Kestner's Dialogical art and Wochenklauser

Dialogical Art, according to Kestner involves the shift from the idea of the aesthetic tied to a moment of 'creative plenitude.." to a social and discursive realm of shared dialogue. Instead of a notion of art which is tied to a future Utopian community Dialogical Art suggests the possibility that art is able to enact a community here and now.

Kestner is interested in artists who work outside the traditional institutional frameworks of galleries and art Institutions and sets a historical framework from which dialogical art draws its influences. Kestner cites artists such as APG and Helen and Newton Hanson - artists working since the 1960's and 1970's - as important precursors to current Dialogical practice and who were interested in the durational and dialogical and whose practice of collaboration and consultation was derived from the aesthetic.

Kestner is interested in developing an analalytic framework for dialogical art - " a Dialogical Aesthetic". In particular, a notion of art through its function as a democratic space within contemporary culture and the aesthetic analysis of works according to their characteristics - a critical time sense, a spatial imagination - and achieving these through a dialogical and collaborative encounter with others.

The outcome of emancipatory insights through this dialogue is of utmost importance. Thus, the emancipatory model of dialogical interaction - a process of open-ended discourse - is itself the work of art. Kestner calls for a more nuanced account of the resulting dialogue and the recognition of the work of art as the process of communication and collaboration rather than a fixed object. He cited the Austrian group Worchenklauser as following in the tradition of previous avant-garde artists who sought to challenge the perceptions of the viewer yet differ dramatically in their conception of the relationship between the viewer and the work of art.WK see the work of art as " a decentering, a movement outside self through dialogue extended over time". WK see themselves as following in the tradition of The Situationists, APG and Joseph Beuys yet differentiate themselves as capable of producing 'concrete interactions' which produce a pragmatic outcome. They are not concerned with changing the world but are more interested in the use of the 'potential of art to manipulate social circumstances and employ concrete strategies of effecting change'.Their interventions are based on ideas from the discourse of art - the capacity to think critically and creatively across boundaries, and the facilitation of unique forms of discursive interaction.