RECONCEPTUALIZING

SPACE: FROM MATHEMATICAL MODELS TO RELATIONALITY IN CONTEMPORARY ART Gimena Blanco In partial fulfillment of the H.E.T.A.C. Degree in Fine Art (Printmaking) 2012

Acknowledgements To all the filesharing sites without which access to copyrighted and other material used for this thesis would have been impossible and specially to Wikipedia.

 Contents__________________________________________________________________________________ Acknowledgements i List of Illustrations. iii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Models of Space 4 Chapter 2 Space in Context: Globalization and Networks. 16 More real than the real that is how the real gets abolished. 20 Aspatial globalization. 27 Chapter 3 Relational Space and Artistic Practice. 32 Discursive sites.. 34 Relational aesthetics and the radicant 37 Dialogical aesthetics.. 41

Conclusion . 46 Bibliography.. 49 ii

 List of Illustrations Figure Page 1. Odysseus in the Underworld, Second Style painted frieze, 6 Esquiline Hill, first century A.D., Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, c. 50-40 BC, http://fvankeur.myweb.uga.edu/ARHI4020/painting.html, accessed 09/10/11. 2. Detail from Abraham Bosses Les Perspecteurs, 1648, 9 Bibliothque Nationale de France Thomas Brockelman, Missing the Point: Reading the Lacanian Subject through Perspective, http://lineofbeauty.org/index.php/s/article/view/10/47, accessed 02/11/11. 3. Karen Lancel and Hermen Maat, Tele_Trust, http://www.lancelmaat.nl/content/teletrust-0, accessed 02/11/11. 4. Ryan Trecartin, Any Ever, K-CoreaINC.K (section a), 2009, http://whyy.org/cms/news/arts-entertainment- sports/2009/10/23/jack-wolgin-prize-goes-to-young-artist/20713, accessed 22/12/11. 5. Ryan Trecartin, P.opular S.ky (section ish), 2009, video stills,http://ubuweb.com/film/trecartin_popular.html, accessed 22/12/11. 6. Ryan Trecartin, Any Ever, Sibling Topics, 2009, video still http://ubuweb.com/film/trecartin_sibling.html, accessed 22/12/11. 7. Ryan Trecartin, Any Ever, Roamie View: History Enhancement, 2009, video still,http://ubuweb.com/film/trecartin_roamie.html, accessed 22/12/11. 10

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 Figure Page 8. Ryan Trecartin, Any Ever, Sibling Topics,2009, installation view, 30 http://momaps1.org/exhibitions/view/323,accessed 22/12/11. 9. Daniel Buren, 34 Il sagit de voir des bandes verticales blanches et vertes October 1968, (work in situ),Green and white paper on door, Galerie Apollinaire, Milan, http://catalogue.danielburen.com/fr/oeuvres/1429.html? Search=1&SearchBlock=Art&art_DateFrom=1967&art_DateTo=1969, accessed 18/01/12. 10. Rirkrit Tiravanija, Untitled (Free) (recreation) at David Zwirner 37 Gallery, New York, 2007. http://blog.art21.org/2010/01/19/examining-roles-and- investigating-responses-a-conversations-with-rebecca-uchill/, accessed 18/01/12. 11. Julie Mehretu, Ruffian logistics, acrylic and ink on canvas over panel, 41 168 x 306 cm, 2001. http://www.artnet.com/Artists/LotDetailPage.aspx? lot_id=201A7431B94E7E246E51340F23586EF0, accessed 13/01/12. 12. Park Fiction in Hafenstrasse, Hamburg, August 2011, 43 http://www.parkfiction.org/park/index.html, accessed 21/01/12.

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Introduction There are no philosophical answers to philosophical questions that arise over the nature of space the answers lie in human practice. The question what is space? is therefore replaced by the question how is it that different human practices create and make use of different conceptualizations of space?. 1 David Harvey In 1926, Panofsky wrote It is essential to ask of artistic periods and regions not only whether they have perspective, but also which perspective they have.2 He was not referring to perspective merely as a method, but as a symbolic form or metaphor. Conceptualizations and representations of space, and all the implicit assumptions of these concepts, are crucial in how we articulate knowledge. This thesis originates from an interest on the question how is it that human practices create and make use of different conceptualizations of space? and from a particular interest in clarifying the understanding of space implicated in contemporary art practice. To approach these questions, this thesis first attempts to define what a conceptualization of space entails and how these conceptualizations relate to representation. To that end, Chapter 1-Models of Space examines Erwin Panofskys model, as presented in his essay Perspective as Symbolic Form, focusing on his interpretation of Renaissance space.

1 David Harvey, Space as a Key Word, Paper for Marx and Philosophy Conference, 29 May 2004,

Institute of Education, London, http://www.scribd.com/doc/38910738/David-Harvey-Space-as- a-Key-Word (accessed 08/08/11), p. 6.

2 Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, New York: The MIT Press, 2009, p. 41.

To understand what the current western conceptualization of space is and its possible implications for art and representation, Chapter 1 seeks to extend Panofskys framework and to find a useful approach to contemporary space by drawing on concepts of space outlined by geographer and social theorist David Harvey. Not only in Chapter1, but throughout this thesis I will draw on writings and theories by scholars that may or may not belong to the disciplines normally or traditionally concerned with the visual arts (art) history, philosophy, or psychology. This is due to the fact that the topic itself space has understandably long been a more direct concern in disciplines such as geography or architecture. Geography and the social sciences have, in addition, undergone in recent years what has been termed a spatial turn3. Partly due to the renewed importance the concept of location acquires in the context of globalization, perhaps because of the global scale of ecological crisis, topics such as space and geographical imaginations have received increased attention and the concept of space is being critically reassessed throughout the social sciences and the humanities.4 Chapter 2-Space in context: globalization and networks tries to examine some of the salient features of the contemporary world that shape our understanding of space namely, globalization and the figure of the network. The chapter looks at these features through the series of videos Any Ever by Ryan Trecartin. Calling forth Manuel Castells ideas around the network society and
3 Edward W. Soja, Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory,

London, New York: Verso 1989, p. 1.

4 Santa Aria and Barney Warf, The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Abingdon, New

York: Routledge, 2009, pp. 1,2.

Doreen Masseys critiques of the conceptualizations of space implicated in different ideas of globalization, this chapter tries to identify issues around globalization and networks that have an implication for space in artistic practice. Chapter 3 Relational space and artistic practice moves on to appraise the

impact of the new understanding of space on art theory and practice by surveying ideas by three theorists who tackle art that implicates a new concept of space. Miwon Kwons discursive sites, Nicolas Bourriauds relational aesthetics and Grant Kesters dialogical aesthetics are considered. The Conclusion brings together a series of reflections around the

implications for art practice given this new paradigm of space and identifies areas for further research. 3

Chapter 1 Models of Space Erwin Panofskys Perspective as Symbolic Form is a major work in art historical studies, both because of the impact his method had in the development of the discipline and because it introduced a controversial interpretation of perspective which opened to a new understanding of the relationship between space and representation. In this extended essay, Panofsky traces the development of perspective since Antiquity to his days, and argues that the different forms perspective takes in different periods are linked to, and in a sense controlled by, the Weltanschauung or roughly translated- comprehensive world-view of the times.5 He examines how the history of perspective related to changing world- views, and seeks to establish the underlying links uniting art, science, philosophy, mathematics and other expressions of human knowledge. Perspective is understood not as a given property of space, or even an objective representation of its properties, but as a culturally relative symbolic form. According to Panofsky, Renaissance linear or artificial perspective explored by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) and set in theory by Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) is a construct particular to the worldview of that historical period. Renaissance perspective came to be understood as a window- frame into space, the picture plane merely showing the projected spatial

5 Ibid., pp. 16, 17. The concept of Weltanshauung can also be understood as an equivalent of what

we now refer to as the zeitgeist or spirit of the age, and like the zeitgeist, it does not have singular roots in a particular domain of thinking. Doreen Massey, For Space, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage Publications 2005, p. 126.

