Altermodernity: A Postcolonial(s) Constellation

S. B. Innes (2011)

Its the journey that creates us as we become the frontiers that we cross -Salman Rushdie.i

For visual artists, postcolonial theory and history is important for an accurate understanding of the social and cultural temporality of late modernity (Enwezor, 232) and can contribute to positive attitudes regarding the temporaneous nature of Contemporary art today. I would like to intertwine themes within postcolonial discourse such as the Western penchant for classification, strategic motivations, domination, and the shaping of linear histories through the control of borders to ask, Is Bourriauds notion of Altermodern totalising and reductive of a naturally diverse landscape, or does it identify a heightened awareness of a dynamic system which has always existed? In aiming to challenge and revise forms of domination past and presentpostcolonial discourse provides a field in which to cross-culturally criticise the effects of historicised imperial aggression, colonial rule and decolonisation. It allows us to consider such terms and issues as: the other, racism and race relations, stereotypes ambivalence as a discursive strategy of discriminatory power (Bhabha, 66)- globalisation and global relations. Postcoloniality, as defined by Klor de Alva, is an oppositional consciousness emerging from either pre-existing colonial or ongoing subaltern relations (Bush, 51) and, as an intervention into the realm of Western knowledge production, it paves the way for focus on the credentials of postcolonial intellectuals (Bush, 54). Significant literature towards postcolonial theory includes Bill Ashcrofts, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (1989), as well as Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (1978) by Edward Said which questions the underlying assumptions that form the foundations of Orientalist thinkingand Nation and Narration (1990) by Homi Bhabha -both of which practice an intellectual discipline bound up in deconstruction and Lacanian psychoanalysis.ii Post-colonial literatures major feature is concern with place and displacement; which in turn includes
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concerns about the crisis of identity due to dislocation or cultural denigration as well as linguistic alienation that results from imperialism.iii Historical problems, related to the acquisition of knowledge and Western classification and analysis,1 have formed the basis of questions of inclusion and exclusion in Museums and academies, and can affect the judgement, production and reception of art works. The first phase of postcolonial theory didnt engage with the ambivalent condition of the colonial aftermath [its history and motivations. Instead it focused on] discursive and textual production of colonial meanings and, concomitantly, to the consolidation of colonial hegemony (Gandhi, 64-65). Later theory, such as that of Said, would give attention to the violence of imperialism and elaborate an understanding of imperialism and colonialism as an epistemological and cultural attitude rather than a simple act of accumulation and acquisition (Said, 1993). Said, as a founding figure of postcolonial theory, was influenced by such figures as Noam Chomsky, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault and Antonio Gramsci. Chomsky, who asked In whose interests is history being shaped?iv developed a propaganda model as a framework for analysing and understanding how the mainstream U.S. media work and why they perform as they do(Herman & Chomsky, 1988).v Its place within debates on media bias tends to lead to suggestions that the media serve[s] antidemocratic ends (Herman & Chomsky, 1988). In "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media", we are presented with the facts on how the media controls the selection of topics, balances the distribution of concerns, frames issues, bounds debates through time limits- and basically filters information through determining, selecting and shaping in order to serve the interests of dominant elite groups in society. It is through such mediums as mass media that stereotypes of a fixed ideological construction may be disseminated repetitiously and combined with peoples assumptions and/or general ignorance, contributes to an unreality where ambivalence central to the stereotype- becomes an active discursive and psychical strategy of discriminatory power2.
1

In Orientalism, Said suggests that to answer the way the East was won, we should reconsider some of the ways in which the East was known. (Gandhi, 67-68). 2 []it is the force of ambivalence which gives the colonial stereotype its currency [] Yet the function of ambivalence as one of the most significant discursive and psychical strategies of discriminatory power
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Systems of power produce, and sustain discourse the problem is not simply changing peoples consciousness whats in their heads but the political, institutional regime of the production of truth. (Foucault 1980). (Bush, 51).

