Relational Aesthetics
Nicholas Bourriaud’s ‘relational aesthetics’ were extremely influential in my PhD thesis. After thinking again today about these, and about explaining what relational aesthetics are to others, I decided to post a short summary here to share my thoughts. For those not familiar at all with Bourriaud, he comes from a tradition of twentieth century French thought about art and society and is primarily concerned with the state of art in the present. As such his thought stems from what can be known about contemporary art through an experience of it, and the ideas that are generated by it. When I first read Bourriaud’s work I was impressed by how intuitive it seemed to me in terms of how I also thought about art. A frequent criticism of Bourriaud’s work is that he makes generalisations about history. It is true that he often does this, however the reason for this criticism is that his detractors believe that his conclusions are based on a misunderstanding of art history. I believe the case to be quite the opposite: Bourriaud feels happy to generalise about art history since he treats it as an afterthought in a discourse about contemporary art. For me this is a very refreshing position.
If this blog post interests you and you want to find the book, the reference is as follows:
Bourriaud, Nicholas, Relational Aesthetics, trans. by Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods (Dijon: les presses du réel, (1996) 2002).
Relational aesthetics considers the position of the listener or viewer of the work of art as paramount in its construction; they can be summed up in Bourriaud’s statement ‘relational aesthetics considers interhuman exchange as aesthetic in and of itself.’ Bourriaud uses this statement to summarise relational aesthetics in a later work:
Nicolas Bourriaud, Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprogrammes the World (Berlin: Lukas and Sternberg, 2005) (p. 3).
In my own research I have used the term ‘relational aesthetics’ to signify not only Bourriaud’s first theoretical work but the entire body of his writings. This is because I believe (and Bourriaud indicates in these later works) that his theoretical position does not change over the course of his writings but develops to take into account further developments in artworks, and to better explain them. For example, he briefly introduces the term semionaut in his first work, but it is not until almost ten years later that he goes into a larger amount of detail about the mechanics of creating art as a semionaut, and what this really means for the resultant artworks.
Bourriaud describes a relational art as, ‘an art taking as its theoretical horizon the realm of human interactions and its social context, rather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space.’ (p14) From this statement there are therefore three elements to be given consideration in order to define what constitutes a relational artwork: the ‘theoretical horizon’ of the artwork; its consideration or inclusion of the ‘realm of human interactions’, and the ‘social context’ in which these take place. All three are important. The ‘theoretical horizon’ takes into account the conceptualisation of the work, meaning that artworks which are related to, despite this never necessarily being an intention of the artwork’s creator, are not themselves relational; this aspect of Bourriaud’s definition implies that what is important is the consideration of, rather than the absolute certainty of the creation of, relations. The ‘realm of human interactions’ is much more broad than to simply indicate a kind of art in which the viewer or listener is invited to take part, despite many of the examples cited by Bourriaud in Relational Aesthetics involving a participatory element as part of the work. Indeed, Bourriaud is opposed to such a narrow definition, writing that, ‘[relational approaches] do not stem from a “social” or “sociological” form of art. They are aimed at the formal space-time constructs that do not represent alienation, which do not extend the division of labour into forms.’ (p82) Consideration of the ‘realm of human interactions’ therefore invites the possibilities not only for a kind of taking-part on behalf of the viewer or listener but also the inclusion of modes of human relationships in the material of the artwork. For example, on artworks which might induce a certain emotion in viewer or listener, Bourriaud explains that, rather than the experience of the emotion by the perceiver, ‘what matters is what is done with this type of emotion: what [the emotions] are steered towards, how the artist organises them among themselves, and to what intent.’ (p64) Finally the ‘social context’ of this ‘realm of human interactions’ is considered important since it defines the relevance of these interactions; it is not sufficient that the possibility for relations be created as a constituent part of the artwork, but it is also necessary that these relations be meaningful and relevant to the work’s perceivers.
This definition focuses on the existence of the artwork as constituted in the experience of the creator and the viewer or receiver, rather than its constituent material parts, as its main quality. Thus Bourriaud, recognising the variable and transitive nature of such a group of interrelations, describes art as ‘like an opening to unlimited discussion,’ (p15) and further comments on the autonomy of such a work by saying, ‘contemporary art is definitely developing a political project when it endeavours to move into the relational realm by turning it into an issue.’ (p17) Bourriaud claims that, ‘present day art shows that form only exists in the encounter and in the dynamic relationship enjoyed by an artistic proposition with other formations, artistic or otherwise.’ (p21) This has been important in my research, both in terms of music I produce as a composer and in the way I analyse other works, since it is exactly these kinds of forms which I am interested in creating and also identifying.
In terms of an approach to art, this means that interactions become the most important starting place. Bourriaud writes, ‘[a]s part of a “relationist” theory of art, inter-subjectivity does not only represent the social setting for the reception of art, which is its “environment”, its “field” (Bourdieu), but also becomes the quintessence of artistic practice.’ (p22) This ‘quintessence’ of artistic practice is demonstrated by Bourriaud to exist first and foremost in works which invite participation (so, before the participation has occurred), and thus participation can be considered to be one of their relational properties. For example, Bourriaud’s reading of the work of Cuban artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres focusses not on a theme of gay activism which could be understood by the recurring theme of the depiction of events from Gonzalez-Torres’ home-life with his boyfriend but on the cohabiting relationship between the two partners; something which is shaped by them as individuals and not by their sexuality, and is entirely separate from the relationships created between the artist and the perceivers who might take his sweets or his posters away from a gallery. (pp49-52) In this description of Gonzalez-Torres’ work as relational, Bourriaud concludes that, ‘the idea of including the other is not just a theme. It turns out to be essential to the formal understanding of the work.’ (p52) Further to this, Bourriaud goes on to conclude that although elements of participation might alert one to the relational nature of an artwork, ‘[w]hat nowadays forms the foundation of artistic experience is the joint presence of beholders in front of the work, be this work effective or symbolic,’ (p57) indicating that the relationship with art need not be a participatory one at all.
I’m happy to share my reading of this work since I believe that Bourriaud’s writings are under-appreciated and under-considered, particularly in contemporary aesthetic thought, and they are almost absent in musical discourse. One reason for this might be that he draws extensively on examples from contemporary visual art which many readers might not be familiar with. I certainly wasn’t when I first read the books and had to look all of them up. But I’m glad that I took the time, as these writing have been so influential in the way that I think about music, art, and aesthetics, and also in the way that I express myself in my own work.