continuum that contained the different separate objects.6 The eye was the apex of a visual pyramid, and the picture, the result of a planar cross-section through this pyramid. Visual rays coming from the eye determine the position of different points in the image. Parallel lines have a common vanishing point, and all perpendiculars meet at a central vanishing point.7 This central vanishing point implies that we see with a single static eye and that a planar cross section of the visual pyramid can pass for an adequate reproduction of our optical image.8 These assumptions are made regardless of the fact we do not see with a single stationary eye and that the surface of the retina where images are projected is not a flat surface, but a concave one, which means that straight lines will appear somewhat bent and curved lines as straight depending on the angle view. This, by contrast, was an accepted fact by antiquity optics and theory, that assumed that the field of vision was spherical and hence the relationship between magnitudes could be expressed only by degrees of angle and not by measures of length.9 The Euclidean geometrical technique applied to the construction of linear perspectival space implied a systematic mapping of a three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional grid, implicating that space had mathematical and

6 For recent interpretations of the window frame, see Anne Friedbergs The Virtual Window: From

Alberti to Microsoft (Cambridge, London: The MIT Press, 2006) and Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, MIT Press, 2002, www.andreknoerig.de/portfolio/03/bin/.../manovich- langofnewmedia.pdf , accessed 22/10/2010. 7 Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form; p. 27, 28. 8 Ibid., p. 29. 9 Ibid., pp. 33-35.

universal qualities.10 This in turn corresponds to the end of the Aristotelian view of the universe as bounded by the celestial sphere and with the Earth at its centre. Space in Antiquity had remained an aggregate space that did not presuppose a quantum continuum or an infinity that extended beyond objects; even when we are supposed to be perspectivally seeing through, there is no higher unity or systematic space (fig. 1).11 Renaissance infinity, on the other hand, was not an attribute of God, but a quality of a new de-theologized universe.12

Figure 1. Odysseus in the Underworld, Second Style painted frieze, Esquiline Hill, first century A.D., Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. c. 50-40 BC.

10 Euclid, born c. 300 BC, in Alexandria, Egypt, was the most influential mathematician in classical

antiquity. Until the development of non-Euclidean geometries in the early 19th century, his treaty on geometry Elements continued to be the primary source of geometric reasoning and his geometry remained the undisputed mathematical model of space. (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/194880/Euclid, accessed 10/08/11). 11 Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, p. 44. 12 Ibid., p. 65. This de-theologization corresponded to changes in the scientific paradigm brought about by new ideas such as those of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), who is credited with separating science from philosophy and religion for the first time. Among other innovations, he defended a heliocentric view of the universe and also developed the scientific method based on empirical observation and measurement still crucial to modern science today. (Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/224058/Galileo, accessed 10/08/11).

These developments in perspective were far from smooth and unified, as the extensive and erudite notes in Panofskys text prove, but the point that is of interest to me is that linear perspective is a code or convention, an homogeneous objectification of the subjective particular to its times.13 From this, it is possible to infer that there is a relationship between conceptualization and representation of space on the one hand, and changes in society as regards other orders of knowledge on the other. As Panofsky states once again this perspectival achievement is nothing other than a concrete expression of a contemporary advance in epistemology or natural philosophy and this view of space [] is the same view that will later be rationalized by Cartesianism and formalized by Kantianism.14 Both Immanuel Kants (1724-1804) and Ren Descartes (1596-1650) achievements and influence are too many and far-reaching to be discussed here, and unfortunately, Panofsky does not go into detail on Kants or Descartes views of space.15 It is possible, however, to find foundation for Panofskys statement outside his essay, as many contemporary scholars link the invention of linear perspective to the emergence of a rational worldview in the 17th century and see

13 Ibid., p. 66. The term code here can be understood as an equivalent to Foucaults episteme, a

system of thought and knowledge governed by rules, beyond those of grammar and logic, that operate beneath the consciousness of individual subjects and define a system of conceptual possibilities that determines the boundaries of thought in a given domain and period. (Source: Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/, accessed 10/09/12). 14 Ibid., pp. 65, 66. 15 Descartes is discussed further on in the chapter. As regards Kant, I will only mention that, in his philosophy, space is a knowledge we are born with, and this Kantian a priori space follows the rules of Euclidean geometry.

the measurable world of abstract linear coordinates as having an affinity with the emergence of modern science and the capitalist system.16 Linear perspective correlated with the coordinate system for mathematics developed by Descartes, a system of y, w, z coordinates for height, width and depth that is still in use today. Under Descartes reconceptualization of space, bodies were turned into geometrical figures and numbers did not have to refer to the properties of matter anymore, but could be used to establish abstract relations.17 As we will see in the following chapters, there are two implications of Descartes thinking that are of special interest when understanding space. One is that Descartes fully realized the divide between subject and object, which implies detachment and control over the object by a disembodied eye.18 He set the epistemological stance of early modernity of an objective, detached observer commanding the view, which, in addition, assumed mind and body to be separate.19 The other important aspect of Cartesian thought as related to my argument is that the understanding of distance in this Albertian-Cartesian paradigm means that there is a clear distance spreading out between the object and the subject, the eye and the world it is a distance that the eye can survey,

16 See Santa Aria and Barney Warf, The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, (Abingdon,

New York: Routledge, 2009); Alberto Perez Gomez and Louise Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge (Cambridge, London: The MIT Press, 2000); Martin Jays Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993),Martin Jay,Scopic Regimes of Modernity (Hal Foster (ed.) Vision and Visuality, Seattle: Bay Press, 1988. pp. 3-23). 17 Ron Broglio, Connecting Renaissance Linear Perspective and Cartesian Geometry and Optics, http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~broglio/1102/desc_paint.html, accessed 15/10/11. 18Barney Warf, From Surfaces to Networks, in Santa Aria and Barney Warf, pp. 60, 61. 19 Ibid., p. 60.

the eye knows and controls the world of objects.20 In Panofskys words The history of perspective may be understood [] as a triumph of the distancing and objectifying sense of the real, and as a triumph of the distance-denying human struggle for control (fig. 2).21 Here I would like to point out this affinity between a suitability to control of a Cartesian rationalization of space and the explosion of cartography during this Age of Discovery, when the search for new trade routes and the creation of colonial empires by the West required space to be seen as a surface to be crossed and subjected to rule.22

Figure 2. Detail from Abraham Bosses Les Perspecteurs, 1648, Bibliothque Nationale de France This image portrays the belief in the power of perspective as a universal method to shape and control the world.

Having considered Panofsky, it is now time to turn attention to contemporary conceptions of space. However we understand distance nowadays, it is not understood as it was during the Renaissance surface is no
20 Zhu Jianfei, Another Way of Seeing: Visual Paradigms in Post-Song China and Post-Renaissance

Europe, http://members.fortunecity.com/zhifan/mypage/archiessay/wayofseeing.htm, accessed 08/08/11. 21 Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, p. 67. 22 Barney Warf, From Surfaces to Networks, in The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, p. 61.

longer the main metaphor for space, while network seems to better describe contemporary spaces.23 In their Tele_Trust installation (2009-2011), the Dutch artists Karen Lancel and Hermen Maat explore how we build trust online. Tele_Trust networked performance-installation takes place in dynamic public spaces, such as train stations, museums and festivals. Tele_Trust consists of a one-size-fits-all data-garment, called Data-Veil, equipped with sensors connected to a smartphone (fig. 3). Bodies are invisible under the Data-Veil, but smartphone users across the world can reveal the face by caressing their phones, this face will appear on their phones and on screen by the Data-Veil. Phone users also record their responses make statements about contact and trust which are wirelessly retransmitted through headphones to the person under the Data- Veil when the person touches different parts of his/her body. 24

Figure 3: Karen Lancel and Hermen Maat, Tele_Trust, 2009-2011, Amsterdam/Banff Canada/Dunedin NZ/Shanghai/Rotterdam/Utrecht/Groningen/Enschede/Instanbul.

23 Ibid; p. 59. 24 Karen Lancel and Hermen Maat, Tele_Trust, http://www.lancelmaat.nl/content/teletrust-0,

accessed 02/11/11.

