People Matter: Relational Aesthetics, Choreography and Service Design by Daniel Kok

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Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

PEOPLE MATTER: RELATIONAL AESTHETICS, CHOREOGRAPHY AND SERVICE DESIGN By Daniel Kok

In

this

essay,

attempt

to

bring

together

notions

pertaining to interactivity and audience that have gained currency within discourses of the visual arts, dance and design in recent years. In highlighting similarities and points of connection, what were hitherto disparate

disciplines begin to overlap and appear to share mutually informative concerns that might generally have been taken for granted.

Consequently, strategy that

wish

to

determine adapts the

choreographic of

consciously

methodologies

service design, a young branch of design studies that emerged in the 1990s, and propose a seemingly pragmatic dance practice premised on systems able to qualitatively, even quantitatively facilitate rich experiences for the audience.
---

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

INTRODUCTION Relational aesthetics as espoused by Nicholas Bourriaud since 1998 has evolved into an ism of art history over the last decade. Still the hot topic du jour, a quick search of the term on the Internet today, will show up an exhaustive list of articles that debate and ponder over its efficacy. been However, usage of the nomenclature into has

already

extensively

adapted

creative

disciplines beyond that of the visual arts; such as in architecture, aesthetics design, its theatre and dance. notions Relational of inter-

and

accompanying

subjectivity, inter-textuality, interactivity, community and democracy, to name just a few, have resonated with creators championing a more equitable as well as more politically engaged experience for the end-user in the information age.

The

shift

of

emphasis

from

authorship

to

audience

is

relevant to the production and consumption of not just art but goods and and services in general. In a bid to

realign

improve in their

relationships respective

among

different other

stakeholders

communities,

contexts such as business and leadership management have

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

begun to explore relational aesthetics as a practicable philosophy. Bourriaud himself has considered relational aesthetics as a response to the wider cultural context of the service-based economy.

The

ostensible

intertwining

of

contemporary

artistic

production with the service industries requires closer consideration. exigency ideas, for new If innovative today breakthroughs and the search and art are for is of new an

businesses tactics

through

design

expectedly profitable next-step, the same does not go the other way around. However obvious its affiliation with economics has become, the art world remains more or less resistant to capitalistic thinking, preferring to see

itself as an alternative voice of society and to maintain a critical distance from general polity. The two milieus art and economics - remain uncomfortable bedfellows, at least from the perspective of the art world. ---

1 THE INFINISHED PROJECT OF RELATIONAL ART To begin with, relational art has been described as an anti-capitalist response to dominant forces in the wider

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

economy. Rirkrit Tiravanijas cooking in the art gallery for example, serves as a framework for interactive exchange is

encounters

whereby

egalitarian

social

conceived as a collectively performed action that then creates a temporary microtopia. This presumably

constitutes an interstice to commodity culture in the sense that the democratic consumption of art serves as an end in itself. Beyond the social interaction that

results, relational art intends to sell nothing.

Yet, critics of relational aesthetics have suggested that beyond a perfunctory nod at socialism, relational

aesthetics can be read as simply an aestheticized, novel form Claire of capitalist Bishop, exploitation. others, Stewart have Martin and the

among

questioned

political positions claimed by relational art.

The art theorist, Stewart Martin is especially sceptical about social relational exchange aesthetics as a means conviction to subvert in initiating to

subjection

capital. On the contrary, he has argued that relational aesthetics helplessly reverses into an aestheticisation of capitalist exchange by exploiting social interaction

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

as an artistic medium in and of itself. Citing Marxs account of commodification, Martin discerns a dialectic of inversion in which persons appear as things and things as persons the commodity form subjects labour to the self-valorisation of capital (Martin, 2007) With the fetishisation of human relations as art, Martin contends that Relational since art it is does neither not democratic in an nor anti-

capitalist

engage

obligatory

struggle with its subjection to capital.

Claire Bishop echoes Martin in her essay Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics by questioning if the literal

participation of the viewer demonstrates a substantial political assumes action. that the According to Bishop, of relational conditions art for

construction

interactivity adequately and automatically leads to the production of positive human relationships. This leads to a further assumption that relational art is therefore

political in implication and emancipatory in effect.

But what exactly is the viewer meant to experience? How do we speak about the experience provided by a work of relational art in qualitative terms? If Relational Art

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

hinges

on

providing

structural

frame

within

which

socio-political experiences unfolds, how and who decides what the structure comprises of; and for whom is this structure useful or meaningful?