Edward Said challenged foundations of Western knowledge in Orientalism. He argued that the word itself connoted the prejudice and reductive outsider interpretations of Eastern cultures and people, presenting them as an exoticised other for Western delectation. In order to unmask the ideological disguises of imperialism (Gandhi, 67) Said drew on Antonio Gramscis model of hegemonic power cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining the capitalist state- and subaltern resistance the subversion of hegemonic powers of authority by colonised, oppressed, minority groups- and Michel Foucaults poststructuralist analysis of power directed to suppressing resistance (Bush, 51). Surpassing conventional notions, todays discourse which includes contemporary art works that combine historical perspective with contemporary observation- should demonstrate an awareness of systems of representation influenced by political forces and continue to contribute to established anti-colonial currents. A few artists that have concerned themselves with the effects of colonial projects and the crisis of identity include: William Kentridge, a South African animator who draws on the legacy of apartheid and colonialism; Yinka Shonibare, a Nigerian-English artist who explores colonialism and post-colonialism within the context of globalisation and whose artificial African-print-dandy-costumes raise questions of identity with immediacy; Wangechi Mutu, a Kenyan living in America who draws on her own immigrant experience to inform beautiful yet grotesque collaged images of women critiquing racial and gender identity and themes of deceit and display; Guillermo GmezPea, The Living Museum of Fetishized Identities (1999-2002), a performance artist born in Mexico, who founded an organisation intensely focused on the notion of collaboration across national borders, race, gender and generations as an act of citizen diplomacy and as a means to create transnational communitiesvithey hold performance workshops in a
whether racist or sexist, peripheral or metropolitan remains to be charted. K. Homi Bhabha, "The Other Question: Stereotype, Discrimination and the Discourse of Colonialism," in The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994).
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different country each year; Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui, whose central themes concern the erosion of inherited traditions by powerful external forces, the manner of their survival and transmission to the presentvii; Shirin Neshat, an Iranian who was exiled from her homeland during the Islamic Revolution, living in America and dealing with her sense of displacement by untangling the ideology of Islam through her artviii; Guan Wei, similarly displaced from his native China in 1989, sought to remind Australians of their colonial past specifically, Terra Nullius and the settlement that proceeded at great cost to the indigenous population- in his exhibition Unfamiliar Land (2006)ix. Within Australia, Gordon Bennett grounds his work in his personal struggle for identity as an Australian of Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic descent in order to present and examine a broad range of philosophical questions.x His Triptych: Requiem, of Grandeur, Empire (1989), uses themes of Jewish diaspora to parallel the invasion and dispersion of the first Australians. Tracy Moffat, who became the first Indigenous photographer to exhibit at the Australian Centre for Photography and enter museum collections in Australia, became renowned for her Something More Series (1989), where violence and sentiment minglesxi. Such work limelights unhealed wounds in Australias status as postcolonial. Its worth noting that although these artists share similar refrains regarding the negative effects of skewered perceptions and historical knowledge upon the construction of identity and culture their localities are widely varying global in fact. Considering few live where they were originally born, I wonder how wide an audience would be privy to their art or representative voices- if they were not part of the art world of western culture if they had never left their homelands. Peoples movements legal and illegal- have usually been dictated by cultural, political and economic powers. Besides exploiting and dispossessing the native indigenous inhabitants for economic gain, strategic colonialist settler projects have moved thousands of people from Europe into America, Asia and Africa. In 2007 a Columbian born artist, Doris Salcedo, drew on her personal experiences of racism as an immigrant to create without specifying how it was done- Shibboleth; a disruptive chasm stretching the length of the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern -an iconic museum of modern art. The space was fractured by a progressively deepening rupture that eventually divides, branching in different directions. After demonstrating an ability to multiply, its
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trenches continue under a nearby wall where wandering visitors tracing the division must come to an abrupt halt. As an inverted wall, the gap created divides the linear hall with increasing intensity, and partially contributes itself as the borders of a third worldthe final boundary being the wall of the hall itself. A unique aspect of the works title word, Shibboleth, lies in its historical use as a test word by an Israelite Judge to test the nationality of wayfarers near the Jordan.3 The locality of this reference is currently affected by Zionism -a more ambiguous form of colonialism- as Israelis without a mother country, under the pretext of being a national liberation movement, move to reinhabit their ancient homeland; which happens to involve the dispossession of Palestinians, their movement therefore becoming a colonialist project. Combined with a lack of safety barriers and the interactive gestures of looking down enacted by visitors to the site, the art works elements fuel connections and subversively promote discourse regarding unsound ideological foundations based on untold histories those of the marginalised, excluded and missing. The empty void within the disfigured space, animate with potential threat,4 was filled in and presently remains a discernable scar in the foundations of an authoritative modern institution. Rising from the historical breach that has opened up today within the context of contemporary art (Enwezor, 222), is the term Altermodern. Invented by Nicholas Bourriaud, the term was intended to herald and define the multiplicity and otherness of the event after postmodernism5 within the art world. He maintains that art exists not within borders but in everyday life, and that the aesthetic challenge of contemporary art resides in recomposing [the montage that is reality, so we can] realise alternative, temporary versions of reality, with the same material.(Bartholomew, 2009). Themes of crossing borders, travelling and exile -the experience of wandering- were to contribute to the Tate exhibition Altermodern (2009). Spearheaded by French curator Nicholas Bourriaud -author of Relational Aesthetics (1998)- the shared artistic and theoretical
3

