Social
Spaces

I discovered this very interesting article about the meaning of Participatory Art and how it relates to concepts like space and time. Paul O’Neill - currently also investigating the art in public space landscape in Flanders – makes a difference between three stages of Participatory Art, being relational, social and durational art. While the first relates to what Bischop described as the authored tradition (expert vision), “social art” relates to a more community oriented and de-authored tradition (participatory vision). The third term “durational ” that O’Neill introduces is quite interesting. It gathers the first two terms in one concept (and in that way is able to go beyond a dichotomy) and adds one additional trait, namely time. Durational art produces “work” that keeps on generating social interactions after the artist has left the project site. This is of course very important when artists try to create work for a participatory culture (for more discussion around the concept of participatory cultures, join the discussion online, next wednesday!).

Durational projects, O’Neill stresses, have a good understanding about how different participants (like the public or commissioners) respond to a created artistic situation. They consider how art can be a participatory process that is not entirely autonomous and – at the same time – not overregulated. They think beyond triggering participation with “the public” and “the commissioner”, but want to engage various agents, like planners, developers and so on.

Plus, he states, these projects rethink the definition of participatory art. He discovers that most discussions around participation evolve too much around the space of art, being the experience of the public, the object and its relations. He therefore suggests to shift the attention to art’s duration, namely the goal to leave something behind that could not have been anticipated. “If duration involves being together for a period of time with some common objectives, then durational praxis is the specific quality of a new mode of relational and participatory practice. (…) By taking account of participation with art, and in art, as an unfolding and longer-term accumulation of multiple positions, engagements and moments registered in what we account for as the artwork, then we may be able to move beyond the individual participatory encounter of an eventful exhibition moment”.

He therefore also suggests to understand participation beyond the relation or encounter with an art work, but rather as a socialised process wherein various participants engage and co-produce, wherein negotiations with people and places are durational specific, without prescribed outcomes. He defines participatory art in terms of time and sees it driven by succession, continuity and sustainability, “rather than discontinuity in a unitary time and place”. “Participation is not only a form of co-production but also an end product in itself”.

The article: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2010-08-12-oneill-en.html

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