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When we try to apply Panofskys model to Tele_Trust, it becomes evident that there are kinds of spaces that cannot be accounted for. Virtuality and embodiment, globalization and cyberspace, the position of the viewers for example, cannot be addressed through Panofsky. His model, however, remains a useful base to structure a link between symbolic space, representation and changes in society, the human sciences, technology and science. Our understanding of how space operates, and the way art and representation can address contemporary ideas about space have changed. Therefore, for Panofskys model to remain useful, it needs to be updated and extended. A possible answer to this problem can be found in the works of geographer and social theorist David Harvey, one of whose goals has been to develop a formal analytical language of space. In Harveys analysis, human conceptions of space depend on human experience, but also on imagination and culturally derived representations of space.25 Spatial concepts are modeled by social processes and cultural change often involves a change in spatial concepts.26 In Space as a Key Word, David Harvey distinguishes between three types of space absolute, relative and relational space. Absolute space understands space as a thing in itself, a kind of container that exists independently of matter. This space corresponds to Euclidean geometry and to the space of Descartes and Newton27. Its representation often consists of a defined grid
26 Ibid., p. 123.

25Noel Castree and Derek Gregory, David Harvey: A Critical Reader, Malden, Oxford, Victoria:

Blackwell Publishing, 2006, p. 122.

27 For Isaac Newton (1642-1727), key founder of modern science, space and time existed

independently of all matter. (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/413189/Sir-Isaac-Newton, accessed 10/08/11).

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system. This space is open to measurement and calculation. It is a space of individuation and the space of private property. It is the usual approach in inventory, planning, and most mapping.28 Relative space corresponds to non-Euclidean geometries and is associated

with Einstein.29 It is relative because there are various geometries from which to choose and also because the spatial frame is defined by what spatial elements and processes are being considered and by whom. It is associated with Albert Einstein (1879-1955) and his assertion that space and time are relative to the observer.30For Einstein, space and time could not be considered independently, and this means that we cannot speak of space and time as separate, but we must speak in terms of spatio-temporality or space-time. Events take place in the environment of space-times. At a different level, this is the space of circulation and flows and is affected by the frictions of distance. In relative space, distance is not measured by metric but by process and activity. The same absolute metric distance, for example, can produce different relative distances depending whether it is measured in terms of cost, time or energy expense. Thus, this space will require different models of analysis depending on what is being analyzed, as the spatio-temporality of transportation of goods, for example, is not the same as that of ecological processes. 31

28 David Harvey, Space as a Key Word, pp. 2, 3. 29 Non-Euclidean geometries are many. However the term refers to mainly to two hyperbolic

and elliptical geometry. Grossly oversimplifying, Euclidean geometry is planar and non- Euclidean geometries deal with curved space and diverge from Euclids parallel postulate that states that parallel lines do not meet. Non-Euclidean geometries represented a paradigmatic shift from absolute truth to relative truth in scientific thought. (What is the historical importance of non- Euclidean geometry?,http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~wtg10/historyetc.html, accessed 15/10/11). 30 David Harvey, Space as a Key Word, p. 3. 31 Ibid., pp. 3, 4.

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Relational space is associated to Gottfried Leibniz (1646 -1716) and his opposition to Newtons absolute view of space and time.32 For Leibniz, space and time had no separate existence in and of themselves, but were dependent on the processes that defined them.33 Space did not exist independently of matter, and processes do not take place in space processes determine their particular spatial frame, space cannot exist before the bodies which actually create the space.34 Again, it is necessary to speak of space-time as a relational concept- external influences get internalized in specific processes or things through time. An event or a thing at a point in space is understood by calling on on all that surrounds it.35 This is space understood as a consequence of interrelationships between objects.36 The concept of relational space is the most adequate to the inclusion of social, cultural, political and mental dimensions. In addition, current scientific understanding of space-time posits a relational space.37 Chaos and complexity theory offer a way of understanding relational space. These theories suggests systems that can be mathematically modeled but not in a predictive, linear, or deterministic manner, where meaning emerges from the associative

32 Gottfried Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician whose developments in

infinitesimal calculus were parallel to Newtons. His theological metaphysics were influential in Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century, but came to be distrusted by scientists. His conception of space was opposed to that of Newton. (Source: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=39605 , accessed 16/10/11). 33 Barney Warf, From Surfaces to Networks, p. 59. 34 Michael A. Peters and Fabian Kessl, Space, Time, History: the reassertion of space in social theory, Policy Futures in Education, 7(1), pp.20-30, http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.20, accessed 12/08/11. 35 David Harvey, Space as a Key Word, p. 4. 36 Martin Dodge and Rob Kitchin, Mapping Cyberspace, London, New York: Routledge, 2001, p.28 37 According to Stephen Hawking, space and time are dynamic quantities: when a body moves, or a force acts, it affects the curvature of spacetime and in turn the structure of spacetime affects the way in which bodies move and forces act. Space and time not only affect but are also affected by everything that happens in the universe. Ibid; p. 30.

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relations among complex interactions.38 Complexity theory the study of complex systems, i.e., systems that consist of interconnected parts that as a whole exhibit one or more properties not directly evident from the properties of the individual parts also has similarities with postmodern philosophical theories in their moving away from an absolute truth and their acceptance of multiplicity.39 Complexity theory, in fact, might well be being more successfully propagated outside natural sciences than within.40 Furthermore, relational space is necessary to address spaces such as cyberspace, which is a purely relational space and could not be adequately comprehended through concepts of absolute or relative space. 41 Harveys conception of space is able to accommodate all three theories Cartesian/Newtonian absolute space, Einsteinean relative space-time, and Leibnizean relational space-time. These spaces are not mutually exclusive, and space can at times be one or all three at the same time, this is determined by human practice.42 These three spaces stand in dialectical tension with each other, and what matters are these dialectical relationships. Harvey adds further complexity to his framework by setting his division of spatial terms against
p. xxvi.

38 Stephanie Springgay et al.(eds.), Being With A/r/tography, Rotterdam : Sense Publishers 2008, 39 J. Linn Mackey, Is Chaos Theory Postmodern Science?,

http://reconstruction.eserver.org/044/mackey.htm, accessed 27/11/10. The concept of multiplicity originated in mathematics, where it was initially based on a One-Multiple dichotomy that was called into question by later models. In his book Bergsonism (1966), Gilles Deleuze borrowed the concept so that within his philosophy the concept of multiplicity refers to that multiple which is not simply the opposite to the One, but what the concept of multiplicity seeks to think is the between of these two, in which the multiple itself takes on an immanent organization without reference to an extrinsic ordering (Source: N., Duration and Multiplicity, http://accursedshare.blogspot.com/2006/05/duration-and-multiplicity.html, accessed 06/02/12). 40 Massey, For Space, p. 127. 41 Martin Dodge and Rob Kitchin, Mapping Cyberspace, London, New York: Routledge, 2001, p. 30. 42 Ibid., pp. 5, 6.

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Henri Lefebvres experienced (material space), conceptualized (representations of space) and lived (spaces of representation) variants.43 For this particular thesis, however, such degree of complexity is not necessary. I would simply like to point out that, by adding these to the grid of his absolute/relative and relational spaces, Harvey is able to include the spatio- temporalities of psychological and emotional space- such as fears, fantasies and impressions-which are often the subject of representation in art.44 Though not mutually exclusive, these spaces could be said to have a hierarchical relationship in the sense that relational space can include relative and absolute space, relative space can include only absolute space, while absolute space cannot contain other space.45 Harveys categories and relational space in particular seem to bring us closer to a description of contemporary spaces and their representations. They also show that space cannot be assigned an objective meaning that encompasses all space at all times. Rather, as he points out, objective conceptions of time and space are necessarily created through material practices and processes which serve to reproduce social life.46 Before moving on to art-theoretical relational models, however, it is important to explore first the present context of such models.
45 Ibid., pp. 6, 7. 46 David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change,

43 Henri Lefebvre, The Production Of Space, Maldon, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 44 Harvey, Space as a Key Word, pp. 8, 9.

Cambridge (MA), Oxford: Blackwell Publishers 1990, p. 204.

