![0.1 Suzanne Lacy, Tattooed Skeleton, 2010. xxv
0.2 Suzanne Lacy, Silver Action, 2013. As part of BMW Tate
Live, Tate Modern. xxv
I.1 Judy Walgren (top) and xtine burrough (bottom) on Zoom,
days before submitting the manuscript of this book. This is
what we looked like throughout the COVID-
19 pandemic,
turning our dream of this book into a reality. 12
1.1 Newly constructed Carbon Sponge pilot at New York Hall
of Science (NYSCI) in Spring 2018. 21
1.2 New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) demonstration of
Carbon Sponge and root nodules by NYSCI Explainer,
Anghelo Guerro (2019). 24
2.1 Salish Center for Climate Science and Ecology, by Erika
Bartlett, 2018, digital collage. 34
2.2 Five artists and two banners of the 350 Tacoma Storefront
Banner project. Left to Right: Gerardo Peña, Elle Grey,
Beverly Naidus, Speakthunder Berry, and Saiyare Refaie. 35
2.3 Neighbors doing the “cob dance” to make bricks for
the Story Hive.36
3.1 City-
specific iterations of [ECO]nomic Revolution, 2018.
Installation at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory,
Stanford University as part of the LAST Festival picturing
map of Silicon Valley and ephemera from project research
and interactions (top row); food sharing at the Denis Hurley
Center in Durban as part of ISEA (bottom left); growth
experiment and happening involving food and discussion at
JAUS Art Space in Los Angeles (bottom center and bottom right). 40
FIGURES](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-14-320.jpg)
![x Figures
3.2 Degenerative Cultures, documentation from Edital CoMciência
at MM Gerdau, Brazil, 2020 (top left and right); Global
Digital Art Prize Biennial exhibition, Singapore, 2019 (top
center); detail of Physarum polycephalum’s growth across
the text, Existential Phenomenology by Lujipen (1965) in the
Lumen Prize Exhibition, UK, 2018 (bottom left); detail of
AI’s progress (bottom center); printout of the microorganisms’
twitter feed @HelloFungus as part of the installation. 41
3.3 Thinking Like a Mushroom, 2018—ongoing, installation of
living sculptures and viewer interactions at Ship in the Woods,
Escondido, CA in 2019 (left and center); Eat the Anthropocene
with Cesar Lois, mycelia, and friend entities, series of fungi
grown in books with crowdsourced mycelial AI at Yes We
Cannibal, Baton Rouge, LA in 2021 (right). 43
4.1 Valises for Camp Ground: Arts, Corrections, and Fire Management
in the Santa Monica Mountains: Valise 1—Fire Line and Valise
5—Abatement, 2017–18.52
4.2 Valises for Camp Ground: Arts, Corrections, and Fire Management
in the Santa Monica Mountains: Valise 4 —Prevention and Valise
2—Tools, 2017–18.53
5.1 Queer Cornu[c/t]opia, Live performances at SOMArts Gallery
and EXIT Theatre, San Francisco, US. 62
5.2 The Techno-Tamaladas, Event images from 2019–2020 events,
including tamaladas, preparatory meetings, the milpa, themes,
and project posters. 63
6.1 All Human Atlas projects have an image-
activated app to access
bespoke oral history soundscapes. 89
7.1 Mi Voz project on the border in the twin cities of Presidio,
Texas and Ojinaga, Mexico (2009). Photograph by Kevin,
8th grader, Franco Middle School. 94
7.2 A silent, written dialogue about our guiding question
throughout the Border-land project taking place in a hotel
lobby just a few miles from the U.S.-
Mexico divide:
What is the purpose of a border? (2016). 98
7.3 Mark Menjivar leading a Migration Stories workshop during
Northern Triangle exhibition at Staniar Gallery, Washington
and Lee University (2017). 100
8.1 Ashleigh, 2020. 104
8.2 Mimi, 2019. 106
8.3 Louise and Cindy, 2019. 110
10.1 Joseph DeLappe, The 1,000 Drones Project. A Participatory
Memorial, 2014 2017, student volunteers making paper
drones, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 2017, and photo
detail of the final installation. 131](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-15-320.jpg)
![Introduction 5
Helguera, Harrell Fletcher, and Suzanne Lacy (Harrell and
Lacy are included in this book).
Tania Bruguera suggests that political and social artists
following her “arte útil” concept are able to imagine “how
one can use all the tools of art to change reality and how to
incorporate themselves as artists and civic servants into that
reality.”4
Helguera discusses socially engaged art as a nebu-
lous, interdisciplinary practice that has art historical roots in
conceptual art—especially the introduction of “the thought
process as artwork; [in which] the materiality of the artwork
[is] optional.”5
Similarly to Bruguera’s artist as civic servant
utilizing the tools of art for transformative purposes, Hel-
guera writes, “what characterizes socially engaged art is its
dependence on social intercourse as a factor of its existence.”
These commonalities: art as a method for transformation
and social change, creative process (and sometimes ephem-
erality) over materiality, and interdisciplinary collaborations
are defining elements art as social practice.
In addition to this, and continuing to focus on methods,
Harrell Fletcher writes in his introduction to Section II that
social practice artists create participatory works with three
audiences in mind: people who had something to do with
the original conception of a project, people who experi-
ence the project directly (and may or may not have had a
hand in creating the work), and people who experience
the work in mediated form, for instance through a talk or
documentation. Considering the three audiences is impor-
tant for artists who create works for social engagement and
participation, as they must prioritize modes of executing a
project to deliver a clear message to participants and addi-
tional audiences across space and time.6
Finally, Suzanne
Lacy emphasizes the significance of dialogue in creating
equity as part of the creative process for socially engaged
artists. She writes at the end of her Foreword to this book,
the expression and desire for equity, it seems to me, is something that out-
lives each evolution of communication technology—the printing press, tel-
egraph, telephone, television, and internet. While taking full advantage of
what each offers in our ability to speak meaningfully to one another, we
evolve one of our earliest technologies: the conversation.7
I wrote earlier that my primary critical intervention as
an editor is to amplify the voices of artists in academic](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-40-320.jpg)
![16 Seeds and Tools
about art in times of crisis: “Why art at all?” My response has been to claim, both
aspirationally and generatively, that art, as a site of aesthetic re-
attunement, seeds
the critical and speculative imaginations needed to trouble our current ways of
living and dying; it prioritizes aesthetic and affective spaces within which we not
only reflect on what is so, but imagine and model things otherwise in ways that
are both integrative, in terms of transforming the materiality of daily life, and
excessive, in terms of reaching beyond what we currently know to be possible.
The important question in this context is not “Why art?” but “Which art?”
All art is not equal when it comes to social and climate justice concerns. Art that
addresses itself to the institutional infrastructures and economies of the artworld
may, indeed, be bankrupt—leading to the question “Why art?”But art that learns
from activist and socially engaged histories of praxis, art that thinks interdiscipli-
narily and collaboratively, art that works ecologically within material and cultural
networks, inviting new ways of doing and being more adequate to the times we
live in, being for each other and standing in feminist, anti-
racist, multispecies
solidarity and action . . . that is art worth giving our lives to. That is the context
in which the question “Which art?” rather than “Why art?” makes sense. And it
is what this section, with chapters by Brooke Singer, Beverly Naidus, Lucy HG
Solomon and Cesar Baio (Cesar Lois), Kim Abeles, and Praba Pilar, offers us.
These artists share key concerns, such as how to engage in ethical, multispe-
cies and/or more-
than-
human collaborative research, how artistic thinking and
modalities might open onto to other (anti-
racist, anti-
capitalist, anti-
colonial)
ways of doing and being, and the need for non-
innocent3
critical consciousness
raising at this historical moment.
Singer’s “Modest in Nature, We Are All Lichen and Other Lessons Learned with
Carbon Sponge” describes the history, method, and thinking behind a tactical media
project that invites each of us to learn more about the soil we depend on by growing
carbon sponges (also known as carbon farms) in our local communities. Through
this, Singer demonstrates and draws us into relations of care for and curiosity about
microbial life and our enmeshed interdependence with soil. Cesar Lois’s “Bio-
Digital Pathways: Mushrooming Knowledge, Expanding Community” also dem-
onstrates this attention to multispecies community and collaboration. Their chapter
describes three living artworks “that incorporate living systems in order to radi-
cally reimagine [sic] communities and networks. [They] nurture and experiment
with Physarum polycephalum (slime mold), airborne molds, and mushroom colonies,
making connections between these living systems and human networks.”4
These
three different but related research experiments work to decenter anthropocentric
ideologies and attend with deep, situated curiosity to how other organisms—from
slime molds to fungal colonies—organize their more-
than-
human sociality.
Bridging a committed attention to multispecies assemblages and the power
of sharing stories otherwise, Pilar’s “Cultivating Techno-Tamaladas,” in turn, offers
intimate and expansive detail on a multiyear collaborative eco-
techno-
social
art project. Indeed, grounded in a parallel framework to “never having been](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-51-320.jpg)
![thus generated. The one proves that space is a necessary subjective
antecedent; the other that it is a necessary objective ingredient.[439]
To consider the proof in detail. The exact words which Kant employs in
stating the nervus probandi of the argument are that we can never represent
(eine Vorstellung davon machen) space as non-existent, though we can very
well think (denken) it as being empty of objects. The terms Vorstellung and
denken are vague and misleading. Kant himself recognises that it is possible
to conceive that there are beings who intuit objects in some other manner
than in space. He cannot therefore mean that we are unable to think or
conceive space as non-existent. He must mean that we cannot in
imagination intuit it as absent. It is the necessary form of all our intuitions,
and therefore also of imagination, which is intuitive in character. Our
consciousness is dependent upon given intuitions for its whole content, and
to that extent space is a form with which the mind can never by any
possibility dispense. Pure thought enables it to realise this de facto
limitation, but not to break free from it. Even in admitting the possibility of
other beings who are not thus constituted, the mind still recognises its own
ineluctable limitations.
Kant offers no proof of his assertion that space can be intuited in image
as empty of all sensible content; and as a matter of fact the assertion is
false. Doubtless the use of the vague term Vorstellung is in great part
responsible for Kant’s mistaken position. So long as imagination and
thought are not clearly distinguished, the assertion is correspondingly
indefinite. Pure space may possibly be conceived, but it can also be
conceived as altogether non-existent. If, on the other hand, our imaginative
power is alone in question, the asserted fact must be categorically denied.
With the elimination of all sensible content space itself ceases to be a
possible image. Kant’s proof thus rests upon a misstatement of fact.
In a second respect Kant’s proof is open to criticism. He takes the
impossibility of imagining space as absent as proof that it originates from
within. The argument is valid only if no other psychological explanation
can be given of this necessity, as for instance through indissoluble
association or through its being an invariable element in the given
sensations. Kant’s ignoring of these possibilities is due to his unquestioning
belief that sensations are non-spatial, purely qualitative. That is a
presupposition whose truth is necessary to the cogency of the argument.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-56-320.jpg)
![Third Argument.—This argument, which was omitted in the second
edition, will be considered in its connection with the transcendental
exposition into which it was then merged.
Fourth (in second edition, Third) Argument.—The next two
arguments seek to show that space is not a discursive or general concept but
an intuition. The first proof falls into two parts, (a) We can represent only a
single space. For though we speak of many spaces, we mean only parts of
one and the same single space. Space must therefore be an intuition. For
only intuition is thus directly related to a single individual. A concept
always refers indirectly, per notas communes, to a plurality of individuals.
(b) The parts of space cannot precede the one all-comprehensive space.
They can be thought only in and through it. They arise through limitation of
it. Now the parts (i.e. the attributes) which compose a concept precede it in
thought. Through combination of them the concept is formed. Space cannot,
therefore, be a concept. Consequently it must, as the only remaining
alternative, be an intuition. Only in an intuition does the whole precede the
parts. In a concept the parts always precede the whole. Intuition stands for
multiplicity in unity, conception for unity in multiplicity.
The first part of the argument refers to the extension, the second part to
the intension of the space representation. In both aspects it appears as
intuitional.[440]
Kant, in repeating his thesis as a conclusion from the above grounds,
confuses the reader by an addition which is not strictly relevant to the
argument, viz. by the statement that this intuition must be non-empirical
and a priori. This is simply a recapitulation of what has been established in
the preceding proofs. It is not, as might at first sight appear, part of the
conclusion established by the argument under consideration. The reader is
the more apt to be misled owing to the fact that very obviously arguments
for the non-empirical and for the a priori character of space can be derived
from proof (b). That space is non-empirical would follow from the fact that
representation of space as a whole is necessary for the apprehension of any
part of it. Empirical intuition can only yield the apprehension of a limited
space. The apprehension of the comprehensive space within which it falls
must therefore be non-empirical.
“As we intuitively apprehend (anschauend erkennen) not only the space
of the object which affects our senses, but the whole space, space cannot](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-57-320.jpg)
![arise out of the actual affection of the senses, but must precede it in time
(vor ihr vorhergehen).”[441]
But in spite of its forcibleness this argument is nowhere presented in the
Critique.
Similarly, in so far as particular spaces can be conceived only in and
through space as a whole, and in so far as the former are limitations of the
one antecedent space, the intuition which underlies all external perception
must be a priori. This is in essentials a stronger and more cogent mode of
formulating the second argument on space. But again, and very strangely, it
is nowhere employed by Kant in this form.
The concluding sentence, ambiguously introduced by the words so
werden auch, is tacked on to the preceding argument. Interpreted in the
light of § 15 C of the Dissertation,[442] and of the corresponding fourth[443]
argument[444] on time, it may be taken as offering further proof that space
is an intuition. The concepts of line and triangle, however attentively
contemplated, will never reveal the proposition that in every triangle two
sides taken together are greater than the third. An a priori intuition will
alone account for such apodictic knowledge. This concluding sentence thus
really belongs to the transcendental exposition; and as such ought, like the
third argument, to have been omitted in the second edition.
Kant’s proof rests on the assumption that there are only two kinds of
representation, intuitions and concepts, and also in equal degree upon the
further assumption that all concepts are of one and the same type.[445]
Intuition is, for Kant, the apprehension of an individual. Conception is
always the representation of a class or genus. Intuition is immediately
related to the individual. Conception is reflective or discursive; it
apprehends a plurality of objects indirectly through the representation of
those marks which are common to them all.[446] Intuition and conception
having been defined in this manner, the proof that space is single or
individual, and that in it the whole precedes the parts, is proof conclusive
that it is an intuition, not a conception. Owing, however, to the narrowness
of the field assigned to conception, the realm occupied by intuition is
proportionately wide, and the conclusion is not as definite and as important
as might at first sight appear. By itself, it amounts merely to the statement,
which no one need challenge, that space is not a generic class concept.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-58-320.jpg)
![Incidentally certain unique characteristics of space are, indeed, forcibly
illustrated; but the implied conclusion that space on account of these
characteristics must belong to receptivity, not to understanding, does not by
any means follow. It has not, for instance, been proved that space and time
are radically distinct from the categories, i.e. from the relational forms of
understanding.
In 1770, while Kant still held to the metaphysical validity of the pure
forms of thought, the many difficulties which result from the ascription of
independent reality to space and time were, doubtless, a sufficient reason
for regarding the latter as subjective and sensuous. But upon adoption of the
Critical standpoint such argument is no longer valid. If all our forms of
thought may be subjective, the existence of antinomies has no real bearing
upon the question whether space and time do or do not have a different
constitution and a different mental origin from the categories. The
antinomies, that is to say, may perhaps suffice to prove that space and time
are subjective; they certainly do not establish their sensuous character.