Word used by Jephthah to test the nationality of wayfarers near the Jordan. In the Ephraimite dialect it was pronounced sibboleth and this enabled him to identify Ephraimites, with whom he was at enmity. Dan (ed) CohnSherbrook, "Shibboleth," The Blackwell Dictionary of Judaica(1992), http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode? query=shibboleth&widen=1&result_number=1&from=search&id=g9780631187288_chunk_g978063118728824_ss1370&type=std&fuzzy=0&slop=1. 4 There were several reported injuries by visitors to the installation.
5

Bourriaud used the death of postmodernism as the starting point for reading the present. (Bourriaud, 2009) Altermodernity: A Postcolonial(s) Constellation (2011) - Page 5 of 10

moment was a contrived reaction to a perceived rise in coexisting cultural strata -the mixing of local, traditional and global influences in art- towards a globalised state of culture6 that moreover sought to reject multiculturalist dogma7. Bourriaud appears to be an organic intellectual8 on the move and on the make, inventing terms, trying to define whats next, whats emerging- as well as cosmopolitan in the sense of being open to a global, diversified and dematerialised world (Becker, 3). Altermodern was not an exhibition to illustrate a theory but a process of collective thinking, an attempt to re-examine the present(Bartholomew, 2009). Bourriaud admitted in March 2009 that the definition was far from being complete. Global Feminisms: New Directions in Contemporary Art (2007), was an exhibition which similarly sought a nationwide re-evaluation in order to bring a story up to date, represent a global sweep and diversification and a timely assessment of advances made and obstacles remaining (Heartney, 155). Both exhibitions, posed with problematic titles, sought to reconsider historically placed institutional obstacles through a comprehensive survey of artists work. Terry Smith, in What is Contemporary Art?, identified three major currents within the flow of contemporary art. After mentioning the shaping of art by local, national, anticolonial, independent values within a postcolonial turn as one current, he describes a third current regarding the outcome of a generational change occurring as the first two have unfolded. Aspects of Smiths work which echo Bourriauds notions of an Altermodernity to come might include: less and less regard for fading power structures (the collapse of the monolith of Modernity); more concern for interactive potentialities (various material media, virtual communicative networks, open ended modes of tangible connectivity. (Smith, 2009)); artists seeking to arrest the immediate, to grasp the changing nature of time, place, media and mood today (time depicted in complex and multiple dimensions (Bourriaud, 2009)); artists seeking to raise questions
6