In

functioning

as

triggers

for

open-ended

and

active

participation of the audience, relational art attempts to extend post-structuralist thinking in the tradition of Ecos notion of the Open Work (1962), Beuys Social

Sculpture (1960s) and Barthes the Death of the Author (1968). However, even as it addresses artistic

intentionality to deconstruct authorship, reception stays on the level of potentiality where relational art is

concerned. In relinquishing the didactic voice of the author, audience it remains unqualified itself, how how the agency of the -

manifests

human

relationships

albeit provisional ones - transpire or how a rewarding experience follows.

The art reviewer, Joe Scanlan puts it humorously for his article in ArtForum,

Time and again I have found myself in a room full of people with no obligation other than to appreciate

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

the

moment,

yet

the

group

has

always

ended

up

exchanging pleasantries or planning dinner (if none had been served) instead into of giving or away their the

possessions,

breaking

song,

trashing

place. Indeed, firsthand experience has convinced me that relational aesthetics has more to do with peer pressure than collective action or egalitarianism, which would suggest that one of the best ways to control human behavior is to practice relational

aesthetics. (Scanlan, 2005)

The peer pressure that Scanlan speaks of refers to his observation that within a social space, collective action is regulated via an in-built mechanism for self-control amongst its by constituents a shared and aberrant behaviour of is the

suppressed

mediocrity.

Instead

visionary ethical space that relational aesthetics claims to proffer, what results for Scanlan is more often than not, a prosaic environment characterised by ennui and inaction.

The democratic politics of relational aesthetics is found wanting. In the final analysis, this art for better

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

living shows up as alleviatory or compensational for the politics that it opposes, akin to a soft Marxism at best; or worse, an unwitting accomplice of the very capitalism that it claims to resist. Some kind of struggle with power structures immanent to the experience of different people working together appears to be required even if only to problematise the very idea of relationality.

Referring to Laclau and Mouffes notion of antagonism (1985), Claire Bishop has argued that

a fully functioning democratic society is not one in which all antagonisms have disappeared, but one in which new political frontiers are constantly being drawn and brought into debate in other words, a democratic conflict society are is one in not which relations of

sustained,

erased.

Without

antagonism, there is only the imposed consensus of authoritarian order a total suppression of debate and discussion, which is inimical to democracy.

(Bishop, 2004)

If relational art insists on viewers use as opposed to their contemplation, then it is incumbent on the artist

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

to shift production from the level of intentionality to that of receptivity. This demands deeper insights on the politics of community and a better choreographic

negotiation of interactivity. ---

2 - RELATIONAL AESTHETICS IN CHOREOGRAPHY A decade on from Nicholas Bourriauds elucidation of

relational aesthetics, a rethinking of spectatorship has also become a salient concern in the performing arts in which various modalities of reception have been brought into research and experimentation. This involves the

conception of the audience (and members of a creative team) as fellow control group collaborators of an interacting or such the without objective the of a

absolute achieving

author In

consensus.

circumstances,

democratic community is one that neither forfeits the interests collective of singular subjects The nor permits of a stable

identity.

sustaining

differences

becomes a shared responsibility and which in turn, also repudiates the absolutistic power of organisation.

Resultantly, choreography can be conceived as a practice that opens up spaces of negotiation.

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

The

choreographic and

practice for

of

the

German deals

artist-duo, with the

Deufert

Plischke1

instance,

political ramifications that unfold through investigating different modes of collaboration and shared authorship. They design and employ specific techniques processes that they call formulation and reformulation that are grounded in developments from an expanding field of

sociological discourse; notably domains of inquiry such as systems thinking, complexity science and emergence

theory.

For Deufert and Plischke, the use of score-driven, timebased procedures serves not only to configure formal

means of connection within a working group but also to unveil the complexities of collaborative negotiation.

Their community of strangers is regulated only by a systemic logic proposed by the artists-as-facilitators2 and yet does not rely on consensual agreement. In this bottom-up approach, participants capitalize on their

differences as a resource; building on, translating, even

1MyreferencestoDeufertandPlischkeherearebasedonarecentpersonalconversationwith

theartistsatUferhallenon12thJan2011. 2JeroenPeetersusesthetermphysicaldramaturgytorefertoadramaturgicalframeworkthat isnotimposedexternallybyanexpertdramaturgeorartist.Rather,thedramaturgicalfunctionis fulfilledbytheworkinggroupthroughcollaborativeactivity.

10

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

cancelling out ideas generated by each other, so that the end product emerges, evolves or morphs into an

eventuality.