But though persistence of the older, un-Critical opposition between the
intellectual and the sensuous was partly responsible for Kant’s readiness to
regard as radical the very obvious differences between a category such as
that of substance and attribute and the visual or tactual extendedness with
which objects are endowed, it can hardly be viewed as the really decisive
influence. That would rather seem to be traceable to Kant’s conviction that
mathematical knowledge is unique both in fruitfulness and in certainty, and
to his further belief that it owes this distinction to the content character of
the a priori forms upon which it rests. For though the categories of the
physical sciences are likewise a priori, they are exclusively relational,[447]
and serve only to organise a material that is empirically given. To account
for the superiority of mathematical knowledge Kant accordingly felt
constrained to regard space and time as not merely forms in terms of which
we interpret the matter of sense, but as also themselves intuited objects, and
as therefore possessing a character altogether different from anything which
can be ascribed to the pure understanding. The opposition between forms of
sense and categories of the understanding, in the strict Kantian mode of
envisaging that opposition, is thus inseparably bound up with Kant’s
doctrine of space and time as being not only forms of intuition, but as also
in their purity and independence themselves intuitions. Even the sensuous
subject matter of pure mathematics—so Kant would seem to contend—is a](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-59-320.jpg)
![priori in nature. If this latter view be questioned—and to the modern reader
it is indeed a stone of stumbling—much of the teaching of the Aesthetic will
have to be modified or at least restated.
Fifth (in second edition, Fourth) Argument.—This argument is quite
differently stated in the two editions of the Critique, though the purpose of
the argument is again in both cases to prove that space is an intuition, not a
general concept. In the first edition this is proved by reference to the fact
that space is given as an infinite magnitude. This characteristic of our space
representation cannot be accounted for so long as it is regarded as a
concept. A general conception of space which would abstract out those
properties and relations which are common to all spaces, to a foot as well as
to an ell, could not possibly determine anything in regard to magnitude. For
since spaces differ in magnitude, any one magnitude cannot be a common
quality. Space is, however, given us as determined in magnitude, namely, as
being of infinite magnitude; and if a general conception of space relations
cannot determine magnitude, still less can it determine infinite magnitude.
Such infinity must be derived from limitlessness in the progression of
intuition. Our conceptual representations of infinite magnitude must be
derivative products, acquired from this intuitive source.
In the argument of the second edition the thesis is again established by
reference to the infinity of space. But in all other respects the argument
differs from that of the first edition. A general conception, which abstracts
out common qualities from a plurality of particulars, contains an infinite
number of possible different representations under it; but it cannot be
thought as containing an infinite number of representations in it. Space
must, however, be thought in this latter manner, for it contains an infinite
number of coexisting parts.[448] Since, then, space cannot be a concept, it
must be an intuition.
The definiteness of this conclusion is somewhat obscured by the further
characterisation of the intuition of space as a priori, and by the statement
that it is the original (ursprüngliche) representation which is of this
intuitive nature. The first addition must here, again, just as in the fourth
argument, be regarded as merely a recapitulation of what has already been
established, not a conclusion from the present argument. The introduction
of the word ‘original’ seems to be part of Kant’s reply to the objections
which had already been made to his admission in the first edition that there](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-60-320.jpg)
![is a conception as well as an intuition of space. It is the original given
intuition of space which renders such reflective conception possible.
The chief difficulty of these proofs arises out of the assertion which they
seem to involve that space is given as actually infinite. There are apparently,
on this point, two views in Kant, which were retained up to the very last,
and which are closely connected with his two representations of space, on
the one hand as a formal intuition given in its purity and in its
completeness, and on the other hand as the form of intuition, which exists
only so far as it is constructed, and which is dependent for its content upon
given matter.
Third Argument, and Transcendental Exposition of Space.—The
distinction between the metaphysical and the transcendental expositions,
introduced in the second edition of the Critique,[449] is one which Kant
seems to have first made clear to himself in the process of writing the
Prolegomena.[450] It is a genuine improvement, marking an important
distinction. It separates out two comparatively independent lines of
argument. The terms in which the distinction is stated are not, however,
felicitous. Kant’s reason for adopting the title metaphysical is indicated in
the Prolegomena:[451]
“As concerns the sources of metaphysical cognition, its very concept
implies that they cannot be empirical.... For it must not be physical but
metaphysical knowledge, i.e. knowledge lying beyond experience.... It is
therefore a priori knowledge, coming from pure understanding and pure
Reason.”
The metaphysical exposition, it would therefore seem, is so entitled
because it professes to prove that space is a priori, not empirical, and to do
so by analysis of its concept.[452] Now by Kant’s own definition of the term
transcendental, as the theory of the a priori, this exposition might equally
well have been named the transcendental exposition. In any case it is an
essential and chief part of the Transcendental Aesthetic. Such division of
the Transcendental Aesthetic into a metaphysical and a transcendental part
involves a twofold use, wider and narrower, of one and the same term. Only
as descriptive of the whole Aesthetic is transcendental employed in the
sense defined.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-61-320.jpg)
![Exposition (Erörterung, Lat. expositio) is Kant’s substitute for the more
ordinary term definition. Definition is the term which we should naturally
have expected; but as Kant holds that no given concept, whether a priori or
empirical, can be defined in the strict sense,[453] the substitutes the term
exposition, using it to signify such definition of the nature of space as is
possible to us. To complete the parallelism Kant speaks of the
transcendental enquiry as also an exposition. It is, however, in no sense a
definition. Kant’s terms here, as so often elsewhere, are employed in a more
or less arbitrary and extremely inexact manner.
The distinction between the two expositions is taken by Kant as follows.
The metaphysical exposition determines the nature of the concept of space,
and shows it to be a given a priori intuition. The transcendental exposition
shows how space, when viewed in this manner, renders comprehensible the
possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge.
The omission of the third argument on space from the second edition,
and its incorporation into the new transcendental exposition, is certainly an
improvement. In its location in the first edition, it breaks in upon the
continuity of Kant’s argument without in any way contributing to the
further definition of the concept of space. Also, in emphasising that
mathematical knowledge depends upon the construction of concepts,[454]
Kant presupposes that space is intuitional; and that has not yet been
established.
The argument follows the strict, rigorous, synthetic method. From the
already demonstrated a priori character of space, Kant deduces the
apodictic certainty of all geometrical principles. But though the paragraph
thus expounds a consequence that follows from the a priori character of
space, not an argument in support of it, something in the nature of an
argument is none the less implied. The fact that this view of the
representation of space alone renders mathematical science possible can be
taken as confirming this interpretation of its nature. Such an argument,
though circular, is none the less cogent. Consideration of Kant’s further
statements, that were space known in a merely empirical manner we could
not be sure that in all cases only one straight line is possible between two
points, or that space will always be found to have three dimensions, must
meantime be deferred.[455]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-62-320.jpg)
![In the new transcendental exposition Kant adopts the analytic method of
the Prolegomena, and accordingly presents his argument in independence
of the results already established. He starts from the assumption of the
admitted validity of geometry, as being a body of synthetic a priori
knowledge. Yet this, as we have already noted, does not invalidate the
argument; in both the first and the last paragraphs it is implied that the a
priori and intuitive characteristics of space have already been proved. From
the synthetic character of geometrical propositions Kant argues[456] that
space must be an intuition. Through pure concepts no synthetic knowledge
is possible. Then from the apodictic character of geometry he infers that
space exists in us as pure and a priori;[457] no experience can ever reveal
necessity. But geometry also exists as an applied science; and to account for
our power of anticipating experience, we must view space as existing only
in the perceiving subject as the form of its sensibility. If it precedes objects
as the necessary subjective condition of their apprehension, we can to that
extent predetermine the conditions of their existence.
In the concluding paragraph Kant says that this is the only explanation
which can be given of the possibility of geometry. He does not distinguish
between pure and applied geometry, though the proof which he has given of
each differs in a fundamental respect. Pure geometry presupposes only that
space is an a priori intuition; applied geometry demands that space be
conceived as the a priori form of external sense. Only in reference to
applied geometry does the Critical problem arise:—viz. how we can form
synthetic judgments a priori which yet are valid of objects; or, in other
words, how judgments based upon a subjective form can be objectively
valid. But any attempt, at this point, to define the nature and possibility of
applied geometry must anticipate a result which is first established in
Conclusion b.[458] Though, therefore, the substitution of this transcendental
exposition for the third space argument is a decided improvement, Kant, in
extending it so as to cover applied as well as pure mathematics, overlooks
the real sequence of his argument in the first edition. The employment of
the analytic method, breaking in, as it does, upon the synthetic development
of Kant’s original argument, is a further irregularity.[459]
It may be noted that in the third paragraph Kant takes the fact that
geometry can be applied to objects as proof of the subjectivity of space.[460]
He refuses to recognise the possibility that space may be subjective as a](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-63-320.jpg)
![form of receptivity, and yet also be a mode in which things in themselves
exist. This, as regards its conclusion, though not as regards its argument, is
therefore an anticipation of Conclusion a. In the last paragraph Kant is
probably referring to the views both of Leibniz and of Berkeley.
CONCLUSIONS FROM THE ABOVE CONCEPTS[461]
Conclusion a.—Thesis: Space is not a property of things in themselves,
[462] nor a relation of them to one another. Proof: The properties of things in
themselves can never be intuited prior to their existence, i.e. a priori. Space,
as already proved, is intuited in this manner. In other words, the apriority of
space is by itself sufficient proof of its subjectivity.
This argument has been the subject of a prolonged controversy between
Trendelenburg and Kuno Fischer.[463] Trendelenburg was able to prove his
main point, namely, that the above argument is quite inconclusive. Kant
recognises only two alternatives, either space as objective is known a
posteriori, or being an a priori representation it is subjective in origin.
There exists a third alternative, namely, that though our intuition of space is
subjective in origin, space is itself an inherent property of things in
themselves. The central thesis of the rationalist philosophy of the
Enlightenment was, indeed, that the independently real can be known by a
priori thinking. Even granting the validity of Kant’s later conclusion, first
drawn in the next paragraph, that space is the subjective form of all external
intuition, that would only prove that it does not belong to appearances,
prior to our apprehension of them; nothing is thereby proved in regard to
the character of things in themselves. We anticipate by a priori reasoning
only the nature of appearances, never the constitution of things in
themselves. Therefore space, even though a priori, may belong to the
independently real. The above argument cannot prove the given thesis.
Vaihinger contends[464] that the reason why Kant does not even attempt
to argue in support of the principle, that the a priori must be purely
subjective, is that he accepts it as self-evident. This explanation does not,
however, seem satisfactory. But Vaihinger supplies the data for modification
of his own assertion. It was, it would seem, the existence of the antinomies
which first and chiefly led Kant to assert the subjectivity of space and time.
[465] For as he then believed that a satisfactory solution of the antinomies is
possible only on the assumption of the subjectivity of space and time, he
regarded their subjectivity as being conclusively established, and](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-64-320.jpg)
![accordingly failed to examine with sufficient care the validity of his
additional proof from their apriority. This would seem to be confirmed by
the fact that when later,[466] in reply to criticisms of the arguments of the
first edition, he so far modified his position as to offer reasons in support of
the above general principle, even then he nowhere discussed the principle in
reference to the forms of sense. All his discussions concern only the
possible independent reality of the forms of thought.[467] To the very last
Kant would seem to have regarded the above argument as an independent,
and by itself a sufficient, proof of the subjectivity of space.
The refutation of Trendelenburg’s argument which is offered by
Caird[468] is inconclusive. Caird assumes the chief point at issue, first by
ignoring the possibility that space may be known a priori in reference to
appearances and yet at the same time be transcendently real; and secondly
by ignoring the fact that to deny spatial properties to things in themselves is
as great a violation of Critical principles as to assert them. One point,
however, in Caird’s reply to Trendelenburg calls for special consideration,
viz. Caird’s contention that Kant did actually take account of the third
alternative, rejecting it as involving the “absurd” hypothesis of a pre-
established harmony.[469] Undoubtedly Kant did so. But the contention has
no relevancy to the point before us. The doctrine of pre-established
harmony is a metaphysical theory which presupposes the possibility of
gaining knowledge of things in themselves. For that reason alone Kant was
bound to reject it. A metaphysical proof of the validity of metaphysical
judgments is, from the Critical point of view, a contradiction in terms. As
the validity of all speculations is in doubt, a proof which is speculative
cannot meet our difficulties. And also, as Kant himself further points out,
the pre-established harmony, even if granted, can afford no solution of the
Critical problem how a priori judgments can be passed upon the
independently real. The judgments, thus guaranteed, could only possess de
facto validity; we could never be assured of their necessity.[470] It is chiefly
in these two inabilities that Kant locates the “absurdity” of a theory of pre-
established harmony. The refutation of that theory does not, therefore,
amount to a disproof of the possibility which we are here considering.
Conclusion b.—The next paragraph maintains two theses: (a) that space
is the form of all outer intuition; (b) that this fact explains what is otherwise
entirely inexplicable and paradoxical, namely, that we can make a priori](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-65-320.jpg)
![judgments which yet apply to the objects experienced. The first thesis, that
the pure intuition of space is only conceivable as the form of appearances of
outer sense, is propounded in the opening sentence without argument and
even without citation of grounds. The statement thus suddenly made is not
anticipated save by the opening sentences of the section on space.[471] It is
an essentially new doctrine. Hitherto Kant has spoken of space only as an a
priori intuition. The further assertion that as such it must necessarily be
conceived as the form of outer sense (i.e. not only as a formal intuition but
also as a form of intuition), calls for the most definite and explicit proof.
None, however, is given. It is really a conclusion from points all too briefly
cited by Kant in the general Introduction, namely, from his distinction
between the matter and the form of sense. The assertions there made, in a
somewhat casual manner, are here, without notification to the reader,
employed as premisses to ground the above assertion. His thesis is not,
therefore, as by its face value it would seem to profess to be, an inference
from the points established in the preceding expositions. It interprets these
conclusions in the light of points considered in the Introduction; and
thereby arrives at a new and all-important interpretation of the nature of the
a priori intuition of space.
The second thesis employs the first to explain how prior to all
experience we can determine the relations of objects. Since (a) space is
merely the form of outer sense, and (b) accordingly exists in the mind prior
to all empirical intuition, all appearances must exist in space, and we can
predetermine them from the pure intuition of space that is given to us a
priori. Space, when thus viewed as the a priori form of outer sense, renders
comprehensible the validity of applied mathematics.
As we have already noted,[472] Kant in the second edition obscures the
sequence of his argument by offering in the new transcendental exposition a
justification of applied as well as of pure geometry. In so doing he
anticipates the conclusion which is first drawn in this later paragraph. This
would have been avoided had Kant given two separate transcendental
expositions. First, an exposition of pure mathematics, placed immediately
after the metaphysical exposition; for pure mathematics is exclusively based
upon the results of the metaphysical exposition. And secondly, an
exposition of applied mathematics, introduced after Conclusion b. The
explanation of applied geometry is really the more essential and central of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-66-320.jpg)
![the two, as it alone involves the truly Critical problem, how judgments
formed a priori can yet apply to objects. Conclusion b constitutes, as
Vaihinger rightly insists,[473] the very heart of the Aesthetic. The
arrangement of Kant’s argument diverts the reader’s attention from where it
ought properly to centre.
The use which Kant makes of the Prolegomena in his statement of the
new transcendental exposition is one cause of the confusion. The exposition
is a brief summary of the corresponding Prolegomena[474] sections. In
introducing this summary into the Critique Kant overlooked the fact that in
referring to applied mathematics he is anticipating a point first established
in Conclusion b. The real cause, however, of the trouble is common to both
editions, namely Kant’s failure clearly to appreciate the fundamental
distinction between the view that space is an a priori intuition and the view
that it is the a priori form of all external intuition, i.e. of outer sense. He
does not seem to have fully realised how very different are those two views.
