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Aesthetic Separation, Aesthetic Community By say of introdnetion, I shall start with a brief analysis of three propositions about community and separation. ¥ shill take the word ‘proposition’ in its wides! sense: a proposition fncansa statement, it means a proposal oc offer, and it also means an atistic operation that lends itself fo same form of response or interaction. ‘The first peoposition I shall comment on isthe stores. Is poetic statement in four words, four Freich words~ Séparés ‘on est ensemble’ — which I shall translate as follows: ‘Apart, ‘We are together’. This statement is quoted from a prose poem by Matlarmé, “The White Water Lily’, Let me remind you ‘what the poem is about. The poet makes a short boat trip in ‘order to see @ lady who is supposed to be staying somewhere along the river in the neighbourhood. As he approaches the place where he believes her to be, he hears the faint noise of footsteps that might be he sign ofthe presence of he invisible lady. Having enjoyed that proximity, the poct decides to pre- serve the mystery of the lady and the secret of thir “being Aoxether* inviolate, by silently departing wishout ithe seeing lier of being seen by her. ‘The poem was frst published ina magazine entiled 4rtand Fashion. So it is casy to attribute the paradox of “being together apart’ to the sophisticated attitude of poet in search 52 ‘THE EMANCIPATED SPECTATOR: ‘of metaphysical purity and refined sensations, Such a facile Approach is obliged to ignore two things. The first is thatthe solitude of being together was displayed atthe same time on {ovo large canvasses that were to become paradigms of modern painting ~ namely, Seurat’s Un dimanche aprés.mid! dI'le de Ja Grande Jane and Bathers at Asniéres, two pictures alleg- Aly conceived of as modern transpositions of the Athenian frieze of the Panathenses. Secondly, the poct himself under: lined thatthe crisis of the verse was part of an “idea! crisis! which, he suid, was itself dependent ona ‘social crisis’. This Sisggests that the very form of the prose poem may have some kind of consection withthe painterly conjuoction of high art and popular leisure ~ some kind of relaioa, | would add, that might itself be a “distant” relation, es in the relationship between the silent boater and the invisible lady. Apparently, contemporary art and social life no longer have anything to do with those peetic landscapes of the 1880s Indeed, we live at a Bie wien artists do nit much care for ‘Water lilies ~ except forthe purposes of postmodern parody ‘or even for painting, We also live in cities where suburban ABSTHBTIC SEPARATION, AESTHETIC COMMUNITY 53 ‘youths have darker skin and a more boisterous attitude than the _ teenagers of Bavhers at Asniores. But itis precisely here that the question of being together when apart assumes a new shape and # new meanikig. Many conterhporary artists no Tonger st ou to create works of ar. Instead, they want o get ‘ut ofthe museum and induce alterations the space of every day life, generating new forms of relations, Their propositions ‘hereby engage with the new forms and new discontents of | -ocial lie around Asnitres. This is true ofa project proposed ‘uy a group of French artists called Campement Urbain (Urban Encampment). The project engages with the situation of one ‘of the most wretched outsktts of Paris, where violent riots feiptod in the aunumn of 2005. Now, the way the project tackles the problem seems paradoxieal. Much of what we read ‘or hear about the “crisis inthe suburbs" deals with the destruc= tion of the ‘social bond” produced by mass individualism, and te need to re-create it But the project understands this in'a very peculiar way, since it proposes to ereate a place in that ‘wretched suburb Which would be “extremely uscles, fragile and now. productive’ This place was to be discussed with any residents who wanied to get involved in such discussions and ‘laced under the responsibility ofthe community. But it would be dedicated to a specific end ~ solitude ~ meaning that it ‘ould be conceived and established as a place thet could only be occupied by one person ata time forthe purposes of solitary ‘contemplation or meditation. That is why the project was called Fand Us. So “being together apart’ appears tobe mare than a form of poctic sophistication. Constructing a place for solitude, an ‘aesthetic’ place, appears to bea task forcommit- ted art The possibility of being apart appears to be precisely 1 yoww.evensfoundaion.be Se ‘THE EMANCIPATED SPECTATOR that dimension of saci whichis rendered enpssbe by evdinary tien Parsin suburbs. Ins astooated aie the projec, inhabitant othe neighbourood were ined choosea sentence aie pritodonaie sh which hey woul wearin fontofthecamer Gee 5 andabow) This shows blak out eva fis tste fofonlnss. He can be ioe 2. descendant of one af the young bathers in Aires bo has mot a descendant ofthe peta descendant fom the ae thee pont of view apa iw whch apparny tat is required to wret he ae of commaniy om sen configuration (vent ea muletne conguration) So there is someting in cominon bean he pose pm of eee