Contextual significance

Bourriaud's definition of 'Relational Aesthetics' undoubtedly draws on the precedents and grounds first explored by the fluxus artists and the performance and conceptual art of the 1960s and 1970s.

What is of interest to me is why this label "Relational Aesthetics" has emerged?

The purpose of art in the 1960s and 1970s was still embedded with utopian ideals and hope of cultural reformation. While the fluxus artists with their Fluxfests, Fluxfeasts etc explored many similar modes and concepts of Bourraud's 'Relational Aesthetic's, the difference lies in the initial intent of the artwork. The fluxus artists attempted to breach new modes of interactivity between art and life with the original and ultimate purpose of proposing cultural transformation. However, by the 1980s these naive utopian ideas had long been expelled and by the 1990s conviviality and human interactivity were being explored through art as ideas in themselves devoid of greater social motifs. As Bourriaud comments himself "it actually takes it a step further by postulating dialogue as the actual origin of the image-making process". The intention is no longer to suggest new perspectives but to examine and explore the crossroads of communication, interaction and exchange that exists between human relations.