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Chapter 2 Space in context: globalization and networks

There has also been a momentous shift in the representation and perception of reality itself; technology having dramatically altered the way in which we conduct our lives and experience reality.47 Katerina Gregos If we are, in fact, experiencing a dramatic shift in the way we experience reality, this implies that we are also experiencing a new paradigm of space. To understand what this contemporary conceptualization of space may be, it is first necessary to understand what is particular about the present moment, to somehow approximate a Weltanschauung or zeitgeist of our times and explore the present context. As suggested in Chapter 1, during the Renaissance, space came to be conceptualized as a surface. Contemporary space, by constrast, is more suitably captured by the figure of the network. This view is concurrent with a shift from space as given, to an understanding of space as socially produced.48 Networked space can take different conceptual forms Manuel Castells network society, Deleuze and Guattaris rhizomatic structures or Doreen Massey power geometries. Arguably, the processes that mark the present historical context are

47 Katerina Gregos, Is the Past Another Country?, Manifesta Journal Number 13: Fungus in the

Contemporary, http://www.manifestajournal.org/issues, accessed 02/01/12, p. 33.

48 This view was initially proposed in the 1960s in the works of Henri Lefebvre and Michael

Foucault (Source: Aria and Warf, The Spatial Turn, p. 3).

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globalization and digital telecommunications networks.49 This chapter looks at some of the issues raised in contemporary space by this new techno-economic system through a series of video works by the American artist Ryan Trecartin, who is considered by many to reflect a Generation Y zeitgeist.50 Ryan Trecartin (1981 - ), a native of Webster, Texas, graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2004, and has since lived and worked in Miami, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. He has received, among other prizes, the New Artist of the Year Award at The First Annual Art Awards, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum , New York and has recently had a solo show at MoMA PS1.51 Trecartin works in several media, but he is mostly known because of his film works. He often addresses the questions of new forms of identity, language, narrative and human interaction for a generation heavily engaged with online media and culture.52 His fast-paced, frenzied videos have a home-made YoutTube

49 See Manuel Castells, Communication Power, Oxford, New York, Oxford University Press 2009,

p.16; and Warf, From Surfaces to Networks, p. 66.

50 Generation Y or Millennials are terms used to refer to the generation born between the late

seventies and the mid-nineties. People from this generation are assumed to live through Facebook and YouTube and be always connected through their laptops, iPods and smart phones. Source: MacMillan Dictionary, http://www.macmillandictionary.com/buzzword/entries/generation-y.html, accessed 09/12/11. For references to Trecartin as a Generation Y icon, see Ryan Trecartin Exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery, http://www.saatchigallery.co.uk/artists/ryan_trecartin_articles.htm, accessed 10/12/11; Cecilia Alemani, Theatre for Generation Y, Mousse Magazine - September 2008, http://www.newgalerie.com/press_detail.php?categorie_id=11&article_id=232; Elizabeth Dee Publications, http://now.elizabethdee.com/category/publications/page/3/; Art & Australia magazine, Vol 49 No 2 Summer 2011,editorial, http://www.artaustralia.com/issue.asp. All sources accessed 27/12/11. 51 Ryan Trecartin, Electronic Arts Intermix, http://www.eai.org/artistBio.htm?id=12077, accessed 23/12/11. 52 Reflections on Ryan Trecartins Any Ever by Kevin McGarry, http://www.ubu.com/film/trecartin_kcorea.html, accessed 23/12/11.

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aesthetic said to reflect his generation, a generation that has never known life without the Internet.53 In 2009, his work was the centrepiece of the show The Generational: Younger than Jesus, an exhibition at The New Museum, New York, that showcased fifty artists from twenty-five different countries born after 1976 . The aim of the show was to examine the visual culture of Generation Y.54 Trecartins work, then, may provide clues as to what is particular to contemporary times. Examining the kind of spatiality actualized in his work and how it relates to the present historical context, issues related to the discourses that characterize contemporary space will emerge. Before moving on to the works, however, it becomes necessary to provide an initial outline of what precisely is understood by globalization and how it relates to telecommunication networks. The term globalization became prominent in analytical discourse by the mid-1970s, and it seems to first have come to the fore when the credit card American Express advertised its global reach. From then on, its use rapidly grew in popularity in the financial and business worlds, where it was used to legitimize the increasing deregulation of financial markets.55 In an economic sense, then, globalization is taken to mean both increasing interconnectedness in general and the particular neo-liberal form which that interconnectedness is dominantly taking at the moment.56 Simplifying, this dominant neo-liberal discourse presents global capitalism,
53 Ryan Trecartin at The Hammer Museum,

http://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/detail/exhibition_id/74, accessed 27/12/11.

54 Wehr, Anne, The Generational: Younger than Jesus, Frieze, Issue 124 June-August 2009 55 David Harvey, Spaces of Hope, Berkeley: University of California Press 2008, pp. 12, 13. 56 Doreen Massey, Globalisation as Geometries of Power,

http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/the_generational_younger_than_jesus/, acessed 23/12/11. http://www.signsofthetimes.org.uk/massey.html, accessed 10/12/11.

18

economic inequality [] sustainable levels of environmental destruction and so on as given conditions.57 The term is also widely and increasingly used outside economics in political and cultural discourses. Phrases such as reduced spatial barriers and 24-hour are common, as is the agreement on features such as interconnectedness, speed and deterritorialization.58 The accelerated speed in the flow and exchange of information, people and goods generates a breakdown of traditional spatio-temporal experiences, where time is perceived as reduced and distance loses its significance.59 As these processes become widespread, and the capitalist project replaces local codes with flows of capital, there is a decrease in cultural differentiation and a rise in spatial deterritorialization and departicularization.60 Whereas globalization as an idea has been around for long, it is the reach of global contemporary digital networks that have enabled the size, velocity and complexity of globalization as we now experience, i.e, globalization in its current form is made possible by the spread of digital networks. As Manuel Castells

57 Grant Kester, Dialogical Aesthetics: A Critical Framework for Littoral Art, Variant 9 Winter

1999/2000, http://www.variant.org.uk/9texts/KesterSupplement.html, accessed 13/01/12, p. 8. 58 The concept of deterritorialization can be traced to the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, who first introduced it in their Anti-Oedipus (1972). Oversimplifying, deterritorialization implies a process of decontextualization of a set of relations, and it is usually followed by a reterritorialization or relocation elsewhere. Thus, Hitler, for example, in his pre- war propaganda deterritorialized German culture when he banned all the ideas that did not suit his ideology and reterritorialized with values that suited him. In social theory, deterritorialization now commonly refers to the possibility of engaging in activities irrespective of ones geographical location and to the loss of significance of states and borders (Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/deleuze/#AntOed, and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/globalization/, accessed 06/02/12). 59 David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, p. 240. 60 Nicolas Bourriaud, The Radicant, New York: Lukas and Sternberg 2009, p. 30.

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posits, we live in a global network society, where global digital networks of communication are the fundamental symbol-processing system.61 This is an information society, whose structure is centered on networks activated by microelectronics-based, digitally processed information and communication technologies. According to Castells, a network is a decentralized matrix of nodes through which communication can occur in a free multidirectional manner which is neither bound to time nor spatially-restricted. Socially decisive global networks shape the core activities of human life, from financial markets, national and transnational production and commerce to include also entertainment, the arts and social movements.62 Even though the network society is global, the socially decisive global networks that effectively define globalization do not include everybody and everywhere in the same way, fragmenting society between the included and the excluded.63Thus, according to Doreen Massey, an adequate description of the spaces of globalization must take into account what she calls power geometries, i.e., the different ways individuals are placed in relation to the flows and interconnections of globalization.64 More than the real, that is how the real is abolished Real virtuality Ryan Trecartins Any Ever is a series of seven nonsequential interrelated videos totaling approximately four hours. Any Ever is structured as a dyptich on the
61 Manuel Castells, Communication Power, p. 2. 62 Ibid., pp. 4, 24-25. 63 Ibid., pp. 24,25.