In

this

way,

collaboration teamwork then

is

less by

characterised pragmatic

by

cooperative

mutual

exploitation. The philosopher and net activist, Florian Schneider cites as example the revolutionary peer to peer distribution model that appeared on the Internet in the 1990s and which finds anonymous members of a network exchange immaterial resources and content. Schneider has put it succinctly,

[Collaboration]

does

not

happen

for

sentimental

reasons, charity nor for the sake of efficiency, but for pure self-interest Instead of exerting an

alleged generosity of a group, where individuals are supposed to pursue solidarity, it may [also] be the reverse: a brusque, in principle, ungenerous mode, where individuals are relying on each other the more they go after through their own interests, their own mutually agendas.

dependent

following

(Schneider, 2006)

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Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

This corresponds with what Deufert and Plischke aptly call an arachnid practice. The metaphor of spider

cannibalism and the spider web as a tool for entrapment poetically describes pragmatic collaboration. The woven network serves as a common ground only insofar as it is a collectively generated conceptual landscape but does

not coalesce into a homogenous entity. Like a map, it maintains different routes and nodes and remains

navigable for its users according to their respective needs. Such an user not approach to choreography places at the its

individuated core and

(participant/audience/viewer) subscribe to utopian or

does

altruistic

notions.

Following on, if choreographic practices have begun to tackle questions (and pertaining in so to doing, reception extended and our

communicability

understanding of relational aesthetics), it remains to be adequately dealt with what such practices of negotiation yields. theory, Stimulated Deufert by the development have of emergence posed

and

Plischke

likewise

themselves further questions: Why do things appear? What is contingency? How does that which emerges constitute a rich experience?

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Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

The pioneer psychologist Lewes, differentiates the terms emergent and resultant.

Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the co-operant forces; their sum, when their

directions are the same -- their difference, when their directions are contrary. Further, every

resultant is clearly traceable in its components, because these are homogeneous and commensurable. It is otherwise with emergents, when, instead of adding measurable motion to measurable motion, or things of one kind to other individuals of their kind, there is a co-operation of things of unlike kinds. The emergent is unlike its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference." (Lewes 1875,

p. 412)(Blitz 1992)

The

idea

that

what

emerges

is

not

straightforwardly

measureable poses an exciting contemporary challenge for choreography. However, this is not an end in itself but

13

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

actually apparent

another that

point

of

departure. as an stay

It

has of

become social In

experience no

outcome

negotiations

can

longer

laissez

faire.

creative production, the task at hand is to pin down specific methodologies that allow us to understand not just how we operate as community but how much we get out of the interaction. ---

3 - SERVICE DESIGN AS CHOREOGRAPHIC PRACTICE Increased competition in the global economy since the 1970s has necessitated sweeping changes in economic

production within saturated markets. Businesses in postfordist economies have been forced to ceaselessly

innovate in order to meet the differentiated demands of mature consumers. The growing demand for knowledge-based, innovative workers also meant that resources like time and labour has to be remobilised in order to aid

employees fulfil their creative potentials; if only for the sake of the organisation ultimately. In the aftermath of the recent global economic recession, a sense of

crisis has further intensified the need for businesses to rethink their core values and operational strategies. As

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Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

a result, in order to improve their competitive edge and to bolster brand loyalty, businesses today would have to redesign their approach to customer and employee

relations; even if this orientation of businesses to pay attention to peoples needs might seem somewhat ironic on the outset.

The desire to rethink service provisions has led private corporations to look to service designers for out-of-thebox problem-solving methods.

Service Design, a relatively new discipline within the field of design, extends design practice beyond the

physical product or even its marketing to focus on the ways in which people interact with a goods or service. Yet unlike advertising and marketing, service design does not stop at calibrating patterns In fact, sales or Service potentials, surveying consumers an growing

consumption psychology.

researching Design as

autonomous discipline does not only operate within the context of the private sector but has also been engaged by the public sector to tackle a broad variety of social and community concerns, such as in healthcare and

15

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

transport. It does so by systematic plotting the needs and desires of members of a targeted community and

accordingly structures an all-embracing experience.

Service design addresses the functionality and form of services from the perspective of clients. It aims to ensure that service interfaces are useful, usable, and desirable from the clients point of view and effective, suppliers visualize, efficient, point of and distinctive Service from the

view. and

designers to

formulate,

choreograph

solutions

problems that do not necessarily exist today; they observe patterns and and interpret transform requirements them into and behavioral future

possible

services. (Mager, 2005)

This seismic shift in design thinking - from tangible products to user engagement is analogous to the

emergence of relational aesthetics in the arts.

Like

many

choreographers, spaces,

service and

designers

create for

interactions,

processes

conditions

experiences on the basis of a clearly defined knowledge

16

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

of causal relationships. And even as service design is still in the process of developing its own formal

language, aspects of its practice has begun to collide with those of choreography. The use of vocabulary like scenario even planning, events is design, collaboration, telling. Service

dramaturgy,

particularly

designers also adopt metaphors of theatre and performance such as the front and back stage, storyboarding as a tool for visualizing narratives as helpful models for creativity.

