Relational Power

"Essentially, though, the history of art can be read like the history of successive external relational fields, propped up by practices determined by the internal development of these fields. It is the history of the production of relations with the world, as publicised by a class of objects and specific practices.

Today, this history seems to have taken a new turn. After the area of relations between Humankind and deity, and then between Humankind and the object, artistic practice is now focused upon the sphere of inter-human relations, as illustrated by artistic activities that have been in progress since the early 1990s. So the artist sets his sights more and more clearly on the relations that his work will create among his public, and on the invention of models of sociability. This specific production determines not only an ideological and practical arena, but new formal fields as well. By this, I mean that over and above the relational character intrinsic to the artwork, the figures of reference of the sphere of human relations have now become fully-fledged artistic "forms". Meetings, encounters, events, various types of collaboration between people, games, festivals, and places of conviviality, in a word all manner of encounter and relational invention thus represent, today, aesthetic objects likely to be looked at as such, with pictures and sculptures regarded here merely as specific cases of a production of forms with something other than a simple aesthetic consumption in mind." (Bourriaud, 2002, p28-9)

'Invention of models of sociability... sphere of inter-human relations... all manner of encounter and relational invention' - Why does Bourriaud propose such overtness toward ideas/concepts that can determine artistic modal representations for social situational experience or interaction? The above large quoted citation, the conclusion to his introduction doesn't really determine the importance of why so called 'inter-human' relational systems of art (a production of relations) hold significance against art-objects, which he terms as 'a production of forms with something other than a simple aesthetic consumption in mind.' He does go on to typologies of suggested works that become prime examples for his argument of a 'Relational Aesthetic'. These examples of course validate his quite determined approach, the signification of these works tend to stress the direct relationship between artist and audience, in this case audience/attendee equates to participant and hence 'engagement'. These situational representations even though determined by the artist provide sites of collaboration and participation (sites of negotiation or interaction, even sites of equalizing the 'power relation' between the artist/viewer) regardless whether they the participant has had a hand from the inception to completion of the work - also regardless of whether they are situated in the gallery/museum or otherwise. The 'situational engagement' of these works become their primacy, the 'concept' – for the framework – ostensibly is the 'object' whereby the 'situational engagement' the site of inter-human relations can highlight both the subjective and objective inter-relations within specific areas of concern through engagement (emotive, psychological, social, cultural, technological, etc) of the art-work heightening the awareness, and the 'relational power' of the social individual per se.