64 Massey, Globalisation as Geometries of Power, pp. 1, 2.

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one hand the trilogy Trill-ogy Comp (2009) on which this chapter focuses , and the quartet Re'Search Wait'S (2009-10) on the other. As a whole, the works in Any Ever explore new forms of language, narrative, identity and humanity, portraying an extra-dimensional world that channels the existential dramas of our own.65 K-CoreaINC.K (section a), part of Trill-ogy Comp alongside Sibling Topics (section a) and P.opular S.ky (section ish), presents a series of characters who form part of the same corporation: Global Korea (fig. 4). These corporate beings are hardly differentiated and highly stereotyped; with similar names like Mexico Korea, North America Korea and French adaptation Korea. Trecartins characters

Figure 4. Ryan Trecartin, Any Ever, K-CoreaINC.K (section a), 2009, video still.

normally exhibit different degrees of make-up, from plain to smudged colourful pastiches, but all the Koreas sport the same blonde wig, white pancake makeup, white shirts and casual office-clothes. The carreer-obsessed Koreas are the participants of a never-ending party-like work meeting led by Global Korea, who
65 Reflections on Ryan Trecartins Any Ever by Kevin McGarry.

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is most of the time on the phone with USA Korea, who is in turn feeling threatened by the career moves of North America Korea. The Koreas move their party to a tropical hotel in P.opular S.ky (section ish), where characters from different sections of Any Ever appear in situations that can be read as possible continuations of events started in other videos the events of P.opular S.ky are the fevered and shadowy projections of a mind being played with (fig. 5).66

Figure 5. Ryan Trecartin, Any Ever, P.opular S.ky (section ish), 2009, video stills.

66 Reflections on Ryan Trecartins Any Ever by Kevin McGarry.

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Sibling Topics (section a), the remaining work in Trill-ogy Comp, presents a set of indistinct quadruplet sisters, all played by Trecartin, in different adventures as they search for identity and romance.67 Throughout Any Ever, cross-dressing features strongly, gender is not something defined. Most of his narcissistic and paranoiac characters hardly ever seen without their Blackberrys or laptops speak in a slightly squeaky, whining tone, which has been digitally tweaked.68 The structure of Any Ever is arguably postmodern. The tortuous narrative in the works is never clear, plots seems to start forming at times, only to dissolve again. The possible relationships between the works are multiple; if there is a master narrative, it is chosen by the viewer. The structure is non-linear, and meaning extremely hard to pin down in the frantic-paced dialogue emerges from these parallel narratives rather than from the narratives themselves.69 The work resembles Deleuze and Guattaris rhizomatic structures meaning does not come from a point or centre, but as in a rhizome, it responds to a multiplicity that cannot be reduced to the One or to the multiple, where the points are not hierarchically organized and can be connected to anything other.70 Since a rhizome has no beginning or end but always a middle, the continuous present

accessed 23/12/11.

67 Sibling Topics (section ish), Electronic Arts Intermix, http://www.eai.org/title.htm?id=14601, 68 Luke Howlin, Your Life but Better. With Edits : A Contextual Critical Analysis of I-Be Area by Ryan

Trecartin [thesis], Limerick : Limerick Institute of Technology/Limerick School of Art and Design, 2011, pp. 4-7. 69 Luke Howlin, Your Life but Better, p. 13. 70 Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1987, p. 7.

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and the lack of clear narrative in Any Ever places it in further proximity to a rhizomatic structure.71 Identity in postmodernism was no longer considered to be a fixed, rational, and stable construct, but seen as decentered, fluid and changing. Identity in Any Ever seems to somehow exceed this understanding of postmodern identity to become a reflection of the very unstable and shifting identity of cyberspace, where identity is defined by words and action and not by body and place.72 The hardly differentiated characters in Trecartins can be read as different public personas or online avatars of the same person. In addition, there is a further blurring of the status of identity accentuated by occasional artists treatment of the subject as a conmodified product, and of personal relationships friendship or familiar as corporate relations, as in the case in K- CoreaINC.K (section a), where personal and corporate identities are indistinguishable North American Korea- You-See, lastnight WE- Bombed- OUR- Selves- again,,,,,,,WE- Bombed another ONE of - OUR- own Cities after WE- had Bombed the OTHER, ONE of -OUR- Selves-, ,,,,,,,,,,, 2Ballance OUR-Selves- OUT.73 Space and time connections are unclear, and there is no spatial fixity. Fast-paced jump-cuts switch through characters and settings, as if these were just one mouse-click away, inhabiting the collapsed distances of the Internet.74 Most of Trecartins work, in fact, reads as an enlarged virtual social space, where
71 Ibid., p. 21. 72 Martin Dodge and Rob Kitchin, Mapping Cyberspace, London, New York: Routledge 2001, pp.

23-24; 53.
73 Ryan Trecartin, K-CoreaINC.K (section a), script, http://www.ubu.com/ubu/unpub.html, 74 Warf, From Surfaces to Networks, p. 67.

accessed 23/12/11, p. 9.

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this ability to inhabit multiple realities at once keeps events in a confused and confusing simultaneity. Trecartin replicates the new readable visual syntax of multiple-frame images of the computer screen, with plenty of pop-up windows, inset screens and dated-looking texts and graphics scrolling through the screen (fig. 6). His scenes and screens stand like the multiple windows on a computer screen they may or may not be in relation to each other.75

Figure 6. Ryan Trecartin, Any Ever, Sibling Topics,2009, video still.

The lack of distinction between the real and the hyperreal in Any Ever can be interpreted as a case of Baudrillards simulacra, where reality has been replaced by copies without original, and it is no longer possible to distinguish reality from its simulation.76 As the poorly differentiated characters in a mix of costumes and make-up traverse unfixed locations, this vagueness of the division between the real and the hyper-real is accentuated by the words they utter.
Press 2009, pp. 193, 194.
76 Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, University of Michigan: The University of Michigan

75 Anne Friedberg, The Virtual Window; from Alberti to Microsoft, Cambridge, London : The MIT

Press 1994, pp. 1-13.

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Speech in Any Ever is a seemingly senseless mix of on-line slang, business, ads and entertainment lingo. The words are familiar, but their familiarity clashes with the absence of meaning, as seen in this sample of Mexico Koreas lines from K-CoreaINC.K (section a)s script MK: WOW WOW WOW Jessica, My inner-Dad, wants to move South America,,,,,,,,,,, And is this Part 3? Once the Platform is Finished And what if your Dumb Phone doesnt Receive me there, ,,,,, Cause your Such a Farmers Market! I sense Bie-Pass Surgery77

This increasing blurring of the boundaries between the virtual and the real results from the progressive virtualization of everyday life.78 Larger parts of our lives are spent in cyberspace as the Internet increasingly becomes the communication fabric of our lives, for work, for personal connection, for social networking, for information, for entertainment, for public services, for politics and for religion.79 This reality is not virtual , but a real virtuality because when our symbolic environment is, by and large, structured in this inclusive, flexible,
77 Ryan Trecartin, K-CoreaINC.K (section a), script, p. 23. The script itself shows an apparent

disregard for parts of speech, a heavy use of homophones and an unusual use of punctuation which make it resemble computer programming, texting, tweeting and online writing. Include 78 The term virtual can be understood in different ways. Its use to refer to computer-generated spaces came to be established in the nineties within computer terminology and information theory. This use of the word refers to objects or experiences without a physical existence, and in this sense, simulacral, whithout a referent in the real. The word is often mistakenly conflated with the digital. The concept of the virtual, however, has long been in use in the field of optics and has been a working concept in philosophy since the late nineteenth century. Virtuality understood this way is not a media-specific property but an ontological category that existed well before the digital age. Here, following Anne Friedberg, it will be understood as any representation or appearance (whether optically, technologically, or artisanally produced) that appears functionally or effectively but not formally of the same materiality as what it represents. (Source: Anne Friedberg, The Virtual Window, pp. 8-11). 79 Castells, Communication Power, p. 64.

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diversified hypertext in which we navigate every day, the virtuality of this text is in fact our reality, the symbols from which we live and communicate.80 Perhaps one some of Trecartins appeal lies in the way he presents this continuity of experience In Any Ever, we are looking at simulated spaces, yet there is something disturbingly real. Even though it is more comfortable to think of the virtual and the real as separate realms, Trecartin shows that human beings live in an experiential continuum, and do not experience cyberspace as a space removed and unconnected to the material space they inhabit.81 Aspatial globalization Trecartin works seem to reflect what for Castells are the two emergent forms of time and space around which the network society organizes itself the space of flows and timeless time. Space of flows refers to the possibility of simultaneity without contiguity. In Trecartins Any Ever, though physically apart, characters share a simultaneity created by the permanent connection through their phones or laptops. Timeless time is the time of the network society, where the sequential time of clocks is negated and the relationship to time defined by the use of information and communication technologies, compressing time through almost instantaneous transactions or through multitasking. Biological times are blurred by biotechnological advances, and logical social sequences are blurred

1996, p. 403.

