Projects 2003

Re/aktion

What role can art play as a public opinion in a crystallized public sphere, and as a critical factor in a global context without having an affirmative function within a given structure. Does art have to break its own boundaries to have an impact outside of an art context. Is the art sphere a possible point of departure of an act oriented, critical and maybe subversive public factor.

Fundamental concepts such as democracy, the public space, identity and community, freedom and power are central factors. Through multitude – which is an important aspect of an inevitable development in the 21. Century – all the above-mentioned concepts are questioned.

The aim of Re/aktion is among other things to discuss and investigate a notion of critical, contemporary art, of which the potential is not yet fully displayed and of which the conception is not yet defined. The focus is on the latency, potentiality and virtuality, appearing and expressed in experiments and in transitory, but decisive moments.

Activism is the consistency of oppositional manifestations on the terms of a democratic society as well as in a revolutionary excess. In relation to motivation, language, communication and ethics the conditions for the production of art and activism are both coherent and contrasting. Through differences and similarities a notion of art, with an impact on existing structures, is investigated.

The momentary and investigating characteristics of artistic as well as activist interventions is the basis for possible vertical ’attacks’ in the heart of contemporary society. The perception of momentary interventions in a specific local context will see the latency, potentiality and virtuality and can only produce hypothesis about the possible impact in a longer perspective.

Contemporary critical art exists in a gap of ideas, intentions and modes of production, which doesn’t belong within existing categories and which, for that reason, doesn’t have a given frame to act within. A gap of contemporary opposition - not situated linear in a continuous course, but aiming vertically in existing structures – can be said to exist between a political sphere and an art context.

Vertical ’attacks’ or ’twists’ can have an authenticity and a synchronism, which makes the statement and effect immediately intelligible for the perceiver, and which – despite of the dynamic emergence and disappearance – have the potential of being stored in a ’local consciousness’. Vertical ’attacks’ are breaks of continuity.

Is critical art a genre used as an intellectual public matter in a contemporary societal situation, where a purely aesthetical focus is the expression of a cultures acceptance and reflection of the inherent repressive nature of western culture. Is critical art an expression of an urgent commitment - the engagement of the artist towards the conditions of the surrounding society, or is it an admittance of the responsibility following posing statements, forming alliances and communicating in a global time.

The different perspectives of these questions reflect a paradox between popular culture on the one side and a critical engagement in the surrounding society on the other side. Attractive means of communication are juggled between relations such as object/subject, positive/negative, singular/common and between a focus on respectively form and essence. This paradox can also be traced in a political context between left- and write wings, where the same message or rhetoric can be used in reverse, with opposite signatures.

The impact of economic forces on art and culture are influencing the parameters of identification in a capitalistic society. The dominance of the market forces and the volume of the power of expansion in time and space influence relations on all levels of society. The affiliation, consciousness and identification of the single individual are results of the primary status as consumer and not citizen.

It can be argued that in the gap – where one can operate vertically, detached from a continuity – exists a potential for the production of critical action and thinking. In a gap a detached consciousness can exist, that does not provide actions with a ’familiarity’ or a reference. In this gap acting and thinking is therefore not seen as affirmative towards given norms and conventions.

It is always necessary to relate to all aspects of society - to tendencies as well as fundamental conditions - in a critical and reflective manner. A reflective gap or ’in-between’ is a position placed in transverse to order and continuity and a potential ground for the redefinition and forming of opinions and new structures, of consciousness.

In a chaotic context the ’transverse’ has to insist on linearity, go against by straightening. Re/aktion assumes that the ruling order is dominated by symmetric and hierarchical structures; in these circumstances the transverse critic has to operate from within flat, decentralized structures and with a ’chaotic’ and manifold expression.