In consequence of this he fails to distinguish between the transcendental
expositions of pure and applied geometry.[475]
Third paragraph.—Kant proceeds to develop the subjectivist
conclusions which follow from a and b.
“We may say that space contains all things which can appear to us
externally, but not all things in themselves, whether intuited or not, nor
again all things intuited by any and every subject.”[476]
This sentence makes two assertions: (a) space does not belong to things
in and by themselves; (b) space is not a necessary form of intuition for all
subjects whatsoever.
The grounds for the former assertion are not here considered, and that is
doubtless the reason why the oder nicht is excised in Kant’s private copy of
the Critique. As we have seen, Kant does not anywhere in the Aesthetic
even attempt to offer argument in support of this assertion. In defence of (a)
Kant propounds for the first time the view of sensibility as a limitation.
Space is a limiting condition to which human intuition is subject. Whether
the intuitions of other thinking beings are subject to the same limitation, we
have no means of deciding. But for all human beings, Kant implies, the
same conditions must hold universally.[477]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-67-320.jpg)
![In the phrase “transcendental ideality of space”[478] Kant, it may be
noted, takes the term ideality as signifying subjectivity, and the term
transcendental as equivalent to transcendent. He is stating that judged from
a transcendent point of view, i.e. from the point of view of the thing in
itself, space has a merely subjective or “empirical” reality. This is an
instance of Kant’s careless use of the term transcendental. Space is
empirically real, but taken transcendently, is merely ideal.[479]
KANT’S ATTITUDE TO THE PROBLEMS OF MODERN GEOMETRY
This is an appropriate point at which to consider the consistency of
Kant’s teaching with modern developments in geometry. Kant’s attitude has
very frequently been misrepresented. As he here states, he is willing to
recognise that the forms of intuition possessed by other races of finite
beings may not coincide with those of the human species. But in so doing
he does not mean to assert the possibility of other spatial forms, i.e. of
spaces that are non-Euclidean. In his pre-Critical period Kant had indeed
attempted to deduce the three-dimensional character of space as a
consequence of the law of gravitation; and recognising that that law is in
itself arbitrary, he concluded that God might, by establishing different
relations of gravitation, have given rise to spaces of different properties and
dimensions.
“A science of all these possible kinds of space would undoubtedly be the
highest enterprise which a finite understanding could undertake in the field
of geometry.”[480]
But from the time of Kant’s adoption, in 1770, of the Critical view of
space as being the universal form of our outer sense, he seems to have
definitely rejected all such possibilities. Space, to be space at all, must be
Euclidean; the uniformity of space is a presupposition of the a priori
certainty of geometrical science.[481] One of the criticisms which in the
Dissertation[482] he passes upon the empirical view of mathematical
science is that it would leave open the possibility that “a space may some
time be discovered endowed with other fundamental properties, or even
perhaps that we may happen upon a two-sided rectilinear figure.” This is
the argument which reappears in the third argument on space in the first
edition of the Critique.[483] The same examples are employed with a
somewhat different wording.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-68-320.jpg)
![through another, the competing sets of alternative concepts will represent
genuine possibilities beyond what the actual is found to embody.
Thus the defect of Kant’s teaching, in regard to space, as judged in the
light of the later teaching of geometrical science, is closely bound up with
his untenable isolation of the a priori of sensibility from the a priori of
understanding.[484] Space, being thus viewed as independent of thought,
has to be regarded as limiting and restricting thought by the unalterable
nature of its initial presentation. And unfortunately this is a position which
Kant continued to hold, despite his increasing recognition of the part which
concepts must play in the various mathematical sciences. In the deduction
of the first edition we find him stating that synthesis of apprehension is
necessary to all representation of space and time.[485] He further recognises
that all arithmetical processes are syntheses according to concepts.[486] And
in the Prolegomena[487] there occurs the following significant passage.
“Do these laws of nature lie in space, and does the understanding learn
them by merely endeavouring to find out the fruitful meaning that lies in
space; or do they inhere in the understanding and in the way in which it
determines space according to the conditions of the synthetical unity
towards which its concepts are all directed? Space is something so uniform
and as to all particular properties so indeterminate, that we should certainly
not seek a store of laws of nature in it. That which determines space to the
form of a circle or to the figures of a cone or a sphere, is, on the contrary,
the understanding, so far as it contains the ground of the unity of these
constructions. The mere universal form of intuition, called space, must
therefore be the substratum of all intuitions determinable to particular
objects, and in it, of course, the condition of the possibility and of the
variety of these intuitions lies. But the unity of the objects is solely
determined by the understanding, and indeed in accordance with conditions
which are proper to the nature of the understanding....”
Obviously Kant is being driven by the spontaneous development of his
own thinking towards a position much more consistent with present-day
teaching, and completely at variance with the hard and fast severance
between sensibility and understanding which he had formulated in the
Dissertation and has retained in the Aesthetic. In the above Prolegomena
passage a plasticity is being allowed to space, sufficient to permit of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-70-320.jpg)
![essential modification in the conceptual processes through which it is
articulated. But, as I have just stated, that did not lead Kant to disavow the
conclusions which he had drawn from his previous teaching.
This defect in Kant’s doctrine of space, as expounded in the Aesthetic,
indicates a further imperfection in his argument. He asserts that the form of
space cannot vary from one human being to another, and that for this reason
the judgments which express it are universally valid. Now, in so far as
Kant’s initial datum is consciousness of time,[488] he is entirely justified in
assuming that everything which can be shown to be a necessary condition
of such consciousness must be uniform for all human minds. But as his
argument is not that consciousness of Euclidean space is necessary to
consciousness of time, but only that consciousness of the permanent in
space is a required condition, he has not succeeded in showing the
necessary uniformity of the human mind as regards the specific mode in
which it intuits space. The permanent might still be apprehended as
permanent, and therefore as yielding a possible basis for consciousness of
sequence, even if it were apprehended in some four-dimensional form.
Fourth Paragraph.—The next paragraph raises one of the central
problems of the Critique, namely, the question as to the kind of reality
possessed by appearances. Are they subjective, like taste or colour? Or have
they a reality at least relatively independent of the individual percipient? In
other words, is Kant’s position subjectivism or phenomenalism? Kant here
alternates between these positions. This fourth paragraph is coloured by his
phenomenalism, whereas in the immediately following fifth paragraph his
subjectivism gains the upper hand. The taste of wine, he there states, is
purely subjective, because dependent upon the particular constitution of the
gustatory organ on which the wine acts. Similarly, colours are not properties
of the objects which cause them.
“They are only modifications of the sense of sight which is affected in a
certain manner by the light.... They are connected with the appearances only
as effects accidentally added by the particular constitution of the sense
organs.”[489]
Space, on the other hand, is a necessary constituent of the outer objects.
In contrast to the subjective sensations of taste and colour, it possesses](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-71-320.jpg)
![Objects as known are mere Ideas (blosse Vorstellungen unserer
Sinnlichkeit), the sole correlate of which is the unknowable thing in itself.
But even in this paragraph both tendencies find expression. “Colour, taste,
etc., must not rightly be regarded as properties of things, but only as
changes in the subject.” This implies a threefold distinction between
subjective sensations, empirical objects in space, and the thing in itself. The
material world, investigated by science, is recognised as possessing a
relatively independent mode of existence.
Substituted Fourth Paragraph of second edition.—In preparing the
second edition Kant himself evidently felt the awkwardness of this abrupt
juxtaposition of the two very different points of view; and he accordingly
adopts a non-committal attitude, substituting a logical distinction for the
ontological. Space yields synthetic judgments a priori; the sense qualities
do not. Only in the concluding sentence does there emerge any definite
phenomenalist implication. The sense qualities, “as they are mere
sensations and not intuitions, in themselves reveal no object, least of all [an
object] a priori.”[490] The assertion that the secondary qualities have no
ideality implies a new and stricter use of the term ideal than we find
anywhere in the first edition—a use which runs counter to Kant’s own
constant employment of the term. On this interpretation it is made to signify
what though subjective is also a priori. Here, as in many of the alterations
of the second edition, Kant is influenced by the desire to emphasise the
points which distinguish his idealism from that of Berkeley.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-73-320.jpg)
![THE TRANSCENDENTALAESTHETIC
SECTION II
TIME
METAPHYSICAL EXPOSITION OF THE
CONCEPTION OF TIME
Time: First Argument.—This argument is in all respects the same as
the first argument on space. The thesis is that the representation[491] of time
is not of empirical origin. The proof is based on the fact that this
representation must be previously given in order that the perception of
coexistence or succession be possible. It also runs on all fours with the first
argument in the Dissertation.
“The idea of time does not originate in, but is presupposed by the senses.
When a number of things act upon the senses, it is only by means of the
idea of time that they can be represented whether as simultaneous or as
successive. Nor does succession generate the conception of time; but
stimulates us to form it. Thus the notion of time, even if acquired through
experience, is very badly defined as being a series of actual things existing
one after another. For I can understand what the word after signifies only if
I already know what time means. For those things are after one another
which exist at different times, as those are simultaneous which exist at one
and the same time.”[492]
Second Argument.—Kant again applies to time the argument already
employed by him in dealing with space. The thesis is that time is given a
priori. Proof is found in the fact that it cannot be thought away, i.e. in the
fact of its subjective necessity. From this subjective necessity follows its
objective necessity, so far as all appearances are concerned. In the second
edition Kant added a phrase—“as the general condition of their](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-74-320.jpg)
![possibility”—which is seriously misleading. The concluding sentence is
thereby made to read as if Kant were arguing from the objective necessity
of time, i.e. from its necessity as a constituent in the appearances
apprehended, to its apriority. It is indeed possible that Kant himself
regarded this objective necessity of time as contributing to the proof of its
apriority. But no such argument can be accepted. Time may be necessary to
appearances, once appearances are granted. This does not, however, prove
that it must therefore precede them a priori. This alteration in the second
edition is an excellent, though unfortunate, example of Kant’s invincible
carelessness in the exposition of his thought. It has contributed to a
misreading by Herbart and others of this and of the corresponding argument
on space.
“Let us not talk of an absolute space as the presupposition of all our
constructed figures. Possibility is nothing but thought, and it arises only
when it is thought. Space is nothing but possibility, for it contains nothing
save images of the existent; and absolute space is nothing save the
abstracted general possibility of such constructions, abstracted from it after
completion of the construction. The necessity of the representation of space
ought never to have played any rôle in philosophy. To think away space is
to think away the possibility of that which has been previously posited as
actual. Obviously that is impossible, and the opposite is necessary.”[493]
Were Kant really arguing here and in the second argument on space
solely from the objective necessity of time and space, this criticism would
be unanswerable. But even taking the argument in its first edition form, as
an argument from the psychological necessity of time, it lies open to the
same objection as the argument on space. It rests upon a false statement of
fact. We cannot retain time in the absence of all appearances of outer and
inner sense. With the removal of the given manifold, time itself must
vanish.
Fourth Argument.[494]—This argument differs only slightly, and
mainly through omissions,[495] from the fourth[496] of the arguments in
regard to space; but a few minor points call for notice. (a) In the first
sentence, instead of intuition, which alone is under consideration in its
contrast to conception, Kant employs the phrase “pure form of intuition.”
(b) In the third sentence Kant uses the quite untenable phrase “given](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-75-320.jpg)
![through a single object (Gegenstand).” Time is not given from without, nor
is it due to an object. (c) The concluding sentences properly belong to the
transcendental exposition. They are here introduced, not in the ambiguous
manner of the fourth[1] argument on space, but explicitly as a further
argument in proof of the intuitive character of time. The synthetic
proposition which Kant cites is taken neither from the science of motion nor
from arithmetic. It expresses the nature of time itself, and for that reason is
immediately contained in the intuition of time.
Fifth Argument.—This argument differs fundamentally from the
corresponding argument on space, whether of the first or of the second
edition, and must therefore be independently analysed. The thesis is again
that time is an intuition. Proof is derived from the fact that time is a
representation in which the parts arise only through limitation, and in
which, therefore, the whole must precede the parts. The original
(ursprüngliche) time-representation, i.e. the fundamental representation
through limitation of which the parts arise as secondary products, must be
an intuition.
To this argument Kant makes two explanatory additions. (a) As
particular times arise through limitation of one single time, time must in its
original intuition be given as infinite, i.e. as unlimited. The infinitude of
time is not, therefore, as might seem to be implied by the prominence given
to it, and by analogy with the final arguments of both the first and the
second edition, a part of the proof that it is an intuition, but only a
consequence of the feature by which its intuitive character is independently
established. The unwary reader, having in mind the corresponding argument
on space, is almost inevitably misled. All reference to infinitude could, so
far as this argument is concerned, have been omitted. The mode in which
the argument opens seems indeed to indicate that Kant was not himself
altogether clear as to the cross-relations between the arguments on space
and time respectively. The real parallel to this argument is to be found in the
second part of the fourth[1] argument on space. That part was omitted by
Kant in his fourth argument on time, and is here developed into a separate
argument. This is, of course, a further cause of confusion to the reader, who
is not prepared for such arbitrary rearrangement. Indeed it is not surprising
to find that when Kant became the reader of his own work, in preparing it
for the second edition, he was himself misled by the intricate perversity of
his exposition. In re-reading the argument he seems to have forgotten that it](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/19141088-250518083658-eea323f1/85/Art-As-Social-Practice-1st-Edition-Taylor-Francis-Group-76-320.jpg)
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- 6. ART AS SOCIAL PRACTICE TECHNOLOGIES FOR CHANGE With a focus on socially engaged art practices in the twenty- first century, this book explores how artists use their creative practices to raise consciousness, form communities, create change, and bring forth social impact through new technologies and digital practices. Suzanne Lacy’s Foreword and section introduction authors Anne Balsamo, Harrell Fletcher, Natalie Loveless, Karen Moss, and Stephanie Rothenberg present twenty- five in- depth case studies by established and emerging contemporary artists including Kim Abeles, Christopher Blay, Joseph DeLappe, Mary Beth Heffernan, Chris Johnson, Rebekah Modrak, Praba Pilar, Tabita Rezaire, Sylvain Souklaye, and collaborators Victoria Vesna and Siddharth Ramakrishnan. Artists offer firsthand insight into how they activate methods used in socially engaged art projects from the twentieth century and incorporated new technologies to create twenty- first century, socially engaged, digital art practices. Works highlighted in this book span collaborative image- making, immersive experiences, telematic art, time machines, artificial intelligence, and physical computing. These reflective case studies reveal how the artists collaborate with participants and communities, and have found ways to expand, transform, reimagine, and create new platforms for meaningful exchange in both physical and virtual spaces. An invaluable resource for students and scholars of art, technology, and new media, as well as artists interested in exploring these intersections. xtine burrough is Professor and Area Head of Design and Creative Practice in the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication at The University of Texas at Dallas, where she directs LabSynthE. burrough is a hybrid artist who engages participatory audiences at the intersection of media art, remix, and digital poetry. She is the author of Foundations of Digital Art and Design with Adobe Creative Cloud, 2nd Edition, editor of Net Works: Case Studies in Web Art and Design, and co- editor of a series of books about remix studies. Judy Walgren is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, and the Associate Director for the Michigan State School of Journalism, where she teaches classes in visual literacy, photography, and immersive media. Before pivoting to academia, Walgren worked with multiple media companies including the Dallas Morning News and the San Francisco Chronicle. Her research interrogates relationships between photography, media archives, and power structures. Her work explores socially engaged practices for visual storytellers.