80 Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, Cambridge (MA), Oxford: Blackwell Publishers 81 Dodge and Kitchin, Mapping Cyberspace, p. 32.

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by a random past-present-future order as in Web 2.0 hypertext.82 The space of flows is distinct from the space of places, where there is a contiguity of location, meaning, practice and function. In the space of flows, places receive their meaning and function from their nodal role in the specific networks to which they belong.83 Similarly, in Any Ever there is no clear past-present-future sequence and, like nodes on a network, the hardly differentiated characters seem to acquire their meaning from their relations to other characters, from their function as part of their network rather than from any inherent personal trait. Any Ever stands for a view of an integrated but shallow world made of a series of self- contained presents, a depthless simultaneity where history becomes impossible. Any Ever characters live in a global world, but what they inhabit is an aspatial globalization. As Doreen Massey states, from a world structured and preoccupied by history we have landed ourselves in a depthless horizontality of immediate connections. A world, it is said, which is purely spatial.84 This notion of a space without room for history is seen at its extreme in conceptions of a single global present, and is present in global media events, in references to the global village and perhaps in the propositions of an easy multiculturalism-across-the- continents in a host of advertising strategies.85

82 Web 2.0 is the term used to refer to technological advances in web technology that have

increased user interaction and made possible features such as blogs, wikis and social networking applications like Facebook and My Space. (Source: TechTerms, http://www.techterms.com/definition/web20, accessed 03/02/12). 83 Castells, Communication Power, pp. 34, 35. 84 Massey, For Space, p. 76. 85 Ibid., pp. 76, 77.

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The language of these advertising strategies feature strongly across Any Ever, sometimes as a reference, as loose words in the senseless script, and sometimes directly as in Roamie View: History Enhancement, where we are taken through a whole sequence of global corporate advertisement (fig.7).

Figure 7. Ryan Trecartin, Any Ever, Roamie View, 2009, video still.

Trecartins space seems flat though the space of Any Ever is constituted through interactions, these interactions occur within a sphere restricted mainly to young middle-class Americans. There is nothing to help us differentiate the location of British Korea from that of, say, Mexico Korea the decoration and furniture, both in the video and the gallery installation, have a deliberate generic recognizable Ikea look that, according to Trecartin, when repeated, lends the sets a cyber feeling (fig.8).86

86 Cliff Kuang, Meet Ryan Trecartin, Art's First Genius Of The YouTube Age,

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664522/meet-ryan-trecartin-arts-first-genius-of-the-youtube- age, accessed 02/01/12.

29


Figure 8. Ryan Trecartin, Any Ever, K-CoreaINC.K (section a), 2009, installation view.

This implies that Trecartin is equating cyberspace with a homogenized, indistinguishable space. The experience of globalization and cyberspace that he addresses, therefore, does not describe Generation Y as much as it describes American middle-class Generation Y. In this sense, it supports the views of those who maintain that cyberspace advances a homogenized, Americanized view of the world after all, English is the dominant language of cyberspace and it is the USA that dominate usage, contents, innovations and technical developments.87 To conclude, it is possible to say that Any Ever undoubtedly reflects a sense of space as it is now drawing as it does on globalization, the space of flows and the increasing role of the virtual in our lives and related questions of identity and embodiment. However, globalization as presented by Trecartin

87 Dodge and Kitching, Mapping Cyberspace, pp. 33, 34.

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seems more an exaggerated version of Masseys aspatial globalization than a truly spatial global experience that addresses power geometries. Even though the growth of interconnectedness may in fact be inevitable, the question remains as to what form this interconnectedness can take.88 To understand some of the issues (such as cyberspace for example) present in Trecartins work, a concept of space as relational is necessary, but a closer look into its interconnectedness reveals that the work does not fully explore the potentials of relational space. Any Ever videos may be freely available online, but the relationship between the art and the viewer both online and in the gallery remains unchallenged.
88 Massey, For Space, pp. 82, 83.

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Chapter 3 Relational space and artistic practice The spaces and times of representation that envelop and surround us as we go about our daily lives likewise affect both our direct experiences and the way we interpret and understand representations. 89 David Harvey If, as posited in the previous chapters, the present historical context and its salient features of globalization and networks imply a redefined sense of space and time, it would be reasonable to suppose that such a difference would evident in art theory and practice. This chapter addresses this supposition by taking a closer look at the relationship between contemporary understanding of space, representation and artistic theory and practice, and by exploring if and how art and art theory and criticism have responded to the changes in our understanding of space. As we saw in Chapter 1, the concept of relational/Leibnizian space was added as a category of space suitable to the description of contemporary space and to processes that define their own time-space. If a space is relational in this sense which in this chapter I will refer to as relational/Leibnizian to distinguish it from the use of the word to define relational aesthetics , it follows that this space is not a container where things occur or a static spatialization of events that occur in time. Relational space is instead a dynamic

89 David Harvey, Space as a Key Word, Paper for Marx and Philosophy Conference, 29 May 2004,

Institute of Education, London, http://www.scribd.com/doc/38910738/David-Harvey-Space-as- a-Key-Word, accessed 08/10/11, p. 9.

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sphere that does not pre-exist process, but it is constituted by it. There are recent trends in contemporary art that evidence a shift towards a relational/Leibnizian space in art practice, a reorientation towards the dynamic processes an art work creates and the relations it activates rather than with creating self-contained art objects. To understand these changes in practice in contemporary art, this chapter examines three different sets of ideas presented by critics who focus on this shift from different perspectives. Firstly, I will consider American scholar Miwon Kwons analysis of the relationship between work and site through the conceptual changes brought about by notions of site-specificity. Secondly, French critic Nicolas Bourriauds attempts to define trends in 1990s art through the concept of relational aesthetics and his ideas around the impact of globalization and digitization, as expressed in his concept of the radicant, are examined. Finally, American academic Grant Kesters model of Dialogical Aesthetics, which tries to lay the ground rules for evaluating Littoral or engaged art practices, will also be considered. A detailed account of these three models is not possible within the limitations of this thesis. This chapter, therefore, focuses on a brief overview of each model and specifically on the implications for the understanding of space within artistic practice. When considering these three models, it is important to bear in mind that they do not try to comprehend the totality of contemporary art practice, but to address new trends within it.

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Discursive sites In One Place After Another: Notes on Site Specificity, Miwon Kwon traces a history of how art relates to the idea of site since site-specificity emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s during the beginnings of Minimalism, on to current site-oriented practices.90 In the late 1960s, artists began to tighten the relationship between a work and its site, letting the topography of the site determine the work (fig. 9). As stated by Kwon, the space of art was no longer perceived as a blank slate, a tabula rasa, but a real place(italics in the original).

Figure 9. Daniel Buren, Il sagit de voir des bandes verticales blanches et vertes, October 1968, (work in situ), green and white paper on door, Galerie Apollinaire, Milan.

85-110.

90 Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another: Notes on Site Specificity, October 80 (Spring 1997), pp.

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Art tried to relocate meaning from within the art object to the contingencies of its context and to restructure the subject from an old Cartesian model to a phenomenological one of lived bodily experience.91 In my opinion, this clearly describes a change in arts understanding of space that entails a shift from absolute space, or space as a blank slate or container to be filled, and the Cartesian division between body and mind towards a space defined by relations. During the 1970s, artists began to critique the art institution and its workings, and focus shifted from the physical dimensions of the site to the cultural dimensions of location. The starting point for works was initially in the physical conditions of the exhibition space, but later it moved to the socioeconomic relations within which art and its institutional programming find their possibilities of being.92 There is a progression, then, in the dematerialization of the site, concurrent with a de-aestheticization (i.e., withdrawal of visual pleasure) and dematerialization of the art work.93 The work is no longer conceived as a noun/object but as a verb/process. Nowadays, though, institutional critique is no longer a dominant issue. Contemporary site-oriented art turns instead to the search of a deeper engagement with everyday life outside the art institution, including in its cultural critique non-art spaces, institutions and issues.94 Art and non-art boundaries are blurred. Site-oriented works now occur in any kind of space parks, zoos, hotels, houses, supermarkets, television, Internet, the woods, etc. Additionally, site- oriented works currently draw on a larger set of disciplines (urbanism,
91 Ibid; p. 86. 92 Ibid., p. 89. 93 Ibid., p. 91. 94 Ibid., p. 91.