In response to this terminology being described as a new cosmopolitanism [] accessible to relatively few Bourriaud responded that, for artists like Pascale Marthine Tayou, born in Cameroon and living in Belgium, [] globalised state of culture is already a matter of fact: in every spot of the planet, you can see this new cultural stratus, coexisting with the layer of traditional culture and some local specific contemporary elements. (Bartholomew, 2009) 7 With its emphasis on difference and ethnic identities, multiculturalism constituted a new form of imperial divide and rule. In Australia and the United States, multiculturalism, critics argue, masks race realities, eases the liberal conscience and undercuts a more radical anti-racism to preserve the status quo [] (Bush, 57-58) 8 A notion developed in Antonio Gramscis Prison Notebooks. (Becker, 14) Altermodernity: A Postcolonial(s) Constellation (2011) - Page 6 of 10

of the nature of temporality (displacement as a method of depiction (Bourriaud, 2009)); and place-making vis--vis dislocation (Smith, 2009) (the artist as cultural nomad (Bourriaud, 2009)). In an attempt to loosely summarise the decreasingly Eurocentric contemporary art world in a climate of epistemological challenges, where universalised conceptions are fragile and modernisms historical conceit has been exposed (Enwezor, 214, 224, 214), a poetic reading of Untitled (Series#3) by contemporary artist Cleste BoursierMougenot9 yields themes of transition and temporality towards a vision of a population of nomadic hybrids. It materialises through sound- the slippage of memory after an encounter and from a distance, the mechanics of the archipelago of Alter-modernity Bourriaud describes. Various sized bowls, the proliferation of personal and cultural strata, floating, compose a series of constellations in motion. Mougenot, maybe inspired by John Cage10, considers music the medium through which humans most commonly experience the intangible and abstract. He combines the technical with the aesthetic and sensorial in order to amplify the feeling of the present moment and encourage viewers to witness their own present time.11 Intertwining prior themes of strategic motivations, hegemony, and the shaping of linear histories through framing and controlling borders and coupled with the Western penchant for classification, one might be led to assume Bourriaud seeks to characterise and identify an art world in a way that frames -and arguably reduces- its heterogeneous nature into something more graspable for a patternistic thinker to wrestle future visions out of12. Bourriaud calls for us to acknowledging and embracing mobility, chaos and complexity is he talking to curators or artists? Have the latter not been doing this all
9

Untitled (Series #3) features with Index at EMPAC Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre, New York. Spring 2011. Retrieved from http://empac.rpi.edu/events/2011/spring/celeste/. 18/05/2011 at 2:48pm. 10 (191292) Musician, born in Los Angeles, California. An influential composer and a leading figure in the experimental art movements of the last half of the twentieth century, his compositions and ideas using chance, silence, and non-intentionality challenged the way music was made and heard. His work extended beyond music to the areas of dance, painting, art, philosophy, and Poetry. FLEMING, RICHARD. "Cage, John Milton." Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory. Payne, Michael (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 1997. Blackwell Reference Online. 18 May 2011 <http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/tocnode?id=g9780631207535_chunk_g97806312075356_ss1-1> 11 QAG. GoMA. Exhibition Review. Cleste Boursier-Mougenot. http://qag.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/current/21st_Century/artists/celeste_boursier-mougenot. Accessed 18/05/2011. 12 Much of what controls the world is hidden from direct view, so our minds have evolved to infer the existence of things we cannot see. One problem with linking cause and effect is that we can infer the actions of forces when there may be none, and the other is that we tend to link events that are not actually even related (Hood, 27). Altermodernity: A Postcolonial(s) Constellation (2011) - Page 7 of 10