- 8. ART AS SOCIAL PRACTICE Technologies for Change Edited by xtine burrough and Judy Walgren
- 9. Cover image: © Erhard Nerger / Getty Images First published 2022 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, xtine burrough and Judy Walgren; individual chapters, the contributors The right of xtine burrough and Judy Walgren to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-76954-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-75846-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-16910-9 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003169109 Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC
- 10. List of figures ix List of contributors xiv Foreword: Suzanne Lacyxxiii Acknowledgmentsxxviii Introduction 1 xtine burrough and Judy Walgren in conversation SECTION I Seeds and Tools 15 Introduction by Natalie Loveless 1 Modest in Nature, We Are All Lichen and Other Lessons Learned With Carbon Sponge20 Brooke Singer 2 Pandemic Makeover: Reimagining Place and Community in a Time of Collapse 29 Beverly Naidus 3 Bio- Digital Pathways: Mushrooming Knowledge, Expanding Community 38 Lucy HG Solomon and Cesar Baio (Cesar Lois) CONTENTS
- 11. vi Contents 4 Valises for Camp Ground: Arts, Corrections, and Fire Management in the Santa Monica Mountains 51 Kim Abeles 5 Cultivating Techno-Tamaladas60 Praba Pilar SECTION II Windows and Mirrors 75 Introduction by Harrell Fletcher 6 A Human Atlas: Immersive Storytelling for the Twenty-First Century 79 Charissa Terranova in conversation with Human Atlas founder Marcus Lyon 7 Borderland Collective: In Practice and Dialogue 92 Mark Menjivar and Jason Reed 8 We Are Worth Everything: Survivors as Themselves102 Judy Walgren 9 Interview with Ari Melenciano 115 xtine burrough and Judy Walgren in conversation with Ari Melenciano 10 Making Politics: Engaged Social Tactics 126 A conversation between Joseph DeLappe and Laura Leuzzi 11 Social Practice Artworks 137 Chris Johnson Centerpiece Decolonial Healing: In Defense of Spiritual Technologies 151 Tabita Rezaire
- 12. Contents vii SECTION III Magical Machines 173 Introduction by Anne Balsamo 12 Space and Time: Science Fiction as an Imaginative Catalyst for Social Change 177 Christopher Blay 13 Witch- Plant- Machine: Speculative Histories and Planetary Justice 183 Margaretha Haughwout 14 Cybernetic Loops and Fermented Technologies of Participatory Poetry: Reflections on The Kimchi Poetry Machine196 Margaret Rhee 15 Impossible Spaces and Other Embodiments: Co- constructing Virtual Realities 209 Dalida María Benfield, Christopher Bratton, Evelyn Eastmond, M Eifler, and Gabriel Pereira 16 One Breath Poem: A Telematic Revolution 219 xtine burrough, Sabrina Starnaman, Letícia Ferreira, Fiona Haborak, and Cynthia O’Neill for LabSynthE SECTION IV Expansions229 Introduction by Stephanie Rothenberg 17 Community Building Through Collaboration 233 Sarah Ruth Alexander 18 Online Intimacies and Artful Life in Turtle Disco Zoomshells241 Petra Kuppers 19 Community Accessible Archives: What You Leave, When You Leave 248 Gemma-Rose Turnbull
- 13. viii Contents 20 Living Liveness 258 Sylvain Souklaye 21 Hox Zodiac—Spinning the Wheel of Interspecies Collaboration267 Victoria Vesna and Siddharth Ramakrishnan SECTION V Reimagination277 Introduction by Karen Moss 22 The PPE Portrait Project: Social Practice as Social Medicine 281 Mary Beth Heffernan 23 Can This Be A Community When You’re Trying To Sell Me A Luxury Watch? 291 Rebekah Modrak 24 Justice and Representation within the Limits of Contemporary Photography 307 Eliza Gregory 25 Technology of Touch: How Craft Can Lead to Social Change 318 Cara Levine Index328
- 14. 0.1 Suzanne Lacy, Tattooed Skeleton, 2010. xxv 0.2 Suzanne Lacy, Silver Action, 2013. As part of BMW Tate Live, Tate Modern. xxv I.1 Judy Walgren (top) and xtine burrough (bottom) on Zoom, days before submitting the manuscript of this book. This is what we looked like throughout the COVID- 19 pandemic, turning our dream of this book into a reality. 12 1.1 Newly constructed Carbon Sponge pilot at New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) in Spring 2018. 21 1.2 New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) demonstration of Carbon Sponge and root nodules by NYSCI Explainer, Anghelo Guerro (2019). 24 2.1 Salish Center for Climate Science and Ecology, by Erika Bartlett, 2018, digital collage. 34 2.2 Five artists and two banners of the 350 Tacoma Storefront Banner project. Left to Right: Gerardo Peña, Elle Grey, Beverly Naidus, Speakthunder Berry, and Saiyare Refaie. 35 2.3 Neighbors doing the “cob dance” to make bricks for the Story Hive.36 3.1 City- specific iterations of [ECO]nomic Revolution, 2018. Installation at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University as part of the LAST Festival picturing map of Silicon Valley and ephemera from project research and interactions (top row); food sharing at the Denis Hurley Center in Durban as part of ISEA (bottom left); growth experiment and happening involving food and discussion at JAUS Art Space in Los Angeles (bottom center and bottom right). 40 FIGURES
- 15. x Figures 3.2 Degenerative Cultures, documentation from Edital CoMciência at MM Gerdau, Brazil, 2020 (top left and right); Global Digital Art Prize Biennial exhibition, Singapore, 2019 (top center); detail of Physarum polycephalum’s growth across the text, Existential Phenomenology by Lujipen (1965) in the Lumen Prize Exhibition, UK, 2018 (bottom left); detail of AI’s progress (bottom center); printout of the microorganisms’ twitter feed @HelloFungus as part of the installation. 41 3.3 Thinking Like a Mushroom, 2018—ongoing, installation of living sculptures and viewer interactions at Ship in the Woods, Escondido, CA in 2019 (left and center); Eat the Anthropocene with Cesar Lois, mycelia, and friend entities, series of fungi grown in books with crowdsourced mycelial AI at Yes We Cannibal, Baton Rouge, LA in 2021 (right). 43 4.1 Valises for Camp Ground: Arts, Corrections, and Fire Management in the Santa Monica Mountains: Valise 1—Fire Line and Valise 5—Abatement, 2017–18.52 4.2 Valises for Camp Ground: Arts, Corrections, and Fire Management in the Santa Monica Mountains: Valise 4 —Prevention and Valise 2—Tools, 2017–18.53 5.1 Queer Cornu[c/t]opia, Live performances at SOMArts Gallery and EXIT Theatre, San Francisco, US. 62 5.2 The Techno-Tamaladas, Event images from 2019–2020 events, including tamaladas, preparatory meetings, the milpa, themes, and project posters. 63 6.1 All Human Atlas projects have an image- activated app to access bespoke oral history soundscapes. 89 7.1 Mi Voz project on the border in the twin cities of Presidio, Texas and Ojinaga, Mexico (2009). Photograph by Kevin, 8th grader, Franco Middle School. 94 7.2 A silent, written dialogue about our guiding question throughout the Border-land project taking place in a hotel lobby just a few miles from the U.S.- Mexico divide: What is the purpose of a border? (2016). 98 7.3 Mark Menjivar leading a Migration Stories workshop during Northern Triangle exhibition at Staniar Gallery, Washington and Lee University (2017). 100 8.1 Ashleigh, 2020. 104 8.2 Mimi, 2019. 106 8.3 Louise and Cindy, 2019. 110 10.1 Joseph DeLappe, The 1,000 Drones Project. A Participatory Memorial, 2014 2017, student volunteers making paper drones, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 2017, and photo detail of the final installation. 131
- 16. Figures xi 10.2 Joseph DeLappe, The Drone Project, 2014, students, local activists and volunteers pose for a group photo, CSU Fresno, California.134 11.1 Chris Johnson, Untitled Triptych, 1989. 138 11.2 Chris Johnson, The Oakland Firestorm: Family Portrait Project, Richard Gordon and many great friends, 1991. 139 11.3 Suzanne Lacy, Chris Johnson, and Annice Jacoby, The Roof is on Fire, 1993–94; top: the performance site in downtown Oakland; middle and bottom: young people talking in cars while audience listened. 140 11.4 Keyona Johnson and William Gaines, film stills from Question Bridge: Black Community, 1996. 142 11.5 Top: Chris Johnson, Bayeté Ross Smith, and Hank Willis Thomas; bottom: Chris Johnson and Hank Willis Thomas, Question Bridge: Black Males installation, 2012. 144 11.6 Chris Johnson and Eric Doversberger, WisdomArc Time Machine installation at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, 2013. 145 11.7 Chris Johnson, The Best Way to Find a Hero installation at the Oakland Museum, 2015. 146 11.8 Top: Wendy Levy, Chris Johnson, and other artists, Oakland Fence Project installation, Oakland California, 2016; bottom: Chris Johnson, Portrait of Tyrone Burns, 2015. 147 11.9 Top: Chris Johnson, A Question of Faith, billboard, Oakland, California, 2018; bottom: Chris Johnson, A Question of Faith, bus shelter, Oakland/San Francisco, California, 2018. 148 11.10 Top: Chris Johnson, Creative Placemaking documentation, Anchorage, Alaska; 2018; center: Chris Johnson, Creative Placemaking documentation, Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico, 2019; bottom: Chris Johnson, Creative Placemaking documentation, Jackson, Mississippi, 2018. 149 Centerpiece.1 Tabita Rezaire, video still, Premium Connect, 2017. 152 Centerpiece.2 Tabita Rezaire, video still, Deep Down Tidal, 2017. 159 Centerpiece.3 Screenshot synonyms for the word “immaterial,” Microsoft Word, 2019. 160 Centerpiece.4 Screenshot synonyms for the word “colonial,” Microsoft Word, 2019 161 Centerpiece.5 Tabita Rezaire, video still, Premium Connect, 2017. 162 Centerpiece.6 Tabita Rezaire, video still, Premium Connect, 2017. 165 Centerpiece.7 Tabita Rezaire, video still, Sugar Walls Teardom, 2016. 167 12.1 Left: Satellites, right: Machine Time. Both installations use obsolete machines and machine concepts separately to describe the flaws and failures that we imbed in our technologies because of our unwillingness or inability to address our flaws and failures as a society. 178
- 17. xii Figures 12.2 The Ark on Noah Street, a temporary work of public art in collaboration with BC Workshop in Dallas. The ark was created from found wood, doors, and windows from the Historic Tenth Street neighborhood in South Dallas and had a shipping container as its core. The container was used as an exhibition space for members of the community to share family stories and art. 178 13.1 Ten minutes on the Chat from Ritual for a Radical Future, 2020, for AFTER LIFE (We Survive), curated by Thea Quiray Tagle, hosted by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and online, San Francisco, California, 21 December 2020. 190 13.2 Images from Ritual for a Radical Future, 2020, for AFTER LIFE (We Survive), curated by Thea Quiray Tagle, hosted by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and online, San Francisco, California, 21 December 2020. 193 14.1 Left: Margaret Rhee, The Kimchi Poetry Machine, 2014; right: Margaret Rhee, A Feminist History of Kimchi, installation, SOMArts, San Francisco, California, 2014. 197 15.1 The CAD+SR “Kitchen”: A VR meeting space in Mozilla Hubs for “Research Residency VII: Commonplaces and Entanglements,” Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research, July 2020.211 15.2 CAD+SR “Kitchen”—Scenes and Views. A VR meeting space in Mozilla Hubs for “Research Residency VII: Commonplaces and Entanglements,” Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research, July 2020. 213 16.1 LabSynthE, One Breath Poem: Telephone Edition, installation view. Top: installation at Media Arts Histories RE:Sound, Aarburg, Denmark, August, 2020; bottom: installed for the “Grey Matter” exhibit at A Ship in the Woods, Escondido, California, January 2020. 220 16.2 LabSynthE, One Breath Poem: Message for a Revolution poster design by Maedeh Asgharpour for LabSynthE in 2020. 224 18.1 Turtle Disco Zoom Shell Kaffeeklatsch, 2 February 2021. 243 19.1 Gemma- Rose Turnbull and Eliza Gregory, Camp Washington Capsule (Blurb, 2019), 478–479, www.blurb.com/b/9619879- camp-washington-capsule#.252 19.2 Gemma- Rose Turnbull and Eliza Gregory, Camp Washington Capsule (Blurb, 2019), 148–149, www.blurb.com/b/9619879- camp-washington-capsule#.254 20.1 Sylvain Souklaye performing Ceci n’est pas un masque during lockdown at Nowhere Fest, March 11–13, 2021. 259 20.2 BLACK BREATHING, durational performance, performed live at the Edgecut Festival. 261
- 18. Figures xiii 21.1 Hox Zodiac Dinner hosted by Linda Weintraub, Rhinebeck, NY, 2015. 269 21.2 Hox Zodiac opening banquet for the Microperformativity symposium at the Angewandte Innovation Lab (AIL), Vienna, Austria, 2018. 269 21.3 Hox Zodiac Art Table Dinner at the Building Bridges gallery, Santa Monica, 2018. 272 21.4 Hox Zodiac Dinner, quarantine version: Earth Day, 2020. 273 22.1 Tenneh Kennedy, RN, attends to Mrs. Lorpu Mulbah at the Liberian government run Ebola Treatment Unit, ELWA 2, Paynesville, Liberia, March 2015. Mary Beth Heffernan, PPE Portrait Project.283 22.2 Santhi Kumar, MD, wears a PPE Portrait in USC- Keck’s Critical Care Unit, May 2020. 284 22.3 Music therapist Mary Carla McDonald engages a patient who nonverbally communicates with rhythm and percussion in the COVID- 19 ward at UMass Memorial Medical Center, 2020. 286 23.1 Rebekah Modrak, Re Made Co. 2013–present, and the original Best Made Co. website and photographs. 298 23.2 Rebekah Modrak, RETHINK SHINOLA, 2017–present. 301 24.1 Mr. Khanh, as depicted in The Testimony Newspaper, 2018. 314 24.2 Jochen and Carolin, as depicted in The Testimony Newspaper, 2018.314 25.1 Top: a display of 300 clay objects made by workshop participants from all over the country over four years; bottom: close- up of ceramic objects including hand, water hose nozzle, wrench, pill bottle, and so on. 320 25.2 TINAG workshop participants making clay objects and chatting over the work table. 321 25.3 Overhead image of three TINAG workshop participants making clay objects, image includes hands and work table view. 323
- 19. CONTRIBUTORS Kim Abeles (USA) is an artist whose work explores biography, geography, femi- nism, and the environment. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, California Community Foundation and Pollack- Krasner Foundation. Her work is in 40 public collections including MOCA, LACMA, Berkeley Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, California African Ameri- can Museum, and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. Abeles’s process documents are archived at the Center for Art + Environment, Nevada Museum of Art. https://kimabeles.com. Sarah Ruth Alexander (USA) is a diverse musician and artist who employs musical instruments, electroacoustic sound, and extended vocal techniques in her work. She performs both solo and with multiple bands and improvisational ensembles nationally, and her recent albums have been released on Obsolete Media Objects, Pour le Corps Music, and Tofu Carnage Records. sarahruthalexander.com Anne Balsamo (USA) is a scholar, educator, entrepreneur, and designer of new media who has published multiple works exploring the cultural possibilities of emergent media technologies. Previously, she served as Dean of the School of Media Studies at The New School in New York City. Balsamo has been a leader in the growth of digital humanities in the United States, having served on the board of HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Col- laboratory) since its founding in 2003. Her most recent book, Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work (Duke University Press, 2011), is a trans- media platform that addresses the role of culture in the process of technologi- cal innovation in the twenty- first century. Balsamo received her PhD in Mass