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geography, anthropology, sociology and psychology to name a few), and are sharply attuned to popular discourses (such as film, television, fashion).95 The crucial feature of these works, however, is for Kwon the fact that both the site of actual location and the site of institutional social conditions are subordinated to a discursively determined site that is delineated as a field of knowledge, intellectual exchange, or cultural debate.96 This new notion of site further differs from earlier ones in that it does not conceive the site as a precondition, rather, it is generated by the work (often as content), and then verified by its convergence with an existing discursive formation [], a theoretical concept, a social issue, a political problem, an institutional framework [], even particular formations of desire, are now deemed to function as sites (all italics in the original).97 Kwon identifies a further type of site-oriented practice emerging. These are works that understand the site as a trajectory, an itinerary a discursive site that exist between sites, structured as an itinerary rather than a map. In this case, the passage of the instigator-artist articulates a nomadic narrative composed of actions and events through spaces, as in American artist Mark Dions On Tropical Nature.98 According to Kwon, in the present context of deterritorialization generated by globalization, at a time when life is commonly described as a network of unanchored flows, it seems logical for the notion of site to become unhinged 95 Ibid., p. 92.
96 Ibid., p. 92. 97 Ibid., p. 92. 98 Ibid., p. 95.

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from the physical and empirical realities of place.99 These changes in the understanding of site described by Kwon evidence, in my view, a progressive and increasing focus on a relational/Leibnizian conception of space, where site is not pre-existent but entirely defined by the process. Relational aesthetics and the radicant In 1992, the New York-based Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija moved his kitchen into a New York gallery and cooked Thai curry for the visitors. The work, called Untitled (Free) (fig. 10), involved several days of continuous cooking. He had also relocated all the gallerys back-office materials to the front of the exhibition

Figure 10. Rirkrit Tiravanija, Untitled (Free) (recreation) at David Zwirner Gallery, New York, 2007.

99 Ibid., p.108.

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room. The work was completed only once the visitors had a share of the food.100 Tiravanija known for including the phrase lots of people in the description of materials comprised by his works is one of the artists Nicolas Bourriaud most often refers to in the essays collected in his book Relational Aesthetics.101 Bourriaud defines relational aesthetics as a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space.102 Bourriauds definition of this trend in art is based on what art of the 1990s looked like. To elaborate, in a world where social bonds are standardized into monitored interactions through electronic media, where the communication superhighways threaten to become the only means for humans of getting from one point to another, artistic practice offers, as he puts it, a rich loam for social experiments, like a space partly protected from the uniformity of behavioural patterns.103 Interaction, inter-subjectivity and social relations are defining

characteristics of relational art. The formal display is no longer something to be walked through and owned as a collector would, but it is presented as a period of time to be lived through, like an opening to unlimited discussion.104 Meaning is thus a collective elaboration.105Relational art, Bourriaud adds, may be able to

100 Catalogue text from the exhibition Perfomance Anxiety, April 19-July 6, 1997. Museum of

Contemporary Art. Chicago, Illinois, web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/rirkritmca.pdf, accessed 19/01/12. 101 Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, Dijon: Les Presses du rel 2002. 102 Ibid., p. 113. 103 Ibid., pp. 8, 9. 104 Ibid., p. 14. 105 Ibid., p. 15.

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elude alienation, the division of labour, the commodification of space and the reification of life.106 Tiravanijas Untitled (Free) satisfies some of these criteria, but it is not

very clear how it eludes alienation, the division of labour and the reification of life, as arguably most of the visitors were like-minded art lovers. As art critic Claire Bishop points out in her article Art of the Encounter: Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, Bourriaud seems to assume that all forms of dialogue are good and does not examine the quality of the relationships generated.107 Bourriauds concerns, however, are not with exact and contextualized

analytical models, but rather with observations of the present situation in the (art) world. In this respect, his recent publication The Radicant offers some interesting insights.108 In The Radicant, Bourriaud states that capitalism and its current and

unquestionably dominant form, globalization, have completed their project of uprooting, by replacing local codes with flows of capital that delocalize the imagination and turn individuals into labour power. As in Baudrillards simulacra, signs float aimlessly no longer anchored by history or linked to a reality. A return to the root is no longer possible, all that is left is the assignment of an identity.109 The immigrant, the exile, the tourist and the urban wanderer are the dominant figures of contemporary culture, these behave as radicants the botanical family of plants, such as strawberries or couch grass, that are not
106 Nicolas Bourriaud, 'Berlin Letter about Relational Aesthetics', in Contemporary Art: From

Studio to Situation, Claire Doherty (ed.), London: Black Dog Publishing 2004, p. 48.
107 Claire Bishop, Art of the Encounter: Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, October 108 Nicolas Bourriaud, The Radicant, New York: Lukas and Sternberg, 2009. 109 Ibid., pp. 47, 48.

(Cambridge, Mass.) no. 110 (Fall 2004), p. 51-79.

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anchored to a specific soil but develop roots as they advance.110 The word radicant and its dialogical and dynamic connotations suit the description of the contemporary subject, a subject that has become an object of negotiation, caught between the need for a connection with its environment and the forces of uprooting, between globalization and singularity.111 Globalization and the living conditions it creates, Bourriaud claims, call

into question modes of representation namely, globalization disintegrates the relations between representation and abstraction , globalization substitutes its logos, organization charts, formulas and recordings for local singularities.112 As in Trecartins Any Ever, signs circulate more than the forces that animate them113. Reality slips away and reappears in the shape of logos and flows of capital and information that elude representation. The role of art, then, is to detect and embody these furtive forms so that they can be named and represented.114 This new relationship between representation and abstraction can be

seen, for example, in Julie Meheretus paintings (fig. 11), where diagrammatic and infographical forms reveal the structure of a political reality and describe a space that cannot be separated from movement or time.115

110 Ibid., p. 51. Bourriaud ideas here strongly reference Deleuze and Guattaris original concept of

the nomad, who unlike a migrant does not go from point to point, but has his way of being in in-between. (Source: Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 380). 111 Ibid., p. 51. 112 Ibid., pp. 57,58. 113 Ibid; p. 42. 114 Ibid; p. 59. 115 Bourriaud, The Radicant, p. 59, and Nigel Thrift, Space, in Theory, Culture and Society, Sage Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, Vol. 23(23), May 2006, pp. 141, 142.

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Figure 11. Julie Mehretu, Ruffian logistics, acrylic and ink on canvas over panel, 168 x 306 cm, 2001.

Migration, global nomadism, hyper-mobility make the environment of globalization unstable and volatile, and artistic production now occurs in a context of precariousness. Stability is becoming the exception, everything is constantly changing and being updated, short-term experience is overtaking the long-term in a world [] governed by the inaccessible mechanism of an economy that, like science, is developing in a state of complete autonomy with respect to lived reality.116 Dialogical aesthetics Grant Kesters dialogical aesthetics reformulates the concept of relation into a concept of dialogue with the aim of providing a framework for Littoral art, i.e., engaged art practices with an emancipatory objective. The literal meaning of the
116 Ibid., p. 80.

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word littoral is on or of the shore. The littoral then is an in-between space, a point of complimentary meeting. Littoral art is art seen as a medium for the discussion with social reality.117 Thus, it can be said that littoral works mobilize the site as a discursive narrative and share some aspects with relational works. Kester sees the recent art practices centered on the construction of new social networks and collective social interaction as a result of a need to redefine the collective. This need comes from a reaction to the shrinking of the public sphere implemented by dominant neoliberal discourses and their privatizing drive.118 In 1994, plans for a housing and offices development in the Hafenstrasse harbour area of Hamburg, Germany were stopped by the efforts of the Hafenrandverein (Harbour Edge Association) and the Park Fiction project. Initially funded as an 'art in public space' project, the Park Fiction project managed to set a parallel and participatory planning process with the Hafenstrasse neighbours that resulted in the place officially becoming a public park in 2005.
118 Ibid., p. 3.