along? Calling for a framework of a new modern movement based on heterochrony (wasnt universalising and labelling a period of time an action that produced repetitively- the canons of modern art?) [] and freedom to explore (as if our freedom was limited before), makes it sound like people are officially being relinquished of bonds. Is Bourriaud exposing the effects of mild alienation and disenchantment within his own environment? Perhaps the increasingly commercial nature of gallery museums, building alliances with businesses and internalising corporate models, is beginning to grate on its inhabitants?13 Its not so much a change in the style of art within galleries that curators are being asked to accept, but more a change in attitudes, namely how art is received. A conception of the form this attitude should take involves active inclusion an admittance of the guilt of prior exclusion. Perhaps, in our technologically advanced social networking, media age, weve been more privy to the proliferation of cultural strata in our major cities and remote areas, and this may be set to have positively healing effects after the way Sept 11 changed our psychological landscape. Bourriaud posits, we need to affirm the transitory, circumstantial nature of the institutions and the rules that govern individual or collective behaviour (Bourriaud, 2009), suggesting that artists have a social responsibility. Do artists as ethnographers and people with alternative techniques of learning and literacy make good archetypes of change? -drifting across disciplines and shape shifting according to interests as they dolike cultural hybrids becoming representatives of accessible forms of otherness. Highlighting the changing and more importantly for processing trauma- the temporality of our states in time and space. Artists manifesting themselves on their individual wavelengths (Bourriaud, 2009) through their participation in society, from unstable locations looking to indeterminate futures, can provide unique social services. By drawing deeply on personal experiences, artists can access commonly shared experiences and continue to provide refrains such as alternative records of history- towards social awareness and cultural evolution. Also, divorcing the identity of artists from their work is probably not a viable option towards the production of unpretentious meaning or representation.
13

Neo-liberal tenets like a roach infestation ignored by a landlord or council, whom tenants obligingly bare temporarily. Altermodernity: A Postcolonial(s) Constellation (2011) - Page 8 of 10

Whether Altermodern and its collection of refrains appeals to me or not, it has extended itself into my consciousness, through the dissemination of art theory in text across the transatlantic, and will remain an ideological construction that I may pass on to others. However, as a historical constellation that has been manifested through global discourse it is here to stay. It was not intended to impact contemporary art practice, nor do I think well see any visible changes. Artists will continue seeking and developing new trajectories whether critics or curators aptly name them or not. A sport is far more enjoyable when you are aware of its rules, and spectators take pleasure in seeing them exploited, bent and broken. Coining a new term when the historical clock and counters that have been set to zero, by the death of postmodernism (Bourriaud, 2009), may have merely ushered in the start of a new round in the same game with a fresh face.

Bibliography:

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Salman Rushdie. East West Toronto: Vintage Press, 1996. Havilah, Lisa. I am Not a Number or a Postcode. I am Not the Same as I was Last Year. This Moment Changed Me. Editorial in Diaspora. Artlink Vol 31 no 1. March 2011. ii Pitt- Postcolonialism. Pp. 151. See Catherine
iii

That imperialism results in a profound linguistic alienation is obviously the case in cultures in which a pre-colonial culture is suppressed by military conquest or enslavement. Bill Ashcrofts, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (1989) @ http://www.postcolonialweb.org/poldiscourse/ashcroft3f.html iv Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick, "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media," (Canada: The AV Channel Pty Ltd, 1992?). v See ibid.
vi vii viii ix x xi

Visual and Critical Studies. http://cca-viscrit.com/about/grad-lecture-series/fall-2009/guillermo-gomez-pena/ El Anatsui. October Gallery. http://www.octobergallery.co.uk/microsites/anatsui/ Time. Europe. Shirin Neshat. http://www.time.com/time/europe/photoessays/neshat/ Artlink. Guan Wei. Review by Robin Best. http://www.artlink.com.au/articles/2892/guan-wei/ NGV. Gordon Bennett. http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/gordonbennett/education/intro.html Collection Search. Australian Photography Collection. Tracy Moffatt. http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=148563