The performing arts are one field being explored by current service design research projects to tap into their potential for and for concept transfer of and provide

inspiration notation, procedures

innovative

forms

organization, and have

communication. from the

Perceptions arts

derived

performing

proved useful when embarking on the service design process. (Mager, 2005)

However, design remains a pragmatic practice. Its focus on user experience arose from an economical imperative and is therefore result-oriented. Yet its preoccupation

17

Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

with functionality does not preclude the emotional and intangible aspects of human experience. By positioning its practices at the interface between economic

production and socio-cultural needs, service design is potentially well-placed to deal with the emergent or contingent. It can do so by means of a precise and disciplined approach to devising experience not

stopping at the performance of interaction but insisting on further evaluation of the experience in qualitative and quantitative terms. ---

CONCLUSION Contemporary artistic production and customer-oriented

businesses and services have not only asserted tangible influence mutually but might even have become phases of one continuum of cultural/economic production. The lines between capitalist and socialist thinking (if we define the former as pragmatic and and the latter as as utopian), well It as is

between between

economic art and

cultural have

production, become

design

blurred.

simplistic to continue to view business-like thinking as merely exploitative just as it is nave to believe that

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Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

artistic

production

falls

outside

of

the

economic

context. With this centrist ethical code, artists and designers may approach the community by means of service provision in which user-centred practices need not be utopian or altruistic.

Given this scenario, there are further questions worth asking: What emerges when we combine different paradigms of creative production? For instance, do once-conflicting ideological intense ways positions of begin to produce does such new a and more

relating?

How

democratic

field sustain itself?

And what remains of authorship? How should the artist identify with being absorbed, partially at least, into the chain of economic production? Should the artist

position himself as an entrepreneur par excellence? ---

In

this

essay,

have

mapped

out

the

convergence

of

different multidisciplinary practices, themselves being already results of interconnection with other strands of theoretical and creative perspectives.

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Daniel Kok

SODA Essay 202 Jan 2011

Beyond the scope of this essay, what interests me next involves delving deeper into the specific tools employed by service designers, to exploring a ways to adapt program like them for to

tangibly

and

outline

practicable I would

choreographic

compositions.

even

contemplate the notion of choreography and service design as synonymous practices, to connect these two practices as one.

(3365 words)

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Bibliography

Relational Aesthetics 1) Bourriaud, Nicholas (2002) Relational Aesthetics, Les Presse Du Reel, France 2) Taylor, Steven S. & Karanian, Babara A. (2008) Working Connection: The Relational Art of Leadership in Aesthesis: International Journal of Art and Aesthetics in Management and Organizational Life, published by The Aesthesis Project, London 3) Martin, Stewart (2007) Critique of Relational

Aesthetics, Third Text, 21:4, 369-386, Routledge, London 4) Bishop, Claire (2004) Antagonism and Relational

Aesthetics, OCTOBER 110, Fall 2004, pp. 5179, October Magazine and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5) Scanlan, Social Joe Space (2005) and Traffic Relational Control: Joe Scanlan on

Aesthetics,

Artforum

International, Summer 2005, vol 43, issue 10, pp 123(1), Thomas Gale, New York

Collaboration 6) Schneider, Florian (2006) Collaboration: The Dark Side of the Multitude, http://www.sarai.net/publications/readers/06turbulence/01_florian.pdf (accessed on 10/01/2011)

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Dramaturgy 7) Peeters, Jeroen (2010) Heterogeneous Dramaturgies, first published in Maska, Sept 2010, http://www.sarma.be/text.asp?id=1691 (accessed on 10/01/2011) 8) Peeters, Jeroen (2007) Living Together On Stage, first published in herbst. Theorie zur Praxis, 10/01/11) Sept 2007, http://www.sarma.be/text.asp?id=1409 (accessed on

Emergence Theory 9) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence#CITEREFBlitz1992 (accessed on 14/01/2011)

Service Design 10) Mager, Birgit Definition Service Design from Design Dictionary, Birkhuser, Basel, http://www.service-design-network.org/content/definitionservice-design (accessed on 08/01/2011) 11) http://www.guardian.co.uk/service-design (accessed on 10/01/2011) 12) Kimbell, Lucy & Seidel, Victor P. (ed.) (2008)Designing for Services in Multidisciplinary and Technology-based Perspectives: Enterprises, Proceedings from the Exploratory Project on Designing for Services Science Sad Business School, University of Oxford

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