080062 PS Case Study: "Living as Form": Relational Aesthetics and Socially Engaged Art (2015S)

Since the 1990s, under the aegis of relational aesthetics and socially engaged art, countless art practitioners have undertaken diverse types of ‘cultural work’ that has questioned the boundaries between art and life, proposed new forms of sociability, and offered novel propositions for ‘life’ and ‘living’ as ‘forms’ within conditions of neoliberal global capitalism. This class examines a broad range of artistic practices that often intersect with the fields of theater, activism, urban planning and visual art and that embrace strategies of dialogue, participation, community engagement, and intervention in public space.

A few fundamental questions will anchor the course: (1) How do these practices position themselves in relationship to the legacy of the historical and neo-avant-gardes and, given the changed historical conditions, can we still use the same criteria to assess contemporary production or do we need to develop new measures and write different narratives? Specifically, how do we contend with the tensions between ‘form’ and ‘content’ and how do we assess what constitutes ‘politics’ and ‘aesthetics’ today? (2) What models of identity and subjectivity does relational aesthetic and socially engaged art offer and how do these relate to the increasingly powerful structures of globalization and the forces of neoliberal global capitalism? Specifically, what are the possibilities of imagining different ‘collectivities’ and ‘publics’ today? (3) How do these practices engage with the intensification of media culture, channels of marketing, advertising and publicity, and pervasiveness of social media? Specifically, how do they construct a specific experience of the ‘social’ and position themselves in relation to the promise of democracy and inclusion espoused by such media structures?