbern, quite to the contrary, he&.1W "art being exceeded" by a revolution in day-to-day life.Relational aesthetics does not represent a theory of art. this wouldimply the statement of an origin and a destination. but a theory ofform.

What do we mean by fOllt'-' A coherent unit. (I structure(independent entity of inner dependencies) which shows the typicalfeatures of a ' ....orld. The anwork docs not httve an exclusive hold onit, it il>merely a subset ill the overall series of existing forms. In thematerialistic philosophical trodition ushered in by Epicurus andLucretius. atoms fall ill parallel formations into the void. followinga slightly diagonal course. If one of these atoms swerves off course.it "causes an encounter with Ille next atom and from encounter 10'IICOlllIIU a pile-up, (1m! Ille birth of the world ... This is hovfonns come into being. from the "deviation' and random encountebetween two hitherto parallel clements. In order to create a world,this encounter must be a lasting one: the clements forming it mustbe joined together iu .1 torm, in other words, there must have been"a selling of elements 011OIU:another (Ihe way ice 'sets'] . "Formcan be defined as a lasting encounter". Lasting encounters. linesand colours inscribed on the surface of a Delucroix painting. thescrap objects that liner Schwiuers' "Men pictures", Ollis Burden'sperformances: over and above the quality of the page: layout or thespatial layout, they tum out to be lasting from the moment whentheir components form a whole whose sense "holds good" ut the

/9

moment of their birth. Stirring up new "possibilities of life". Allworks. down to (1)C most critical and challenging of projects. passesthrough this viable world state. because they ge{ elements held apartto meet; for example. death and the media in Andy Warltol. Dcleuzcand Guauari were not saying anything different when they definedthe work of art as a "bloc" of affects and percept;s". Art keepsl()gC!(It<~r moments of subjectivity associated with singularexperiences. be it Cezanne's apples or Buren's striped structures. Thecomposition of this bonding agent, whereby encountering atomsmanage to Iorm a word, is, needless to say. dependent on thehistorical context. What today's informed public understands by"keeping together" is not the same thing Ulitl this public imaginedback in the 19th century. Today, the "glue" is less obvious, as ouvisual experience has become more complex. enriched by a centuryof photographic images. then cmematography (introduction of thesequence shot ~ISa new dynamic unity), enabling us to recognise asa "world" a collection of disparate clement (installation, for instance)that no unifying mauer, no bronze, links. Other technologies mayallow the human spirit 10 recognise other' types of world-forms" stillunknown: for example, computer science put forvvant the notion ofpmgrnm, that inflect the approach of some artist's way of WOrking.An artist's artwork thus acquires the status of an ensemble or units tobe re-activated by the beholder-manipulator, I want to insist on theinstability and the diversity of the concept of "form". notion whoseoutspread call be witnessed in injunction by the founder of sociology,Emile Durckheim.considering the "social fact" as a thing" ... As theartistic "thing." sometime offers itself as a "fact" or an ensemble offacts chat happens in the time or space, and whose unity (making it 1Iform, a world) C<Ul oot be questioned. The setting is widening: aftchc isolated object. it now can embrace the whole scene: the form ofGordon \t1atta-Clark or Dan Graham's work can nO(be reduced to the"things" those two artist "produce": it is noc the simple secondaryeffects of a composition, as the fonualistic aesthetic would like toadvance. but the principle acting as a trajectory evolving through

2.

signs. objects. fOnTIS. gestures ... The contemporary artwork's formi~ spre.1ding OUl from its material form: it is a linking element. aprinciple of dynamic as!:!dutinatI()n. An artwork is a dot on u line.