writer andthe contemporary form of poll a thats to teate new forme of Soca Bond in "bad neigh bonoods. Each of them presen ws wih one anpect of common paradox. The soll ris” nd penile sant itare the background wo the apparently apa! poem abo the uatainable lady. Connerly. the inrveton a2 fom ‘Fan devoted to the canton of empey paces see AESTHETIC SEPARATION, AESTHETIC COMMUNITY SS. required by the underdogs of the poor suburbs. How can we spell out the enigmatic link between those two forms of art? Tn order to pose the problem, I shall borrow my third 'propo- sition’ from @ philosophical work, Deleuze and Guatari's ‘book What Is Philosophy? From the section on art I quote ‘a paragraph that is both a definition of what artists do and statement about the political valency of ar ‘The writer twists language, makes it vibrate, seizes hold of it, and reads i in order to wrest the percept from perceptions, the afect ot aes, the Sensation fom opaion ~in view, one hopes of that tll-anssing people. This is, precisely, te iask oF al art and, from colours and sounds, both musi and painting similarly extract new harmonies, new Slastic or melodic landscapes, and now rhyth- ‘mie characters that rise them io the height of he earths song and the ery oF uranity that which constitutes tone, heath, becoming, ‘visual ond fobor0us bloc. A monument doesnot commemorte oF ‘elebrate something that hagpened but confides to the ear ofthe ture the persistent sensations har embady he event: the con stontly renewed suffering of men and women theit recreated Protesttions, their constantly resumed sraga, Will thi all be in vain because suffering is eternal and revolutions do not survive their vietory? Burt the success of a revolution resides only in itsel precsoly inthe vibrations, clinches, and openings it gave 19 men ‘and women the moment ofits making and that composes i isl ‘monument that is always in the proces of becoming, ike those tumuli to which each nev traveller 2d 9 stone ‘The philosopher apparently meets our expectations by spelling ‘out what the "reverie” of the refined poet and the commitment of the contemporary artist have in common: the link between ‘the solitude of the artwork and human community is a matter, 2 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Goaturi, What Is Philosoady 7, trans. by Groban Burehel and Hugh Tomlinson, Landen: Vero, 1994, p76 56 THE EMANCIPATED SPECTATOR of transformed ‘Seasation’. What the artist does isto weave together a new Sensory fabric by wresting percepts and affects from the perceptions and affections that make up the fabric of ordinary experience. Weaving this new fabric means creating a form of common expression 6 @ form of expression of the ‘community namely, the earth’s song andthe ey of humanity’ ‘What ig common is ‘sensation’. Human beings are tied together by a certain sensory fabric, a certain éistibation of ‘ee sensible, which defines their wey of being together; and politics is about the tansformation of the sensory fabric of “being together’ It seeme as if the paradox of the ‘apart together’ has been dispelied. The solitude ofthe atwork i & false solitude: its an intertwining or twisting rogether of so sations, lke the ery ofa human body. And a human collective Js an inferwining and twisting together of sensations in the same way. ‘But it soon emerges that the sensory transformation of boeing together undergoes 2 complex set of connections and disconnections. Fits, what was traditionally described as @ “modelling” of aw materials becomes a dialectic of “seizing” and “reeding’. The result of this dialectic is a ‘vibration whose power is transmitted o the human community thats, to a community of human beings whose activity is itsell efined in terms of stizing and rending: suffering, resistance. ces. However, in order forthe complex of sensations to co rmunicate its vibration it bas to be solidified in the form of a rtonument, Now, the monument in eur assumes the identity of a person who speaks (0 the ‘ear of the future’. And that Speech itself seems to occur in two forms, The monument ‘wansmits the suffering, pretest and stragale of human beings Butit does so by transmitting whats apparently oppoiedt the ‘earth's song’, the song of the inhuman, the sang of the 37 AESTHETIC SEPARATION, AESTHETIC COMMUNITY forces of chaos that resist the human desire for transformation, ‘That is how Ge solitary bloc of sounds and colours can become the health’ of individuals and communities. Yet such coincidence is problematic, The relationship between the © “bloc” of sounds and colours and the “wealth” ofthe community might only be a matter of anslogy. The operations of wsting, seizing and rending thar define the way in which art weaves a | community together are made en vue de witha view to and in | the hope of -& people which is stil lacking, The monument is at once the confidant of the people, the instrument of its cre= ation and its representative in its absence. The community of ‘sensation seemed to resolve the paradox ofthe “apart together’ bby equating the ‘individual’ production of art with the fabric of

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