Felix Guattari discusses the role of art in the Socius. Art as reactionary and driven by social forces is a new development from the past of “art” driven by commerce and political maneuvering. Ranciere in turn analyzes the modes that art functions for its own means as well as social means. Both meanings gave me pause as to the depth and breadth of art as an experience as well as cultural product and the myriad forms that art takes in service and critique of the social environment. As art continues to move towards the mode of dialogue with the audience and explores whatever meanings and contexts are available, the significance as art to the interrelationship of social behavior becomes more and more integral and less a stand-alone work for purchase and private consumption.
Art that moves and plays in the realm of the audience and which requires said audience to be actualized, forms sublime questions in my mind of what is possible with art that moves beyond the realm of the static to be viewed by the static and toward the dynamic participated by the alive. Works that require dialog and interaction with other objects and other viewers become less literal and symbolic and more fluid and pregnant with an infinite amount of meaning that can expand and encompass the totality of each viewer’s experience and history.
As far as I can tell, there are many transformations in critical art but the only problem comes when no one is watching.