Form and others' gazeIf. as Serge Daney writes, "aJJform is a/ace looking at us". whatdoes a form become when it is plunged into the dimension ofdialogue? What is a form that is essentially relationatt It seemsworth while (.0 discuss this question by raking Daney's formula asu point of reference, precisely because of its ambivalence: as formsare looking at us. how are we to look at them'!Form is most often defined as an outline contrasting with a content.But modemjsr acsmeucs talks about "formal beauty" by referring toa 8011 of (con)fusion between style and content, and an inventivecompatibility of the former with the latter. Wc judge a worklhrough its plastic or visual form. TIle most common criticism to dowith new anistic pracuccs consists. moreover, in denying them IDly"formal effectiveness", or in singling out their shortcomings in th"formal resolution". In ooser\'ing contemporary artistic practices,we ought to talk of "formations" rather than "forms", Unlike anocject that is closed in on itself by the intervention ora style and asignature, present-day art shows that form only exists in theencounter and in the dynamic relationship enjoyed by an artisticproposition with other formations. artistic or otherwise.There are no forms in nature, in the wild slate. as it is our gaze thatcreates these, by cutting them out in the depth or the visible. Permsare d('veloped, one from another. What was yesterday regarded asformless or "informal" is no longer these things today. When theaesthetic discussion evolves. the status of form evolves along Withit, and through it,In the novels of polish writer Witold Gombrowicz, we sec howeach individual generates his own/onn through hi!>behaviour. hisway of coming across, and the way he addresses others. This formcomes about in the borderline area where the individual struggles

I

with the Other. so as to subject him to what he deems to be his"being". So, for Gombrowicz, OUI' "form" is merely a relationalproperty, linking us with these who reify us by (he way they see us.to borrow a Sartrian terminology, When the individual trunks he iscasting an objective eye upon himself. he is, in the final analysis.contemplating nothing other than the result of perpetualtransactions with the subjectivity of others,The artistic form, for some. side-steps litis inevitability. for it ispublicised by a work. Our persuasion. conversely, is that form onlyassumes its texture (and only acquires 11 real existence) when itintroduces human interactions. The form of an artwork issues froma negotiation with the mtclligible. which is bequeathed to us.Through it, the artist embarks upon a dialogue. The artistic practicethus resides in the invention of relations between consciousness.Each particular artwork is a proposal to live in a shared world. andthe work of every artist IS a bundle of relations with the world.giving rise to other relations. and so on and so forth. ad infinitum,Here we arc at the opposite end of this authoritarian version of artwhich we discover in the essays of Thierry de Duve", for whom anywork is nothing other than a 'sum of judgements", both historicaland aesthetic. stated by the artjst in the act of its production. Topaint is to become part of history through plastic and visualchoices. We arc in the presence of a prosecutor's aesthetics. here.for which the artist confronts the history of art in the autarky of hisown persuasions. It is an aesthetics lhuI reduces artistic practice tothe level of a pettifogging historical criticism. Practicaljudgement". thus aimed, is peremptory and final in eacb instance.hence the negation of dialogue. which. alone. grants form <Iproductive status: the status of an encounter". As part of a"rclationist" theory of art. inter-subjectivity does not only representthe social setting for the reception of art. which is its"environment", its field (Bourdieu). but also becomes lhequintessence of artistic practice.

u

As Dalley suggested. forru becomes "Iace" through the effect ofthis invention of relations. This formula. needless to add, culls tomind the one acting as the pedestal for Emmanuel Lcvinas'thinking. for whom tJ.e face represents the sign of the ethical taboo.The face. Levinas asserts. is 'what orders me to serve another","what forbids me to kill'". Any "inter-subjective relation" proceedsb)' way of the form of the face. which symbolises the responsibilitywe have towards others: "the bond with others is onlv made (IS

