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Bishop, C. (Ed.) (2012) Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship London & New York, Verso (references to Kindle ed. – uses Loc. Numbers not pages). Introduction & Ch. 1.

ARGUMENT

Bishop defines ‘participatory art’ to include all artistic phenomena related to an ‘expanded field of post-studio practices’, including those named socially engaged art, community-based art, experimental communities, dialogic art, littoral art, interventionist art, participatory art, collaborative art, contextual art and (most recently) social practice.’ L51.Distingushes this from Borriaud’s Relational Aesthetics.– most artists considered are more interested ‘less … in a relational aesthetic than in the creative rewards of participation as a politicised working process.’ (L61.

Attribute book to Marxist discourse on ‘art as a de-alienating endeavour that should not be subject to the division of labour and professional specialisation.’ L80. To ‘think art collectively’ ibid.

Contextualises art of 1990s-2000s in:

1. European Avant-garde in 1917 (Italian futurism) ->Dada, Surrealism;
2. ‘neo’ avant-garde up to 1968. L89.Moscow (Collective Actions Group), Czechoslovakia -> ‘ Community Arts Movement’ in UK

Phases ‘accompanied by a utopian rethinking of art’s relationship to the social and of its political potential.’ L89.

‘artistic models of democracy have only a tenuous relationship to actual forms of democracy’ (L124) as partial conclusion.

On comparing visual record of participatory art in 60s-70s which, even though it refuted a ‘commodity-object’ to absence in contemporary performance (which fully eschews the object:

“however ‘deskilled’ or desubjectivised, conceptual and performance art nevertheless manage to prompt a wide range of affective responses, and their photo-documentation is capable of provoking deadpan amusement, wry embarrassment, iconic reverence or appalled disgust.’ (L150)

From disciplinary perspective – sociology & social context less useful than ‘abstract reflections of political philosophy’. L176. Ambitions in this arena stem from ‘art itself’ L185.

 But need to ‘keep alive the constitutively undefinitive reflections on quality that characterise the humanities’. L194 Continues with paragraph ending:

‘This book is predicated on the assumption that value judgements are necessary, not as a means to reinforce elite culture and police the boundaries of art and non-art, but as a way to understand and clarify our shared values at a given historical moment.’

Aim to reinstate complexity of ideas and emotions even when aesthetic is denied ‘in order to render them more powerful and grant them a place in history.’

Notice that suppressing agency which has a gift relationship to the art – that ‘grants a place’. The expert model per se.

The role of the ‘secondary audience (you and, I, and everyone else who didn’t participate); the historical fact of our ineradicable presence requires an analysis of the politics of spectatorship, even – and especially – when participatory art wishes to disavow this.’ L230.

Chapter 1

The Debord anti-spectacle argument rehearsed and evidenced by artists.

‘Instead of supplying the market with commodities, participatory art is perceived to channel art’s symbolic capital towards constructive social change.’ L272

But this drains art of the means to attain qualitative ontology – it remains functional and its own characteristics remain insignificant such that there can be no good or bad art.

The link to New Labour agenda of ‘social exclusion’ L290 wherein, ‘it effectively referred the elimination of disruptive individuals. To be included and participate in society means to conform to full employment, have a disposable income, and be self-sufficient.’

L299 But transpose society for art-history above and how might we rewrite this sentence.

Inclusion is a means of persuading persons to accept the status quo since the latter now ‘includes them. L309

The rescuing of terminology that was once radical (participation, creativity & community. L318

Artist as the model of the flexible ‘worker or ‘no-collar’ worker and or precarious ‘free’ employment conditions. L355.

The dehierarchising rhetoric of artists whose projects seek to facilitate creativity ends up sounding identical to government cultural policy geared towards the twin mantras of social inclusion and creative cities.’ L355

Dealing with Rancière L381ff. [then L557ff.] Rescuing the ‘aesthetic regime of art’ 557:

Aisthesis “an autonomous regime of experience that is not reducible to logic, reason or morality.’ L397

Rejection of ‘ethical turn’ & ethical criteria: we criticise artists that:

“fail to ‘fully’ represent their subjects (as if such a thing were possible). This emphasis on process over product – is justified on the straightforward basis of inverting capitalism’s predilection for the contrary. Consensual collaboration is valued over artistic mastery & individualism. Regardless of what the project sets out to do or actually achieves.’ L425

SB NOTE: V. much not Rancière IMO. His ‘aesthetic is based on dissensus between poiesis (mastery & individualism – setting out to achieve) and aesthesis (where art is free of its formative influence and a novel redistribution of the sensible without signification in status quo but only in the imaginable).

More on Rancière ( I may mix what I think with Bishop)

‘Rather than considering the work of art to be autonomous, he draws attention to the autonomy of our experience in relation to art’ L567

Surely wrong here – aesthesis is not independent of poeisis but paradoxically bound to it (art to non-art) and at that is not non-art cannot be art. (Dissensus)

Ethical turns collapses into consensus where art is not art because only non-art (and not freeing us from the already thought and actionable. L586

Claims to be anti-aesthetic still function in the aesthetic world L605f.

How to judge a work of art ( here Deller’s work) aesthetically:

‘The fact that so many views can be thrust at The Battle of Orgreave, and that it still emerges intact, is evidence of the work’s artistic plenitude: it can accommodate multiple critical judgements, even contradictory ones.’ L759.