- 20. Contributors xv Communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. https:// atec.utdallas.edu/content/anne-balsamo/ Christopher Blay (USA) is the Chief Curator of the Houston Museum of African American Culture. The award- winning writer, artist, and curator was previously the News Editor at Glasstire Magazine and has received public art commissions, museum grants, and artist awards. His works include painting, photography, video and installation. www.christopherblay.com Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research—centerartsdesign.org. Dalida María Benfield, PhD (USA), researches and activates feminist and post/decolonial thought, pedagogy, and creative action in the context of global information ebbs and flows. She is the co- founder and Research and Program Director at the Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research, Boston, MA. Christopher Bratton (USA) is an artist, former President of the San Francisco Art Institute, and co- founder and Executive Director of the Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research. With an extensive background in socially engaged cultural work and media, Bratton has spoken widely on issues of art, media, and technology education and access. As an artist, his video and installation works, addressing questions of contemporary media cultures, have been widely screened and exhibited, including the Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; and international film festivals, including Seoul, Berlin and Havana. Broadcasts of his work include PBS, CNN, and the BBC. Bratton is currently a Professor and Director of the Foundation and General Studies Program in the School of Arts, Design, and Architecture at Aalto Uni- versity in Helsinki, Finland. Evelyn Eastmond is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher. She is currently a Senior Design Researcher at Microsoft and a Research Fellow for the Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research. Previously, she has held positions at the Rhode Island School of Design, YCombinator Research, Inc., and the MIT Media Lab. M Eifler (USA) is an artist and Senior Design Researcher at Microsoft. They’ve exhibited work at Ars Electronica, SOMArts, TED, Exploratorium, SFMoMA, YBCA, XOXO, Wiensowski Harbord in Berlin, Laurie M. Tisch Gallery and Armory Show in New York, Seattle International Film Festival, Smithso- nian Institution and the Kennedy Center. www.blinkpopshift.com/ Gabriel Pereira (Denmark) is a PhD Fellow at Aarhus University in Den- mark. His research focuses on critical studies of data, algorithms, and digital
- 21. xvi Contributors infrastructures. He is a Researcher in Residence at the Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research (CAD+SR). www.gabrielpereira.net/ Cesar Lois, consisting of Lucy HG Solomon (USA) and Cesar Baio (Brazil), integrates natural and technological networks, probing humanity’s relationship to nature and questioning societal structures that perpetuate environmental imbal- ances and global inequities. Cesar Lois received the Lumen Prize in Artificial Intelligence (2018) and was selected for Poland’s International Intermedia Art Prize exhibition (2019), Singapore’s Global Digital Art Prize biennial (2019), and the Aesthetica Art Prize exhibition (2021). The duo were artists in residence at Coalesce Center for Biological Arts (2020) and collaborated with researchers at Salk Institute (2020). cesarandlois.org Cesar Baio (Brazil) is an associate professor of Art and Technology and director of ACTLab (Art, Science and Technology) at UNICAMP (Univer- sidade Estadual de Campinas) and was a CAPES research fellow at i- DAT in the UK. Lucy HG Solomon (USA) is associate professor of Art, Media and Design at California State University San Marcos, where she directs DaTA Lab (Digital and Transdisciplinary Arts) and is a Fulbright scholar. Joseph DeLappe (UK) is a visual artist and Professor of Games and Tactical Media at Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland. A native San Franciscan, he has been working with electronic and new media since 1983. His work in online gam- ing performance, sculpture and electromechanical installation has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad. www.delappe.net Harrell Fletcher (USA), Professor of Art and Social Practice at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Insti- tute and an MFA from California College of the Arts. Fletcher has produced a variety of socially engaged collaborative and interdisciplinary projects since the early 1990s. His work has been exhibited internationally. www.harrellfletcher.com Eliza Gregory (USA) is a social practice artist, photographer, educator and a writer. She holds a BA from Princeton University and an MFA from Portland State University’s Art Social Practice program. Her work focuses on identity, relationships, and connections between people and places and builds complex project structures that unfold over time. She currently teaches at Sacramento State University. www.elizagregory.org Margaretha Haughwout (USA) is an artist and an Assistant Professor of Digital Studio at Colgate University (situated on Oneida territory). She collaborates with humans, and the more- than- human, across technologies and ecologies, to enact
- 22. Contributors xvii possible worlds that generate abundance, presence and relationship. In doing so, she antagonizes proprietary regimes, colonial temporalities, and capitalist forms of labor. http://beforebefore.net/ Mary Beth Heffernan (USA) is a Los Angeles- based artist whose work explores the interplay of corporeality and images. She is Professor of Interdisciplinary Art at Occidental College and earned her BFA at Boston University and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Heffernan’s social practice PPE Portrait Project, conducted with healthcare workers in Liberia fighting Ebola outbreaks and those fighting the COVID- 19 pandemic, has garnered international media, academic and medical recognition. https://marybethheffernan.com/ Chris Johnson (USA) is a visual artist and the creator of the Question Bridge concept. He has served as President of the SF Camerawork Gallery, Chair of the Cultural Affairs Commission for the City of Oakland, and Director of the Mother Jones International Fund for Documentary Photography. Additionally, he authored The Practical Zone System: For Film and Digital Photography. Johnson is a Full Professor of Photography at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. www.chrisjohnsonphotographer.com LabSynthE (USA) is a framework for collaboration in the School of Arts, Tech- nology, and Emerging Communication at The University of Texas at Dallas. xtine burrough is Professor and Area Head of Design + Creative Practice in the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication at The Univer- sity of Texas at Dallas where she directs LabSynthE. She engages participatory audiences at the intersection of media art, remix, and digital poetry; and writes to reflect on her practice. Letícia Ferreira (Brazil, USA) is a PhD candidate in the School of Arts, Tech- nology and Emerging Communication at The University of Texas at Dallas. Her current research investigates how designers of public interactives create implicit subject positions for participants. Fiona Haborak is a second- year PhD student in the School of Arts, Technol- ogy, and Emerging Communication at The University of Texas at Dallas. Her research, published in Transformative Works and Cultures, examines identity, social media, cosplay, micro- celebrity, and fan studies. As a cosplayer, her crea- tive praxis draws from the DIY ethos to create multimedia works. Cynthia O’Neill is a PhD student, artist, educator and academic, in the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication at The University of Texas at Dallas. Her research focuses on varied modes of knowledge produc- tion, embodiment, and ecology within the fields of feminist science and tech- nology studies, disability studies, and interactive art.
- 23. xviii Contributors Sabrina Starnaman (USA) is an Associate Professor of Instruction at The University of Texas at Dallas, where she teaches American literature, and stud- ies women’s activism, urbanism, and disability. She is interested in how activists remediated exploitative labor practices, racism, ableism, and poverty. Starna- man is currently training to be a Zen Buddhist chaplain. Petra Kuppers (USA) is a disability culture activist, a community performance artist, an author of multiple books, a professor at the University of Michigan and an advisor on Goddard College’s MFA program in Interdisciplinary Arts. She leads The Olimpias, an international disability performance research collective and co- creates Turtle Disco, a somatic writing space, with her wife and collaborator, Stephanie Heit. Her academic books engage disability perfor- mance; medicine and contemporary arts; somatics and writing; and community performance. Dr. Laura Leuzzi (UK) is an art historian and curator. Her research is focused on early video art, European video art histories, art and feminism, reenactment, and new media. She co-edited REWINDItalia. Early Video Art in Italy (John Libbey, 2015) and EWVA European Women’s Video Art in the 70s and 80s (John Libbey 2019). Suzanne Lacy (USA) is renowned as a pioneer in socially engaged and public performance art. Her installations, videos, and performances deal with sexual violence, rural and urban poverty, incarceration, labor, and aging. Lacy’s large- scale projects span the globe, including England, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Ire- land, and the US. www.suzannelacy.com Cara Levine (USA), an artist based in Los Angeles, CA, earned a BFA from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI and an MFA from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. Using sculpture, video, and socially engaged practices, she explores the intersections of the physical, metaphysical, traumatic, and illusionary. She is the founder of This Is Not A Gun, a multidisciplinary pro- ject aiming to create awareness and activism through collective creative action. Her work has been presented in one- person and group exhibitions in venues around the world. Levine is currently an associate adjunct professor in Fine Art and Foundations at Otis College of Art and Design. www.caralevine.com Natalie Loveless (Canada), PhD, is Associate Professor, Contemporary Art and Theory, in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta, located in Amiskwacîwâskahikan on Treaty Six territory. She teaches contempo- rary art and theory with a focus on feminist art, performance art, conceptual art, activist art, art- as- social- practice, is the director of the Research- Creation and Social Justice CoLABoratory, and co- leads the Faculty of Arts’ Signature Area
- 24. Contributors xix in Research- Creation at the university. Loveless is an author/editor of multiple books and essays. www.loveless.ca Marcus Lyon (UK) is a British artist, born and raised in rural England. Com- missioned and exhibited globally, his works are held in both private and interna- tional collections, including the Detroit Institute of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Arts Council Collection (UK) and the Smithsonian Air Space Museum, Washington DC. His latest work incorporates photography, sound, and science. Lyon is a determined social entrepreneur serving on multiple nonprofit boards and volunteering for many others. www.marcuslyon.com Ari Melenciano (USA) is a creative technologist at Google’s Creative Lab, professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Graduate Program, and founder of Afrotec- topia—a social institution that is imagining, researching, and building at the nexus of new media art, design, science, and technology through a Black and Afrocentric lens. Her award- winning work has been supported and exhibited by a variety of institu- tions including Sundance, The New Museum’s New Inc, The New York Times, and The Studio Museum of Harlem. She is based in Brooklyn, NY. www.ariciano.com Mark Menjivar (USA) is a San Antonio- based artist, an associate professor in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University, and a co- founder of Border- land Collective, https://borderlandcollective.org/, which utilizes collaborations between artists, educators, youth, and community members to engage complex issues and build space for diverse perspectives, meaningful dialogue, and modes of creation around border issues. His work explores diverse subjects through pho- tography, archives, oral history and participatory project structures. He holds a BA in Social Work from Baylor University and an MFA in Social Practice from Portland State University. www.markmenjivar.com/ Rebekah Modrak (USA) is an artist and writer whose practice is at the intersec- tions of art, activism, critical design, and creative resistance to consumer culture. Her artworks are internet- based interventions that critique brand messaging. Her published writing analyzes the links between design, education, corporate cul- ture, and the appropriation of images and symbols of labor and blackness by luxury producers, and calls for critical artistic interventions to reclaim meaning by undermining brand rhetoric. She is Professor at Stamps School of Art Design at the University of Michigan. Karen Moss (USA) is a Los Angeles- based art historian, curator, writer, and educator who organizes exhibitions, artists’ residencies, performance series, and public programs. Her areas of expertise include conceptual, performance, and intermedia art since the 1960s, contemporary art and social practices, and experi- mental pedagogies. Currently, Moss is consulting curator for Talking to Action, at
- 25. xx Contributors the Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design’s participation part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time Los Angeles/Latin America initiative and is also on the curatorial team for CURRENT: LA, the inaugural Los Angeles Public Art Biennial. www.otis.edu/faculty/karen-moss-0 Beverly Naidus (USA) is a visual artist whose life has straddled the socially engaged margins of the art world, as well as collaborative, activist, and community- based art projects located outside the art world. Much of her work deals with ecological and social issues that have adversely affected her and those around her. Remedia- tion of traumas, both collective and personal, and reconstructive visions are key concepts that guide her work. Explicitly soliciting stories and images from the community in her provocative installations became part of her creative process early on, and more recently, collaborating with others to strategize and address the challenges guides her work. Her primary forms are audience- participatory installations, photo/text projects, artist’s books, and multimedia interventions; venues include city streets, alternative spaces, university galleries, and major museums. An emerita professor from the University of Washington, Naidus will be teaching independently and co- direct an arts program focused on climate and racial justice with the nonprofit, SEEDS (Social Ecology Education and Demon- stration School). http://faculty.washington.edu/bnaidus/ Praba Pilar (USA) is a queer, diasporic Colombian, mestiza artist creating per- formance art, digital/electronic installations, experimental public talks, and workshops in museums, universities, festivals, galleries, and streets around the world. Pilar has a decades- long practice critical of extraction- based approaches to technology, has been honored with fellowships and awards, featured in local and international media, and published her work in peer reviewed and popular journals and books. In search of better collective electric dreams, she is presently sharing approaches rooted in hemispheric resistance and resurgence by engaging the public through reflection, generosity, and criticality. Pilar has a PhD in Per- formance Studies from UC Davis and is Co- Director of the Hindsight Institute. www.prabapilar.com Siddharth Ramakrishnan (USA) is Chair of the Neuroscience program at The University of Puget Sound. His interest art and science collaborations have led him to teach alongside Victoria Vesna at UCLA and The New School of Design Parsons. He started an Art Science collaborative at the University of Puget Sound. www.siddharthramakrishnan.com/ Jason Reed (USA) is an associate professor of photography at Texas State Uni- versity and a co- founder of Borderland Collective, https://borderlandcollective. org/, which utilizes collaborations between artists, educators, youth, and commu- nity members to engage complex issues and build space for diverse perspectives,