117 Grant Kester, Dialogical Aesthetics: A Critical Framework for Littoral Art, Variant 9 Winter

1999/2000, http://www.variant.org.uk/9texts/KesterSupplement.html, accessed 13/01/12.

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Park Fictions strategies included the organization of events in the park, a 'planning container' that collected residents' wishes both on site and around the neighbourhood, a film and a game about the planning process (fig. 9). Additionally, the project was given visibility by being presented at international art and music events such as Documenta 11.119

Figure 12. Park Fiction in Hafenstrasse, Hamburg, August 2011.

When presented at events such as Documenta, Park Fiction took the form of documentation of their on-going process. Littoralist work, according to Kester has to be considered as process as well as product. Process in this kind of art is anchored in a discoursively-mediated encounter, where the positions of the artist and the viewer or subject are open to potential transformations by a dialogical relationship that breaches traditional roles. It is with this negotiation and exploration of discursive inter-relationships that littoralist art is

119 Park Fiction, http://www.spatialagency.net/database/park.fiction, accessed 21/01/12.

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concerned.120 Accordingly, Park Fiction was not concerned with aesthetic value, but with the modes of interaction set in motion by the project.121 Tiravanijas work is also about communication, yet, as Kester points out, by imposing the formal or spatial motif (dinner-at-the-gallery-space in the case of Untitled (Free)), the artist is limiting dialogue and communication in favour of self-expression. Participation in Park Fiction, by contrast, is more open-ended and does not remain essentially choreographed or staged, as do Untitled (Free) and many other works described as relational by Bourriaud.122 One of the strengths of Dialogical art, according to Kester, resides in its capacity to transgress existing categories of knowledge.123 The traditional relationship between art and viewer is called into question by works such as Park Fiction. Littoral works do not require veneration or discomfort from an observant viewer; rather, they operate on immersive interaction.124 Littoral art, no longer based in the object, requires a different locus of judgment. This locus, says Kester, can be found in the condition and character of dialogical exchange itself. The practices and works that Kester addresses and the manner of evaluating them that Kester proposes are characterized by the fact that littoral art has an emancipatory objective. This is not necessarily the case with the works discussed by Kwon or Bourriaud. However, what these works do have in

120 Kester, Dialogical Aesthetics, p. 3. 121 Autonomy, Agonism and Activist Art: An Interview with Grant Kester, Mick Wilson, College

Art Association Art Journal (Fall 2007). 2009, p. 114.

122 Ibid., pp. 111, 112. 123 Kester, Dialogical Aesthetics, p.3. 124 Grant Kester, Wazungu means White Men: Superflex and the Limits of Ethical Capitalism,

www2.rgu.ac.uk/subj/ats/.../Wazungu_means_White_Men.pdf, accessed 13/01/12, p. 6.

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common is that they seem to embrace a dominant strand of contemporary art practice namely that which employs dialogue and participation to produce event or process-based works rather than objects for passive consumption.125 Within this strand, aesthetic value is no longer a central concern, and, as Kwon mantains, the work is no longer conceived as a noun/object but as a verb/process.126The traditional roles of the artist and of the viewer are also often redefined. In the case of the viewer, in favour of a more phenomenological or active engagement. In the case of the artist, towards a more multidisciplinary engagement concerned with process and dialogue instead of the production of self-contained objects. All this points to contemporary art responding to present changes by creating spaces that are Leibnizian/relational rather than absolute.
125 Claire Doherty, The institution is dead! Long live the institution!

Contemporary Art and New Institutionalism, www.situations.org.uk/media/files/Engage.pdf, accessed 18/01/12, p. 1. 126 Kwon, One Place After Another, p. 91; Kester, Autonomy, Agonism and Activist Art, p. 114; Bourriaud, The Radicant, p. 85. NB: Bourriaud does not talk about de-aesthetization but of a precarious aesthetic regime.

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Conclusion Renaissance space implicated notions of space as a surface to be conquered, where distance could be surveyed and controlled by the eye and easily translated into coordinates. Contemporary space, increasingly shaped by cyberspace and networks of flows, can hardly be translated into stable coordinates. Even if coordinates are a form of relation, that relation in Renaissance space seemed to be linear and stable. An understanding of space at the moment, by contrast, takes change and flux as the norm, and calls on the non- linear structures of the network to articulate many of its constructs. In addition, the focus is on the relations themselves, in the in-between spaces of dialogue and process, rather than in the origin or result of the relation. Renaissance space conceived of the planet as full of new territories to be

discovered, and found absolute space suitable because of its capacity for measuring, mapping and defining private property. The network society lives in a planet that keeps shrinking as we zoom in and out of Google Earth satellite images, where there are no undiscovered places.127 In fact, the only space that is now sometimes referred to as the new frontier is the space of the Internet, in a discourse that has striking similarities to the discourse of conquest of the American West.128 Paradoxically, while culture now seems to be moving away from the

seventeenth-century Cartesian conception of the division between mind and

127 Bourriaud, The Radicant, p. 18. 128 see Turul lter, The Otherness of Cyberspace, Virtual Reality and Hypertext, in Virtual

Reality, Jae-Jin Kim (ed.), InTech Open Access books, online publications, 2011, http://www.intechopen.com/articles/show/title/the-otherness-of-cyberspace-virtual-reality- and-hypertext, accessed 08/12/11 and Mapping Cyberspace, p. 33.

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body, cyberspace can be seen as an actualization of this divide our cyber persona being controlled by a mind outside that space.129 Furthermore, although Euclidean notions of space became increasingly inadequate to describe the connections created by the networks of flows of goods and capital, most of the artificially constructed environments in cyberspace Virtual Reality environments in particular , strive to reproduce Euclidean spaces, even though, being a deliberate construct, these spaces have a choice of a variety of approaches. In art practice, this new paradigm of space results on a proliferation of participatory works and process-based works that engage with areas of symbolic production outside art. I would like to suggest that, perhaps, this blurring of the boundaries between art and non-art disciplines parallels the blurring of the virtual and the real. Elizabeth Grosz proposes the virtual is not a pure, self- sufficient realm with its own fixed features and characteristics. Rather it is a relative or differential concept whose status as virtual requires an actual relative to which its virtuality can be marked as such.130 As (real) virtuality encroaches over everyday reality, art traditionally the domain of representation and hence the virtual responds by encroaching over the real. This is only a supposition, but the fact remains that as the boundaries of art itself are being redrawn in the face of an increasing fluidity between art and areas traditionally outside its realm, new forms of criticism and theory that also draw on multidisciplinary

129 Elizabeth Grosz, Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space, Cambridge,

London: The MIT Press 2001, p. 85 and Perez Gomez and Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge, pp. 379, 380. 130 Elizabeth Grosz, Architecture from the Outside, p. 76.

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approaches may be required, as well as new criteria for judgment and a redefinition of the aesthetic autonomy of art.131 Contrasting to linear perspectives unifying capacity, the present vernacular visual language on which Trecartin heavily draws has come to be characterized by simultaniety, fragmentation and multiplicity and poses a shiftable sense of space and time.132 The figure of the network, with its multiple and open-ended connections permeates this language. The network, however, does not necessarily have to entail fragmentation; networks can, on the contrary, create reconnection, as evidenced in the recent trend towards works such as Park Fiction. In terms of space, this could mean the possibility of evaluating works in terms of linkages and complexity rather than autonomy, of looking at the quality of the relations operating in the spaces in-between rather than at the terminal points. A work that treats space as the static opposite of time will be missing the multidimensionality of works and practices that treat space as a dynamic concept, always in process [] never a closed system, a contemporaneous existence of a plurality of trajectories; a simultaneity of stories so-far. 133 If much has been written about the loss of a historic sense during postmodernism, the choice as to whether speed and simultaneity annihilate also space is a present one.134

131 Grant Kester, Wazungu means White Men, p. 4. 132 Anne Friedberg, The Virtual Window, p. 3. 133 Doreen Massey, For Space, pp. 9-12. 134 Ibid., p. 78.

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