Tuesday, September 7, 2010

My Early Hunch/Interest - Toward a Thesis Proposal

Extracted from an email to my thesis advisor/committee:


Here’s what I’m thinking.  As you may remember, I call my current body of work Relational Prosthetics, which I define tentatively as any physical object/interface whose primary function is to initiate and/or facilitate a face-to-face interaction/encounter, or at least a physically proximal engagement, between two or more people [also see here].  There is (at least) a smattering of such objects/artworks that fit this description in a fine art context throughout today’s contemporary art world and recent history (I don’t think I would look much earlier than 1960…maybe see if the Dadaists did anything of the sort?).  Without suggesting that these items ought necessarily comprise a new subgenre of interactive sculpture or performance (or whatever other genre or art field) I would like to consider these as a group to see what might be said about them.

I'd actually like to retract, for now, the qualification "Without suggesting that these items ought necessarily comprise a new subgenre..."  It's too early to rule that out.  The sculptors, performance artists, thespians, musicians and film-makers/writers have arrived at similar objects from very different disciplines; maybe it would be profitable to link them with a common appelation so they are not isolated by their originating disciplines that they can't speak to each other.

I would tentatively call this group by the same moniker I’m using for my own work, relational prosthetics, but would be open to revising the label as my research requires.  I would do/give a cursory survey of various artworks by various artists (Franz Erhard Walther, Lygia Clark, Robert Morris, Valie Export, and more recent artists such as David Cross, Miranda July, Erwin Wurm [Rotozaza, Krysztof Wodiczko, Maya Suess, Matthias Gommel, Lucky Dragons] etc.) briefly comparing their apparent aims and means.  I would also draw on other disciplines (such as the sociological and anthropological thought of Erving Goffman and Edward Hall, the extended aesthetics of Katya Mandoki, and the theological perspective of Martin Buber [also, the theory of medical prosthetics, and Marshall McLuhan's thinking on 'the extensions of man'])  to suggest new ways of talking about what these art works do.  A tentative title for the paper would be something like Relational Prosthetics: towards a vocabulary of object enabled (and constrained) interpersonal engagement in art.
 
I am confident that the topic is pertinent not only to my own practice but, if done well, could be important to current discourse surrounding relational aesthetics and the burgeoning field of social practice.  While many of the works discussed would not typically be identified with these realms of the art world they nevertheless have much in common, and their unique mixture of materiality and relationality places them in the potentially bridge-building position straddling the object-centered studio/gallery paradigm and the more ephemeral, immaterial realm of social practice.  

The next paragraph was put in parentheses because I was unsure about its relevance.  I think I expressed well enough that I will likely not address the issue(s) directly and I still feel that way. Consequently I am now working on better articulating the importance of this research 

(Claire Bishop, in her important essay, “The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents,” registers one of the more legitimate complaints against discursive art.  She claims, rightly that aesthetic concerns have been hijacked by political and moral ones.  Not that there is anything inherently wrong with such aims but she claims that critics and audiences have given these works a sort of free pass aesthetically because they have good intentions.  I view this objection to current social practice as one of the more serious complaints that needs to be addressed, and while I am not entirely sure my thesis will address the issue head on, I suspect that developing a vocabulary around these art works that straddle the aesthetic and social realms might offer a hint of a way forward.  At the very least my paper and the collected works being referred to as relational prosthetics could serve as an entry point to relational art for critics and audiences more accustomed to traditional static arts.)

At times I fear that my scope is too broad, that I’m taking on too much for a one-year process.  So I’m writing to see what you think.  Am I right to have reservations?  Do you think the topic is a good one?  Would you shift the focus much?  Can you help me think about possible methodologies?  
Another reservation I have--or a potential weakness of this project--is the fact that I have little to no direct participatory experience with any of the artworks in question.  Is this an insurmountable weakness?  How can I tailor the project to accommodate this unfortunate and (in the short term) irremediable problem?

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