- 26. Contributors xxi meaningful dialogue, and modes of creation around border issues. With a back- ground in geography, his work deals with the confluence of land, politics, and visual histories. He has created gallery and public space exhibitions of collabora- tive work in Texas, Illinois, Brooklyn, Washington, DC. and Mexico City. Jason holds a BA in Geography from the University of Texas and an MFA in Photogra- phy from Illinois State University. https://jasonreedphoto.com/ Tabita Rezaire (French Guyana) is an artist working with screens and energy streams. Her cross- dimensional practice envisions network sciences—organic, electronic, and spiritual—as healing technologies to serve the shift toward heart consciousness. Navigating architectures of power, she digs into scientific imagi- naries to tackle the pervasive matrix of coloniality and the protocols of energetic misalignment that affect the songs of our body- mind- spirits. She is a founding member of the artist group NTU and half of the duo Malaxa. Rezaire’s work has been exhibited around the world. www.tabitarezaire.com Margaret Rhee, PhD (USA), is a poet, new media artist, scholar, and author. Her new media art project, The Kimchi Poetry Machine, was selected for the Electronic Literature Collection Volume 3. Literary fellowships include Kundiman, Hedge- brook, the Kathy Acker Fellowship, and the Sierra Nevada College MFA 2019 Writer- in- Residence. Currently, she is completing her first monograph, How We Became Human: Race, Robots, and the Asian American Body, and a collection of lyrical essays on electronic literature. She received her PhD from UC Berkeley in ethnic and new media studies and her BA in English/Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. Currently, she is a College Fellow in Digital Practice in the English Department at Harvard University and an Assistant Profes- sor at SUNY Buffalo in the Department of Media Study. https://mrheeloy.com Stephanie Rothenberg (USA) is an interdisciplinary artist who draws from digital culture, science and economics to explore relationships between human designed systems and biological ecosystems. Moving between real and virtual spaces, her work investigates the power dynamics of techno utopias, global eco- nomics, and outsourced labor. She is Professor and Chair of the Department of Art at SUNY Buffalo where she co- directs the Platform Social Design Lab, an interdisciplinary design studio collaborating with local social justice organiza- tions. http://stephanierothenberg.com/ Brooke Singer (USA) is an artist who works across science, technology, politics, and arts practices. Her work provides entry into issues that are often character- ized as specialized to a general public. She is Associate Professor of New Media at Purchase College, a co- founder of the former collective Preemptive Media, and co- founder of La Casita Verde in Brooklyn, NY. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and her work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum
- 27. xxii Contributors of American Art, Microsoft Corporation and Bucksbaum/Learsy. https://brooke singer.net Sylvain Souklaye (USA) is a French artist exploring collective intimacies and epi- genetic memories as a living language and the body as the last remaining proof. Self- taught, he began performing with vandalism in Lyon, and then intimate happenings, radio experimentation, and action poetry. He later developed digital art installations using field recording techniques as a narrative layer while pursuing his writer’s path. Souklaye’s work questions the “Safe Space,”as history has always been a minefield for his ancestors. His methods characteristically involve intense physical acts as well as the use of unsettling intimacy. www.sylvainsouklaye.com Charissa Terranova, PhD (USA), is a writer and educator. She researches com- plex biological systems from a cultural purview, focusing on the history of evolu- tionary theory, biology, and biocentrism in art, architecture, and design.Professor of Art and Architectural History, she lectures and teaches seminars at the Univer- sity of Texas at Dallas on modern and contemporary art and architectural history and theory, the history of biology in art and architecture, and media and new media art and theory. www.charissanterranova.com Gemma-Rose Turnbull (Australia) is an artist, researcher, and educator. She stud- ies the way artists integrate co- productive methodologies into their photographic practices, particularly when authorship structures are revised so people who may have previously been subjects of images become co- creators. Gemma is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland. She currently teaches at Photography Studies College in Melbourne, Australia. www.gemmarose.com.au Victoria Vesna, PhD, (USA) is an artist and professor at the UCLA Department of Design Media Arts, where she is also the director of the UCLA Art|Sci center. With her installations she investigates how communication technologies affect collective behavior and perceptions of identity shift in relation to scientific inno- vation. https://victoriavesna.com Judy Walgren (USA) is a Pulitzer Prize- winning photojournalist, visuals editor, artist, and professor of practice for photojournalism and new media at Michi- gan State University, which occupies the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary Lands of the Anishinaabeg—the Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples. Her research explores visual archives, the production of meaning through imagery and uncovering strategies for dismantling stereotypes created and/or supported by media images. www.jujuphoto.com
- 28. The Medium Is Not the (Only) Message . . . The message is also the message. Since Marshall McLuhan famously asserted that the media delivering the mes- sage was not neutral but carried its own meanings,1 my generation of artists took up the challenge as communication was, after all, intrinsic to art. Throughout my career I’ve explored the reciprocities of messages and media to understand how meanings were extended, enhanced, transformed, or obfuscated based on where my work took place: in the streets, in galleries, on television, or within intimate communities. Art itself is a form of communication, and my advocacy of social practices in art—originating first in localized community practices enacted through the mechanisms of intimate and embodied conversations—comes from a deep and abiding belief in the power of communication to align values and to bridge divides. In terms of digital, networked, and social media technologies, it is clear that visual artists have been important techno- adapters, often bent on exploration of new media for its own sake. During McLuhan’s era, artists embraced new tech- nologies for a variety of reasons, often simply as experiments in new forms of media available to them: Nam June Paik used a portable video camera, Barbara T. Smith sat her bare bottom on a Xerox machine, and Lynn Hershman created Lorna, the first interactive videodisk. More generally, the emergence of perfor- mance, community, and conceptual art forms in the Sixties and Seventies tracks with evolving tools that were intriguing in and of themselves, including porta- paks, Polaroid cameras, mechanical copying, Hi8 cameras, and tape recorders. The possibilities for aesthetic interference in technological advancements have FOREWORD Suzanne Lacy
- 29. xxiv Foreword been an ever- renewing frontier for art which, like Hershman’s extensive body of work, provide an inquiry into the medium itself. What if the goal of one’s art is not knowledge production or aesthetic expres- sion per se, but instead a specifically utilitarian project of reaching certain audi- ences? When first asked to weigh in on use the of the internet as a tool for artists organizing at a conference in the early ’90s, I was skeptical. My practice relied on the haptic and embodied communication that was so effective in feminist anti- violence and anti- racism organizing. The Arab Spring uprising was the first indication that I was woefully mistaken. Since then, I’ve been proven repeat- edly wrong as digital communications have played central roles in everything from the Black Lives Matter movement to the invasion of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Still, I remain a social media skeptic today, although for other reasons. Digital communication, once heralded as a democratizing force in wresting control of information distribution from corporations, has become the means for corporate interests to misinform, antagonize, and create fear and division. Television and newspaper dominance of a few voices, which at least in the past had to respond to fact- checking, has given way to opinions (and conspiracies) of the many, a confusion of meanings, factoids, and distractions underwritten by the same power brokers. We no longer have what we might call a “reality- based” commons, if we ever did. Although digital technology’s role in cultural formation is publicly scruti- nized, from Facebook’s ban on Donald Trump’s posts to Congress’s examination of Facebook’s possible antitrust violations, the breathtaking scope of alternative truth narratives like those perpetuated by “End- the- Steal” advocates seems like a high price to pay for the convenience of global communication. The question on my mind now is “Are we already too divided by communication technologies to have a real conversation?” What is a real conversation? I have never been interested in digital technology for its own sake, which makes me a strange choice for introducing this book. But I have platformed social media technology often, in performances such as Tattooed Skeleton in 2010 (Fig- ure 0.1), Three Weeks in January in 2013, and Silver Action in 2013 (Figure 0.2). For each work, digital media was placed alongside other forms of media as a way to explore conversational forms, like comparing organizing against gender violence over the internet with in- person strategies or determining whether social media could impact conversation between different generations of women. Now, with the limitations due to the COVID- 19 pandemic, social practice as a matter of personal presence has a deeply uncertain future. I am working from my home in Los Angeles with an intersectional team of women in Manchester, England, to explore discriminations in the workplace. This organizing process is not unusual in my practice, but what is new is that we are seeking solidarity with weekly meetings held on Zoom. Across all sections of this book, artists writing during
- 30. Foreword xxv FIGURE 0.1 Suzanne Lacy, Tattooed Skeleton, 2010. Photo by Juan Cruz Ibáñez Gangutia, Courtesy of Suzanne Lacy Studio. FIGURE 0.2 Suzanne Lacy, Silver Action, 2013. As part of BMW Tate Live, Tate Modern. Photo: © Gabrielle Fonseca Johnson for Tate Photography, Courtesy of Suzanne Lacy Studio.
- 31. xxvi Foreword the COVID- 19 pandemic share how they have pivoted in their practices to deliver their works as Zoom performances (Sylvain Souklaye), online workshops (Petra Kuppers, burrough, et al. for LabSynthE, Cara Levine), or asynchronously across the network (Rebekah Modrak). Overcoming division, powerlessness, and “othering” through conversation is, I would argue, the fundamental methodology of social practice art. Certainly the social practice artists in this book are well- versed in this method, including Bev- erly Naidus, Kim Abeles, and Chris Johnson. Many works in this book are mini- experiments in the possible uses of technology for communication. For instance, Praba Pilar’s Techno-Tamaladas creates a space for these types of conversations while making food, while Victoria Vesna and Siddharth Ramakrishnan’s Hox Zodiac Dinner creates conversation spaces while participants “eat or be eaten.” These artists are interested in the medium for its capacities, but the message remains consistent, an expression of the possibility of social equity among humans, and beyond. For instance, Cesar Lois and Margharetha Haughwout engage in prac- tices that promote equity among all living things in the sixth extinction. Artists concerned with social goals must take seriously the questions, “How does change take place and what kinds of communication support it?” Mobiliza- tion and protest are important forms of organizing, which artists can and do sup- port, but quieter efforts to inspire agency—exposing hidden experience, evoking empathy, building communities—will surely offer valuable models for the kinds of conversations necessary for a healthy public commons. The artists in this book deliver: Dalida María Benfield et al., created a radical VR community space for artists; Judy Walgren and Eliza Gregory discuss collaborative portraiture; Mary Beth Heffernan’s PPE Portrait Projects redefine the role of imaging as an ethical necessity during public health crises. Curious as they are about how personal, social, and political themes intersect, these artists may question the meanings in the media they use, but they tend to apply technologies operationally, as tools for change. Leaving aside coercive methods of political formation like mass deception or brute force, we are left with persuasion and its affective devices such as empathy or hostility. A question for these artists might then be, “How do conversations persuade us to think dif- ferently, to become activated?” What makes a productive conversation: its spatial dimensions, the number of people involved, the rules of exchange? As artistic techno- adapters, we change our methodologies based on a notion of conversa- tion, or meta- conversation, and therefore, engage with the mechanism of the conversation as an evolving technology in and of itself. We consider whether messages are better communicated through mass media, social media, or art venues. As artistic activists, we explore what forms of communication work for which people, in which places. Ultimately, the expression and desire for equity, it seems to me, is something that outlives each evolution of communication technology—the printing press, telegraph, telephone, television, and internet. While taking full advantage of
- 32. Foreword xxvii what each offers in our ability to speak meaningfully to one another, we evolve one of our earliest technologies: the conversation. Acknowledgment With gratitude to Sophia Marisa Lucas for her insights and editorial suggestions. Note 1. Marshall McLuhan, Quentin Fiore, and Jerome Angel, The Medium Is the Message (New York: Bantam Books, 1967). Bibliography McLuhan, Marshall, Quentin Fiore, and Jerome Angel. The Medium Is the Message. New York: Bantam Books, 1967.
- 33. Judy and xtine want to express our deepest gratitude to every contributor to this book and to the editorial board at Routledge. Emma Sherriff and Sheni Kruger, thank you again for all of your guidance and support! xtine burrough It is always a pleasure to collaborate with my friends and peers, and working with Judy Walgren was downright fun. I am so grateful to have met Judy on the holy grounds at Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier—and for my time there many years ago—and that even through a global health pandemic we managed to make time for each other and this project on Zoom every week. I’d also like to extend much gratitude to every contributor to this volume for saying yes to our call. I love people who say yes, and speaking of . . . To my partner, Paul Martin Lester, our sons Parker and Martin, my parents Viola and Bill, and my dear friend Sam Martin: “thank you” barely captures the essence of my gratitude. Your support, encouragement, wisdom, and silliness sustained me in this project. I would also like to fondly acknowledge Dean Anne Balsamo and Associate Dean of Research and Creative Technologies, Dale MacDonald, at The University of Texas at Dallas—as well as my life- long mentors, Christopher James, and my VCFA mentors, Steven Kurtz and Humberto Ramirez, for their ongoing sup- port. My chapter contribution to this book centers on a project developed with LabSynthE—the very best part of my career as an educator. I am grateful for all of the collaborators who work side- by- side with me there, including Sabrina Starnaman and Frank Dufour, whose ongoing contributions uplift the lab. I am lucky to call you my friends and collaborators. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- 34. Acknowledgments xxix Judy Walgren I am so incredibly grateful to have had this opportunity to work with and learn from the incredible artists included in this book, and with xtine burrough—an incredible human being, artist, scholar, mentor, educator, mother, and friend. I am in complete awe of her brilliance, as well as her dedication to her work, students and family. To be honest, I am still in disbelief that we were able to put this entire body of work together during the COVID- 19 pandemic using Zoom, text messaging, and an endless onslaught of emails. To my son, Theo DeHaas, thanks for believing in me and, at times, sacrificing a few slices of the precious time we have together so that I could work on this project. To Tim Vos, the Director of the MSU School of Journalism—thanks for your patience and for helping me navigate the “cat on the screen door syndrome” a few times over the course of the past few years. And to the incredible Vermont College of Fine Arts faculty and visiting artists who expertly and firmly guided me into the world of visual art—especially Việt Lê, Cauleen Smith, and Dalida María Benfield (Chap- ter 15)—your support, wisdom, and brilliance literally changed my life and are continuous sources of inspiration. And last, but not least—to my dear friend Ann Jastrab, who sat outside with me one beautiful day in San Francisco and told me to go for it, thanks for always being there. What a wild ride it has been!
