Questionnaire from David Goldenberg into Post Autonomous Practices
stbeck
Administrator
Posts: 40 Registered: 8.8. 2002 Status: Offline
posted on 1.10. 2005 at 18:32
David Goldenberg
Questionnaire from David Goldenberg Bureau of research into Post
Autonomous
Practices
How I propose the questions I outline below can be used
I want to use the questions I have outlined below as a starting point to
develop an on-going dialogue between those persons invited to take part in
a
dialogue into Post Autonomy between now and the event in October. As the
dialogue develops the questions and issues can be fine tuned, so that by
the
time the dialogue goes public we have a set of questions each person
thinks
is precise, tough and resilient enough to meet public scrutiny! I also
think
it would be useful that we all feel at ease developing a dialogue
between
each other and the issues are clearly in each persons mind.
Introduction
In the 1990¹s The German theorist and artist Michael Lingner introduced
the
term of ³Post Autonomy².
It is not clear how Lingner intended the term to be used, nor did he
propose
any clear definition nor did he expand his understanding of the term.
What we are left with is the term.
To date in order to flesh out the term it has been necessary to fall back
on
lingners texts and his sources primarily Luhmann, for many reasons this
is
an unsatisfactory approach.
Yet my attraction to the term from the outset is that it hints at one of
the
few, if only, plausible alternative models to the existing model, and it
is
this insight I want to pursue with research that opens out the notion of
Post Autonomy, and we do this understanding full well all the inherent
problems and dangers.
In order to pursue opening up the notion and terrain of post autonomy we
need to begin by locating different references to be able to do this.
Lingner¹s central thesis is that the interpretation and use of autonomy
used
to date is know longer useable but requires rethinking or reinventing.
Lingner has also suggested that there is a fundamental crisis inherent
in
the model of art, the 18th century capitalist model of art constructed
around the invention of the gallery and symbolic notion of autonomy
i.e.
the global art industry that we have inherited. Since the manner art has
taken since its inception is fraught with mistakes, errors and
fundamental
problems, it is plausible to look at developing a completely new model.
I am not entirely convinced by this interrogation of problems inherent
in
the fictional history of art, but I am interested in the potentiality of
developing a new model.
However, confronted by this monolithic model of a global art industry
the
obvious question here is ³is there an alternative?² And if there is a
realistic possibility of establishing a new model what would that model
look
like?
What is being questioned here is the body of Modernism itself those
issues
or aspects around which an understanding of modern art has cohered and
arrived into thinking.
What is also at issue here is whether there exists now a useable and
credible language, terms, tool kit to evaluate this body i.e. what we
find
within the art industry, along with its history and context?
That may sound obvious or simplistic, however with the collapse of
institutional critique, the role of criticism, the very crisis in a tool
kit
to analysis the body of art, the body of art now remains opaque and
invisible, there is not a picture of the art industry itself let alone a
global art industry!
That is not all, if we refer back to both lingner¹s and Luhmann¹s
interpretation of systems thinking to locate usable thinking tools then
we
are again faced by considerable obstacles at the outset Luhmann states
that the thinking that has been elaborated en-route to the formation of
the
society that we inherit, along with the mind set we use, along with its
culture, can be seen in retrospect to be transitional, and for that
reason
unusable for understanding the existing formation. If we accept this
thesis,
and for the purpose of this project I propose that we should, then the
key
tool box that Modernism has used, established around the Kantian edifice
of
concepts, along with the notion of autonomy, are inaccessible and no
longer
usable, we need therefore to locate new tools. If this is the case then
the
recent tradition of Conceptual art, and its derivative¹s, again are no
longer available to us!
Again if we accept lingners suggestion of translating visual Modern art
into
luhmann¹s system¹s theory then we move away from recognisable positions
and
functions and arrive in a radically different terrain where the
recognisable
roles of the artist, audience, curator along with the art work has
vanished.
If we take on board what I have outlined above - is it possible to
clearly
define the body of Modernism? What is this body? How do we evaluate it?
What
is its health? Is this the only body that has to be used? What other
models
are available?
However if we tie in the apparently blank or empty notion of post
autonomy
into the break with a euro centric global culture, and the welcome and
necessary break with a colonial and imperial history, along with the
fundamental changes proposed by a flegling new media practice, then this
term can be seen to not only make sense, since we are, whether we like
or
not, required to both rethink and reinvent how art takes place in the
future, it is absolutely necessary and unavoidable.
So instead of the sterile practice of interrogating what we know to be a
flawed system and tradition this notion allows the potential of
constructing
a real and new model.
However ambiguous the term I suggest that we can use this to our own
advantage -