responsibility", he writes, but don't ethics have a horizon other thanthis humanism which reduces inter-subjectivity to a kind of inter-servility? Is the image, which, for Dancy, is a metaphor of the face,only therefore suitable for producing taboos and proscriptions,through the burden of "responsibility"? When Dancy explains fhm..all form is a fare looking at LIS", he docs not merely mean that weare responsible (or this. To be persuaded of as much, suffice il torevert to the profound significance of the image for Daney, Forhim, the image io;not "immoral" when it puts us "in the place wherewe were not ..•. when it "takes the place of another". What isinvolved here, for Dancy, is not solely a reference to the aestheticsof Bazin and Rossellini, claiming the "ontological realism" of tnecinematographic art. which even if it docs lie 31 the origin ofDaney's thought. docs not sum it up. He maintains that form. in animage. is nothing other than the representation of desire. Producinga fonn is to invent possible encounters; receiving a form ic;(0 createthe condlrlons for an exchange, the way you return a service in agame of tennis. If we nudge Daney's reasoning a bit further, formis the representative of desire in the image. It is the horizon basedon which the image may have a meaning. b)' pointing to a desiredworld, which the beholder thus becomes capable of discussing, andbased on which his own desire can rebound. This exchange can besummed up by a binomial: someone shows something to someonewho returns it :IS he sees fit. The work tries to catch my gaze, theW:l)' the new-born child "asks for" its mother'S gaze. In La Vit'commune, Tzvcran Todorov has shown how the essence of

2J

sociability is the need for acknowledgement, much more thancompetition and violence'. When an artist shows U$ something. heuses a transitive ethic which places his WOI1\ between the "look-at-mc''and the "look-at-that". Daney's most recent writings lament theend of this "Show/Sec'' pairing. which represented the essence oa democracy of the image in favour of another pairing. this oneTv-related and authoritarian. "Promote/receive", marking theadvent of the "Visual". In Daney's thinking. "(III form is a falooking os II/t~-, because it is summoning me to dialogue with it,Form is a dynamic that is included both. or turn by (Urn, in time andspace. Form can only come about from a meeting between twolevels of reality. For homogeneity docs not produce images: itproduces the visual, otherwise PUI. "looped information".

1. Jcan-Fr;lII\joib Lynt..t'd: "I'M pMl mndrm explamed 10 d.ild~n·. LTurnnround, 1992.2 Mid-=t de t~enll: .\Illnlh·t'/. drfair«, Edilicm~Jd~·G1llimw3. Loui.~AltIv.l.'i$tt; uri,.,pflilu...~".i([1(() .'1 (.wJJril(oW'f. P.{lillon~Sto.:k·£MEC. 1995.p. 557.... MdIcl /I1nff~lI: IA .'4!lrtllliJ(OJI"'~ .frt mOllde. Edl\iOIl~ (jr'J~I. l')In.5. fluL~rt l);uni~h; F,·m'lrt· i..II':" (u....lJ.Ullm. Bdlt)on~ du Seuil,(,. lhicrry de Dave: £s.fdll darls. Ediliocu tic La Vtftttl:tlce. II~ ••

7. Emmanuel Uvinas; t:rIti'/l4t· 4'J ;"fi,:J. Poche-Biblio, (I. 93.It S~ Dancy: P~rsll"'(JJx·~.Edilion~ I'.O.L.. t992. p 3~.9. TlVCIOlll~\II)f\)\ I.() 11l' ('m\!J.!I.W'''. Editi(lnlill Seuil, 199<1.

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Art of Ole 1990s

Participation and transitivi;

!\ metal gondola encloses a gas ring that is lit, keeping a large bowlof water on the boil. Camping gears is scaucred around the gondolain no particular order. Stacked against the wall arc cardboard boxes.most of them open, containing dehydrated Chinese soups whichisitors arc free to add uie boiling water (0 and car.This piece, by Rirkrit Tiravanija, produced for the Aperto 93 at lheVenice Biennial. remains around the edge of any definition: is it asculpture? an installation? a performance? an example of socialactivism? In the last few years, pieces such :IS this have increasedconsiderably. In international exhibitions we have seen a growingnumber of stands offering a range of services, \....orks proposing (precise contract to viewers. and more or less tangible models ofsociability. Spectator "participation", theorised by Fluxus happeningsand performances. has become a constant feature of artistic practice.As for the space of reflection opened lip by Marcci Duchamp's "artcoefficient", auempung to create precise boundaries for the receiver'sfield of activit)' in the artwork. Illis is nowadays being resolved ill aculture of intersctivity which posits the transitivity of the culturalobject as a fait accompli. As such. these factors merely raufy adevelopment that goes way beyond the mere realm of art, The shareof interactivlry grows in volume within the set of communication

5