- 36. To introduce this anthology, co- editors burrough and Walgren had a conversa- tion inspired by the many interviews included in this book, notably in the section “Windows and Mirrors.” We met on Zoom, like we did throughout the making of this book, and produced this (slightly edited) transcript of our conversation: Judy Walgren (JW): I was really thrilled to get your email inviting me to partner with you on this incredible book project. Can you share how you came up with the idea, including any sources of inspiration? xtine burrough (xb): The idea for this book was sparked by absence—I wanted to fill a gap on my bookshelves and in my classrooms. One of my ongoing goals, as an artist and editor, is to bring art- ists together to share their works—much like curating an exhibition—in this case, by using descriptive words about their processes and projects. The book’s format mimics my prior editorial experiences, most notably my collection Net Works: Case Studies of Web Art and Design (Routledge, 2012). Six years later, my editor at the time, Erica Wet- ter, asked if I was interested in creating a follow- up to Net Works. As is often the case with art and technology—things are constantly changing: technology, expectations between artists and participants, ways of interacting, and possibili- ties for collaboration. You can imagine how much these things have changed over the past year, much less the last decade! Net Works was motivated by my classroom experi- ences. I was teaching interactive media art and wanted to INTRODUCTION xtine burrough and Judy Walgren in conversation DOI: 10.4324/9781003169109-1
- 37. 2 xtine burrough and Judy Walgren in conversation create a book for students that focused on what we might have called then “net.art” or works made explicitly for the browser. I continue to teach interactive media art, but I also teach classes in culture jamming and digital art as social practice; so this book was a way to combine those areas. Art as Social Practice: Technologies for Change is a platform for artists to voice their socially engaged works that utilize art and technology grounded in the social sphere. What my collections have in common is that they prioritize the voice of the artist, which, as far as academic texts go, is my primary intervention. It’s becoming more commonplace for artists to write about their works in case studies and reflective essays—for instance, since Net Works was pub- lished, many artists have contributed to Media- N: The Jour- nal of the New Media Caucus, The Journal of Art and Research (JAR), and the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (JITP), to name a few artist- friendly academic writing spaces. However, readers will more likely find academic texts about art as social practice—especially in university or academic presses like Routledge—written by art historians and critical scholars. Some publications will feature short essays by artists or portfolios after longer texts written by historians or scholars. I wanted to flip this paradigm and give the longer page count to the artists while including brief introductions by critical scholars. As a practicing art- ist, I recognize that our “field” is defined, in large part, by people who manifest artworks, and by those works. So, while I enjoy reading a critical interpretation of art- ist’s projects, I’d prefer to read or listen to the artist. I want to understand how fellow artists think about making their work, what they learn through reflective writing, and how their intentionality has developed through an iterative pro- cess connecting to their prior works and experiences. The artist- authors in this book deliver a million times over— they connect a multitude of dots for the audience, provid- ing roadmaps through which they can inspect their own creative processes and those of others, while providing inspiration for many different possibilities. In- between these two book projects, I met you! Having edited many collections, I knew the scope of the work that was in front of me (and knew I would be juggling exhibi- tions and other projects while editing this book); and I knew that you would have a different, and valuable, network of
- 38. Introduction 3 artist friends who would also be great contributors to this book. So I asked you to join me on this journey. I am so delighted that you agreed! xb: What made you say yes to working on this collection with me? JW: Wow. Who could say no to YOU? When we first met at the Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) during the Winter 2016 residency, I was working as a visual journalist and director of photography for a large media company in the Bay Area. I was also working on my MFA, so you can imagine how chaotic things were inside of my head. You were a VCFA alumni “critter”—graciously giving of your time to check out students’ work and provide robust feedback so we could grow. I was immediately taken with your articulate and thoughtful consideration of the work presented AND that you immediately “got” what it was I was trying to communicate through the body of work I exhibited. Your feedback helped me to begin building a bridge between my life as a visual journalist and my desire to become an artist/educator, as well. In turn, I was able to finally envision the larger metaphor that I had been searching for: the bridge between the worlds of “media” and visual art. I knew that I had a lot to learn from you and your experiences, AND that it would be an incred- ible opportunity to collaborate with you on something, anything. xb: Let’s just take this moment to recognize VCFA. I attended the program from 1999–2001, before there were MFA con- centrations or degree programs in Art as Social Practice. Nonetheless, the MFA Visual Art residency program in Montpelier, Vermont, has always centered core elements of social practice in its pedagogy—that artists are embedded in, and as such, always responding to the society in which they live. Moreover, artists have a responsibility to the social, cul- tural, and political times in which they inhabit. The MFA program was spearheaded by G. Roy Levin, who gave prec- edence to experimentation and process over shiny, finished products. In a January 2015 talk about the MFA program, Levin rightfully claimed: One of the most important aspects of the program is what happens when students return home to continue their life in art. That’s because I believe that almost all of our students are radicalized by their time here—I don’t
- 39. 4 xtine burrough and Judy Walgren in conversation mean politically, though that may happen. Rather, radicalized in the most fundamental sense of how one relates to the world as an artist and as a person.1 Knowing that you and I were both, indeed, transformed (in many ways) by our powerful experiences with the pro- gram, the faculty, visiting artists, and our respective cohorts, I intuited that we would bring our radicalized selves into the making of this book. JW: Beautifully described, xtine. And yes, VCFA provided a space where my radicalness was celebrated and encouraged, not frowned upon and forced underground. I didn’t realize how much of myself I had been hiding until then . . . JW: So, xtine—What do you mean by “Art as Social Practice?” And then, why a book on technology and social practice art? xb: In the context of this book, largely written by a diverse group of artists for the primary audience of creative prac- titioners, I would like to take up this definition from the voices (also) of practitioners. First, it is important to address the various names assigned to this sort of practice that can be confusing for newcomers: “Art as Social Practice” is com- monly used to refer to the kind of creative practice I discuss later in the title of academic degree programs. The first aca- demic concentration in Art as Social Practice came about in 2005 at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and there are many others now across the United States and abroad (including the graduate program at Portland State University that contributor Harrell Fletcher leads).2 Other programs take on the term Pablo Helguera has written about, “socially engaged art”; and still others focus on com- munity engagement (even sometimes leaving “art” wholly out of the title). Tania Bruguera, an impactful Cuban art- ist whose work is often labeled under the umbrella of “art as social practice” in the United States, suggests the phrase “arte útil.”3 I will use language posed by artists as definitions for all of these broader notions of art in combination with social practices, social engagement, or usefulness to create a working definition of art as social practice with an emphasis on methods. Artist- authors in this book write and reflect on their works which are: participatory, collaborative, criti- cally engaged, and process- driven. Later, I align art as social practice with notions put forward by Tania Bruguera, Pablo
- 40. Introduction 5 Helguera, Harrell Fletcher, and Suzanne Lacy (Harrell and Lacy are included in this book). Tania Bruguera suggests that political and social artists following her “arte útil” concept are able to imagine “how one can use all the tools of art to change reality and how to incorporate themselves as artists and civic servants into that reality.”4 Helguera discusses socially engaged art as a nebu- lous, interdisciplinary practice that has art historical roots in conceptual art—especially the introduction of “the thought process as artwork; [in which] the materiality of the artwork [is] optional.”5 Similarly to Bruguera’s artist as civic servant utilizing the tools of art for transformative purposes, Hel- guera writes, “what characterizes socially engaged art is its dependence on social intercourse as a factor of its existence.” These commonalities: art as a method for transformation and social change, creative process (and sometimes ephem- erality) over materiality, and interdisciplinary collaborations are defining elements art as social practice. In addition to this, and continuing to focus on methods, Harrell Fletcher writes in his introduction to Section II that social practice artists create participatory works with three audiences in mind: people who had something to do with the original conception of a project, people who experi- ence the project directly (and may or may not have had a hand in creating the work), and people who experience the work in mediated form, for instance through a talk or documentation. Considering the three audiences is impor- tant for artists who create works for social engagement and participation, as they must prioritize modes of executing a project to deliver a clear message to participants and addi- tional audiences across space and time.6 Finally, Suzanne Lacy emphasizes the significance of dialogue in creating equity as part of the creative process for socially engaged artists. She writes at the end of her Foreword to this book, the expression and desire for equity, it seems to me, is something that out- lives each evolution of communication technology—the printing press, tel- egraph, telephone, television, and internet. While taking full advantage of what each offers in our ability to speak meaningfully to one another, we evolve one of our earliest technologies: the conversation.7 I wrote earlier that my primary critical intervention as an editor is to amplify the voices of artists in academic
- 41. 6 xtine burrough and Judy Walgren in conversation writing spaces. The other form of field- meddling made by this book is its synthesis—through case studies, portfolios, interviews, and artist reflections—of art as social practice and works that engage technology. Art historically, socially engaged works have taken the form of in person gather- ings, performances, and exchanges, without an emphasis on technological mediation (for instance, in performative works like Paul Chan’s Waiting for Godot in New Orleans or Paul Ramírez Jonas’s The Key to the City, which, indeed, opened seemingly closed parts of New York City to par- ticipants). In a visual arts classroom, books like Scholette et al.’s Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art and Nato Thomp- son’s Living as Form are excellent sources of inspiration—I assign readings from both in my classroom. But, for students of art and technology, there is something important miss- ing. Where was the book that showcased works as socially engaging as The Key to the City while simultaneously dis- cussing the technoculture we inhabit and we, as emerging media artists, employ in our work? This collection fills that gap. Artists- authors included in this volume have consid- ered what Fletcher terms the “three audiences” in works centered on collaboration and conversation. They inter- rogate, rebuild, reimagine, or transform interactions with technologies as emergent as artificial intelligence (Cesar Lois), digital algorithms (Haughwout), and virtual reality (Benfield et al.), and as old as the soil (Singer) and seed (Pilar). xb: Let’s talk about our process for developing the list of artist- authors who have contributed to this book. JW: We each came up with a short list of artists known for their (collaboratively, as socially engaged works, who used some form of technology we contest the format in the creation and/or dissemination of the work. Some of the interview): were fellow educators, some were not. Once we had our foundational authors, we asked each one if they had sug- gestions for other artists to invite to participate in the pro- ject. This helped us to create a roster of contributors that went beyond our individual close contacts, and expanded our knowledge of the field. At the same time, we wanted to include well- known artists who have published many times before, alongside emerging voices. We were blown away by the groundswell of support and enthusiasm we were met with as invitations were blasted out into the hinterlands . . .
- 42. Introduction 7 xb: It was also important for us to have each section intro- duced by scholars recognized in the field—following the format I used for Net Works. Once we had a finalized table of contents for each chapter contribution, we brainstormed how to divide the book into sections. For one minute, we thought about sections defined by genre; then we immedi- ately agreed that we would prefer the book to have a more thematic throughline as to remix, reimagine, and expand on connections; thus, breaking down silos. xb and JW To introduce the organization of this book into sections and chapters, we decided to write this part of our interview/ introduction together: We begin this book grounded in the earth. Therefore, Section I, titled “Seeds and Tools,” includes case studies of techno- ecological works as technologies for change that traverse the digital wild. Historically, art as social practice includes projects in which agriculture—seeds, tools, and food—plays a cross- cultural role as is exemplified in Rirkrit Tiravanija’s untitled (pad thai) (1990).8 More recently, Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds (2010)9 is made by 1,600 artisans, a collaborative project that underscores the role of mass production, Chinese manufacturing, and consumption in uniquely crafted porcelain seeds. Thor Hanson writes, Grains also have a long connection with revolution. If you look through the history of revolutions—from the fall of the Roman Empire to the French Revolution—very often those times were preceded by drought or periods of grain shortage.10 Artist-authors in this section share sustainable practices that radically change how we live and create together on shared land. They provide case studies that highlight how emerg- ing technologies can be used in the collaboration, distribu- tion, and making of ecosystemic intelligence. Natalie Loveless introduces Section I with the apt ques- tion, “What constitutes the social?”11 The artist’s chapters that follow respond with socially engaged projects engaging the earth, from soil to seed to fungi to humans. Brooke Singer’s Carbon Sponge is a transdisciplinary collaboration showcasing the potential for urban soil to be a sink for car- bon and means to mitigate our anthropogenic climate cri- sis. Beverly Naidus discusses how crucial art interventions can be in addressing environmental racism, while offering
- 43. 8 xtine burrough and Judy Walgren in conversation an irresistible vision of how communities can use perma- culture design to remediate Superfund sites. Lucy HG Solomon and Cesar Baio (Cesar Lois) consider how hybrid media, as well as biological art practices, are inher- ently socially engaged art processes that can span a variety of living forms. Kim Abeles reflects on her collaboration with women trained as firefighters, who together create ten sculptural valises for National Park Service rangers and County Fire educators to use as they teach communities about forest fire abatement and responsible stewardship. Praba Pilar examines the seed as an entangled technol- ogy while tracing the comprehensive history of the Techno- Tamaladas project, which connects Indigenous practices to technological development. In Section II, “Windows and Mirrors,” we include inter- views, portfolios, and reflective chapters that expose these artists’ processes to readers. Harrell Fletcher’s introduc- tion poses the responsibility of considering multiple forms of audiences, and this responsibility is taken up by artists in this section. Charissa Terranova interviewed Marcus Lyon in a discussion of Lyon’s ongoing project The Human Atlas to uncover how Lyon and his team expand notions of documentary photography through DNA and sound. Borderland Collective members Mark Menjivar and Jason Reed interview each other to explore their purpose of working collectively in the Texas- Mexico borderlands, what social justice within art making means to them, and how technology, particularly digital input to physical out- put, has shaped their abilities to extend voices and share stories that complicate colonial narratives. Judy Walgren is a “recovering” photojournalist, who reflects on her com- mitment to expanding the narrowly focused visual archive around the high- profile Survivor community from and around Michigan State University in her project, We Are Worth Everything: Survivors as Themselves. Editors burrough and Walgren interview Ari Melenciano to discuss her creative process in her long- term project Afrotectopia, a platform and collaboration that supports Black artists and explores new ways to use technology to create paths to the past. Laura Leuzzi interviews Joseph DeLappe to understand DeLappe’s transformation from solo practitioner to socially engaged artist by discussing a lineage of works and circumstances that led to a series of community- based
- 44. Introduction 9 and crowdsourced projects. Chris Johnson contributed a chapter that we position alongside the centerpiece in this book. In it, Johnson offers a reflection on his portfolio from his early school days, to well- known collaborations, The Roof is on Fire with Suzanne Lacy and Annice Jacoby, and Question Bridge, which expanded into a collaboration with Hank Willis Thomas. Johnson shares poignant recent works for museums, finishing the “Windows and Mirrors” section with examples that indicate the breadth and possibility for forms of art as social practice that utilize technologies for change. Between the second and third sections, Tabita Rezaire’s “Decolonial Healing: In Defense of Spiritual Technologies” forms a centerpiece. This work originally appeared as the Prologue in the Sage Handbook of Media and Migration.12 Rezaire’s defense- essay is a manifesto for transformation, healing, unlearning, and aligning. Plants are realigned as teachers and the body as a work of information technology. This work is a textual connective tissue that bridges all of the sections in this book. We leave the ground for Section III, “Magical Machines.” Chapters in this section foreground the supernatural, including alchemy, time travel, and radical collaboration. This section fulfills our profound craving for otherworld- liness and connection during these unprecedented times. Anne Balsamo introduces the works in this section by tuning in to “the grain of the voice”13 she hears when artists speak or write about their works. She likens the artist to the magician who realizes the transformative promise of tech- nology. Christopher Blay reimagines space programs and invents time machines to both examine and reconfigure the earth and cosmos as an inclusive Black space. Margaretha Haughwout reflects on her collaborative spellweaving practice to interrogate the Capitaloscene. Margaret Rhee discusses The Kimchi Poetry Machine, an installation that reimagines how tangible computing can be utilized for fem- inist participatory engagement with poetry. Collaborators Dalida María Benfield, Christopher Bratton, Evelyn Eastmond, M Eifler, and Gabriel Pereira reflect on their experiment in an iterative, experimental virtual real- ity space for knowledge exchange and collaboration. LabSynthE, represented by xtine burrough, Sabrina Starnaman, Letícia Ferreira, Fiona Haborak, and
- 45. 10 xtine burrough and Judy Walgren in conversation Cynthia O’Neill articulate and contextualize their project, One Breath Poem, as a telematic art form in which the breath informs the duration of a poem during a collaborative writ- ing, calling, and recording workshop. Following the poetic breathwork of “Magical Ma- chines,” Stephanie Rothenberg—an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of digital culture, sci- ence and economics, whose work also fits the themes in this book14 —introduces artists in Section IV: Expan- sions. Rothenberg writes, these artists use technologies to “expand outward from themselves to build meaningful connections and transcend consciousness in their com- munities.”15 Artists discuss how their works contest the affordance of digital forms, virtual spaces, and experimen- tation. Artist- authors share creative processes that expand consciousness across networks and in virtual spaces. For example, Sarah Ruth Alexander cultivates local crea- tive collectives through music and performance series, expanding the community into collaborating musicians and performers through deep listening activities. Petra Kuppers reflects on the disability community arts organi- zation, Turtle Disco, which she co- leads with her wife, poet and dancer Stephanie Heit, most notably as Turtle Disco expands its writing community via Zoom dur- ing the pandemic. Gemma-Rose Turnbull expands the notion of “the archive,” as a loose capsule of material about a neighborhood in flux; encapsulating ongoing dia- logues about gentrification, growth, and change. Sylvain Souklaye performs the expansion of his breath. He writes about his online, hybrid performances as a means of tran- scending the liveness of an automated ecosystem to reach the living as an intimate and collective sensitive moment. And to close this section, Victoria Vesna and Siddharth Ramakrishnan bring two fields into conversation—art and science—in their ongoing dinner and conversation piece, Hox Zodiac Dinner. Finally, in Section V, artist- authors draw on “Reimagina- tion,” to confront, change, or rethink our ability to connect as human beings using emerging platforms and on- demand processes. Karen Moss writes that these artists, “share an interest not just in reimagining social practice, but engag- ing in strategies of reanimating, recontextualizing, replacing and remaking to elucidate issues, inform their publics and
- 46. Introduction 11 transform social inequities.”16 Mary Beth Heffernan ena- bles healthcare providers covered head- to- toe in personal protective equipment (PPE) to connect with the people they are caring for using her portrait photography intervention. Rebekah Modrak’s intervention is online, where she uses tactics of culture jamming to reimagine Best Made Co. in her own spoof, RE MADE Co. Eliza Gregory reimagines portrait photography by leveraging additional technologies such as social media, audio recording equipment, market- ing strategies, and graphic design in her work Testimony. Cara Levine authors the final chapter in the book with a case study of her ongoing project, This Is Not A Gun. Lev- ine and her participants create a space for healing through touch, and cultivate an increased awareness of racial profil- ing, police brutality, and societal trauma in America. JW: Who is our intended audience for Art as Social Practice: Tech- nologies for Change? xb: Like Net Works, our hope is that this anthology will appeal to art educators, students, and working artists at the inter- section of art and technology and art as (many and vari- ous) social practices. In recognition that this may be read by educators and students, we also asked each author to write a participation prompt at the end of their chapters. Stu- dents/readers can follow these prompts for in- class, group, or homework exercises. JW: Really, anyone who is interested in engaging with com- munities to create new knowledge, different ways of being and/or pathways for change would find a wealth of inspira- tion within each chapter presented in the book. xb: Thank you, Judy, for your commitment to this project. You are a fantastic collaborator—a deep thinker, a thought- ful communicator, and you made me laugh at all the right moments in our two- year journey through a global health crisis as we worked to put this book together. As I reflect on those two years, I would like to acknowl- edge the time in which this book was written. We started imagining this book as a collaboration that we extended to our contributors during the summer of 2020. Not surpris- ingly, we had multiple contacts we were hoping to include in this collection who simply could not commit to writing. The COVID- 19 pandemic was challenging for everyone with the practice of quarantine collapsing professional and domestic spaces. Mary Beth Heffernan’s chapter responds
- 47. 12 xtine burrough and Judy Walgren in conversation poignantly to the pandemic in her case study of an ongoing project that makes the faces of health care workers visible while donning the PPE (personal protective equipment) that would become familiar to lay- civilians in the form of face masks. Petra Kuppers and the art and science duo Victoria Vesna and Siddharth Ramakrishnan brought their projects to Zoom for collaboration on the popular communication platform used during the pandemic. The summer of 2020 held an even more difficult charge—as if a global health crisis were not already difficult—in the United States and across the globe. It was a time of social and political upheaval. Donald Trump was serving (what we did not know for sure would be) the last six months of his presidential term. The murder of George Floyd (formally, George Perry Floyd Jr.) at the hands of police—another example of ongoing rac- ism expressed in police brutality—ignited protest and rekin- dled a demand for social change that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets in Minneapolis and cities around the country. Two hundred American cities had state- imposed curfews in June 2020.17 Some of the chapters in this col- lection (LabSynthE, Cara Levine) are case studies of works inspired to take action in response to police brutality. FIGURE I.1 Judy Walgren (top) and xtine burrough (bottom) on Zoom, days before sub- mitting the manuscript of this book. This is what we looked like throughout the COVID- 19 pandemic, turning our dream of this book into a reality.
- 48. Introduction 13 We are finalizing the book in August 2021 (Figure I.1). We are in yet a new wave of the pandemic with the “Delta Variant” in headlines across the United States and across the globe. There is still so much work to do, as Suzanne Lacy writes in her Foreword, “to explore what forms of commu- nication work for which people, in which places” in works that call for equity, mobilize people, and start conversations. I want to extend my gratitude to all of our contributors for their time, dedication, inspired artworks, and generosity. And Judy, I can’t wait for our next project! JW: This was an opportunity of a lifetime for me. Thank YOU for your commitment to this work, to creating and fostering such diverse and engaged spaces for us all to participate in and for just being the overall BadAss that we love so much. Notes 1. “G. Roy Levin Talks the MFA in Visual Art at VCFA,” (28 January 2015), https:// youtu.be/izzJb5PEx7s. 2. For more information about programs see Daniel Grant, “Social Practice Degrees Take Art to a Communal Level,” The New York Times (5 February 2016), www. nytimes.com/2016/02/07/education/edlife/social-practice-degrees-take-art-to-a- communal-level.html. 3. Art21, “Interview: Defining an Artist: Tania Bruguera,” https://art21.org/read/ tania-bruguera-defining-an-artist/. 4. Ibid. 5. Pablo Helguera, Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Materials and Techniques Handbook (New York: Jorge Pinto Books, 2011), 2. 6. Harrell Fletcher, p. 76, this volume. 7. Ibid. 8. Enid Tsui, “Rirkrit Tiravanija Defends His Pad Thai Performance Art Piece Ahead of Its Revival at Hong Kong Gallery,” Post Magazine (15 May 2021), www.scmp. com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3133456/rirkrit-tiravanija- defends-his-pad-thai. 9. Ai Weiwei, “Sunflower Seeds,” Tate.org (2010), www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ ai-sunflower-seeds-t13408. 10. Thor Hanson, The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History (New York: Basic Books, 2016); also www. nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/04/150429-ngbooktalk-seeds-agriculture- food-science-world-book/. 11. Natalie Loveless, p. 15, this volume. 12. Tabita Rezaire, “Decolonial Healing: In Defense of Spiritual Technologies,” in The Sage Handbook of Media and Migration, edited by Kevin Smets, Koen Leurs, Myria Georgiou, Saskia Witteborn, and Radhika Gajjala (London: Sage Reference, 2020), xxiv–xlv. 13. Anne Balsamo, p. 173, this volume. 14. See http://stephanierothenberg.com/. 15. Stephanie Rothenberg, p. 230, this volume. 16. Karen Moss, p. 277, this volume.
- 49. 14 xtine burrough and Judy Walgren in conversation 17. Maria Sacchetti, “Curfews Follow Days of Looting and Demonstrations,” Washington- Post.com (1 June 2020), www.washingtonpost.com/national/curfews-follow-days-of- looting-and-demonstrations/2020/06/01/6376e51e-a428-11ea-b473-04905b1af82b_ story.html. Bibliography Art21. “Interview: Defining an Artist: Tania Bruguera.” https://art21.org/read/tania- bruguera-defining-an-artist/. “G. Roy Levin Talks the MFA in Visual Art at VCFA.” January 28, 2015. https://youtu. be/izzJb5PEx7s. Grant, Daniel. “Social Practice Degrees Take Art to a Communal Level.” The New York Times, February 5, 2016. www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/education/edlife/social- practice-degrees-take-art-to-a-communal-level.html. Hanson, Thor. The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History. New York: Basic Books, 2016. Helguera, Pablo. Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Materials and Techniques Handbook. New York: Jorge Pinto Books, 2011. Rezaire, Tabita. “Decolonial Healing: In Defense of Spiritual Technologies.” In The Sage Handbook of Media and Migration. Edited by Kevin Smets, Koen Leurs, Myria Georgiou, Saskia Witteborn, and Radhika Gajjala, xxiv–xlv. London: Sage Reference, 2020. Sacchetti, Maria. “Curfews Follow Days of Looting and Demonstrations.” WashingtonPost. com,June1,2020.www.washingtonpost.com/national/curfews-follow-days-of-looting- and-demonstrations/2020/06/01/6376e51e-a428-11ea-b473-04905b1af82b_story. html. Sholette, Gregory, Chloë Bass, and Social Practice Queens, eds. Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art. New York: All- worth, 2018. Thompson, Nato, ed. Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991–2011. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. Tsui, Enid. “Rirkrit Tiravanija Defends His Pad Thai Performance Art Piece Ahead of Its RevivalatHongKongGallery.”PostMagazine,May15,2021.www.scmp.com/magazines/ post-magazine/arts-music/article/3133456/rirkrit-tiravanija-defends-his-pad-thai. Weiwei, Ai. “Sunflower Seeds.” Tate.org, 2010. www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ai-sunflower- seeds-t13408.
- 50. DOI: 10.4324/9781003169109-2 “We begin this book grounded in the earth,”1 write xtine burrough and Judy Walgren in their introduction to this volume. Unsurprisingly, then, in this first section of Art as Social Practice: Technologies for Change we are offered case studies of works organized by the rubric “seeds and tools” as technologies for investi- gating our current worlds and, together, working to world otherwise. The art- ists gathered in this section offer social practice interventions that challenge the human as implicitly constituting the horizon of the social, arguing for situated anti- speciesist, anti- colonial, and anti- extractivist creative methods and actions attuned to social and ecological justice as one and the same thing. “What constitutes the social?” is a—perhaps even the—key question for social practice and socially engaged art today. If social practice is indeed one of the artis- tic modalities adequate to today’s crisis conditions, inviting action and engage- ment—micropolitical and modest though these may need to be at times,—it must (and does, as the artist- scholar- activists gathered together here show) attend to Donna Haraway’s assertion that we have never been human.2 To never have been human is to recognize the category of the human (and human sociality) as an ideological fiction serving, historically, to uphold patriarchal, settler- colonial, extractive worldviews organized by disavowal, hierarchy, and domination. To never have been human is to recognize our multispecies, more- than- human embeddedness, and work materially (not just conceptually) to retool, reseed, and recalibrate our ways of doing and being, with and for each other, where what we mean by “each other” is soil, corn, and fungus, above and beyond that multi- species collaboration we call the human. Over the past few years, I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of art at this historical moment, one marked by interlinked social, health, and climate con- cerns, asking not that old chestnut: “Is it art?” but instead that other chestnut SECTION I Seeds and Tools Introduction by Natalie Loveless
- 51. 16 Seeds and Tools about art in times of crisis: “Why art at all?” My response has been to claim, both aspirationally and generatively, that art, as a site of aesthetic re- attunement, seeds the critical and speculative imaginations needed to trouble our current ways of living and dying; it prioritizes aesthetic and affective spaces within which we not only reflect on what is so, but imagine and model things otherwise in ways that are both integrative, in terms of transforming the materiality of daily life, and excessive, in terms of reaching beyond what we currently know to be possible. The important question in this context is not “Why art?” but “Which art?” All art is not equal when it comes to social and climate justice concerns. Art that addresses itself to the institutional infrastructures and economies of the artworld may, indeed, be bankrupt—leading to the question “Why art?”But art that learns from activist and socially engaged histories of praxis, art that thinks interdiscipli- narily and collaboratively, art that works ecologically within material and cultural networks, inviting new ways of doing and being more adequate to the times we live in, being for each other and standing in feminist, anti- racist, multispecies solidarity and action . . . that is art worth giving our lives to. That is the context in which the question “Which art?” rather than “Why art?” makes sense. And it is what this section, with chapters by Brooke Singer, Beverly Naidus, Lucy HG Solomon and Cesar Baio (Cesar Lois), Kim Abeles, and Praba Pilar, offers us. These artists share key concerns, such as how to engage in ethical, multispe- cies and/or more- than- human collaborative research, how artistic thinking and modalities might open onto to other (anti- racist, anti- capitalist, anti- colonial) ways of doing and being, and the need for non- innocent3 critical consciousness raising at this historical moment. Singer’s “Modest in Nature, We Are All Lichen and Other Lessons Learned with Carbon Sponge” describes the history, method, and thinking behind a tactical media project that invites each of us to learn more about the soil we depend on by growing carbon sponges (also known as carbon farms) in our local communities. Through this, Singer demonstrates and draws us into relations of care for and curiosity about microbial life and our enmeshed interdependence with soil. Cesar Lois’s “Bio- Digital Pathways: Mushrooming Knowledge, Expanding Community” also dem- onstrates this attention to multispecies community and collaboration. Their chapter describes three living artworks “that incorporate living systems in order to radi- cally reimagine [sic] communities and networks. [They] nurture and experiment with Physarum polycephalum (slime mold), airborne molds, and mushroom colonies, making connections between these living systems and human networks.”4 These three different but related research experiments work to decenter anthropocentric ideologies and attend with deep, situated curiosity to how other organisms—from slime molds to fungal colonies—organize their more- than- human sociality. Bridging a committed attention to multispecies assemblages and the power of sharing stories otherwise, Pilar’s “Cultivating Techno-Tamaladas,” in turn, offers intimate and expansive detail on a multiyear collaborative eco- techno- social art project. Indeed, grounded in a parallel framework to “never having been
- 52. Seeds and Tools 17 human,” Pilar affirms: “Human beings have never not been technological.”5 In this chapter Pilar non- innocently examines corn as capitalist infrastructure along- side maize as Indigenous nurturance and community- building technology, think- ing with complexity about living an ethical life where there is no pure place to stand but in which the question cui bono6 must ongoingly be asked. Here, a com- mitment to anti- anthropocentric, more- than- human ethics links Pilar’s essay to Singer and Cesar Lois’s, recognizing the constitutive multiplicity that emerges when any one “thing” is attended to with care and curiosity. What is also made clear is the need for new stories and storying practices that take the form of shared action accountable to local knowledges. This attention to local knowledge and shared storying is central to both Nai- dus’s “Pandemic Makeover: Reimagining Place and Community in a Time of Collapse” and Abeles’s “Valises for Camp Ground: Arts, Corrections, and Fire Management in the Santa Monica Mountains.” Naidus’ essay tracks two pro- jects, Extreme Makeover: Reimagining the Port of Tacoma Free of Fossil Fuels and The Story Hive Project. The first, a collaborative action with environmental and tribal activists, students, and colleagues, addresses the impacts of a liquified natural gas (LNG) refinery on the unceded traditional fishing grounds of the Puyallup people, highlighting the need to support collaborative and respectful remedia- tion on the shores of the Salish Sea; the second, a series of workshops and pub- lic awareness raising events, advocates for collective storying in the context of the COVID- 19 pandemic. Abeles’ essay takes the prison as site, collaborating with incarcerated women working in fire abatement and stewardship to produce interactive suitcases (inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s iconic boîte-en-valise). These suitcases are designed to be activated locally, bringing attention to untold sto- ries of ecological collapse and defense, implicitly linking the ecological to the prison- industrial crisis. Both Naidus’ and Abeles’ projects are interview- based, collaboratively produced, and designed to generate situated discussion and critical consciousness raising. They work dialogically to not only encourage the telling and sharing of stories, but to highlight the value of telling stories as a practice of sharing across difference through which we call each other in, with nuance and complexity.7 As with the essays by Singer, Cesar Lois, and Pilar, here we are pulled into a commitment to collective dreaming, and encouraged to work together to envision and then move toward creating the world we want to live in. Utopias, such as they are, are temporary, iterative, modest, performative, organ- ized by wonder and curiosity, and committed to the here and now. Inviting us to care differently and care actively about land remediation, more- than- human intelligences, the prison- industrial complex, carbon offset action, and corn as both capitalist commodity and Indigenous technology, each essay ends with a prompt for action: design a microbe experiment (Singer); create a story hive (Naidus); become curious about and learn from a nonhuman entity (Cesar Lois); ask someone new to teach you something new (Abeles); explore your technological embeddedness (Pilar). Each of these prompts is an invitation
- 53. 18 Seeds and Tools to engage, research, and participate. Recalling the structural logic of the Fluxus event or instruction score in its participatory insistence,8 these prompts ground the reader in methodological pluripotency. These are not works to research and admire; these are works to grapple and engage with, and enact. These are viral prompts designed as seeds and tools to share and inspire and activate wherever and whenever possible. They are invitations to resculpt our more- than- human social worlds, together. Notes 1. xtine burrough and Judy Walgren, p. 7, this volume. 2. Haraway is here playing on Bruno Latour’s, We Have Never Been Modern (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991). See: Donna J. Haraway, The Companion Spe- cies Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Others (Chicago, IL: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2004); Donna J. Haraway, When Species Meet (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008). 3. On the “non- innocent” see: Donna J. Haraway, The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Others (Chicago, IL: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2004); Donna J. Haraway, When Species Meet (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008); Alexis Shotwell, Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016); Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017). 4. Lucy HG Solomon and Cesar Baio (Cesar Lois), p. 39, this volume. 5. Praba Pilar, p.69, this volume. 6. See Geoff Bowker and Susan Leigh Star, Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Conse- quences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999). 7. On the distinction between calling in and up rather than out, see adrienne maree brown, We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2021). 8. See Alison Knowles, Event Scores (Berkeley, CA: Small Press Distribution, 1992) and Alison Knowles in Ken Friedman, Owen Smith, and Lauren Sawchyn, eds., The Fluxus Performance Workbook. Performance Research e- Publications (2002), http://fluxus.lib. uiowa.edu/resources.html. Bibliography Bowker, Geoff, and Susan Leigh Star. Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000. Brown, Adrienne Maree. We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice Chico, CA: AK Press, 2021. Friedman, Ken, Owen Smith, and Lauren Sawchyn, eds. The Fluxus Performance Workbook. Performance Research e- Publications, 2002. http://fluxus.lib.uiowa.edu/resources. html. Haraway, Donna J. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Others. Chicago, IL: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2004. Haraway, Donna J. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Knowles, Alison. Event Scores. Berkeley, CA: Small Press Distribution, 1992. Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.
- 54. Seeds and Tools 19 Puig de la Bellacasa, Maria. Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017. Shotwell, Alexis. Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times. Minneapolis: Uni- versity of Minnesota Press, 2016.
- 55. Another Random Scribd Document with Unrelated Content
- 56. thus generated. The one proves that space is a necessary subjective antecedent; the other that it is a necessary objective ingredient.[439] To consider the proof in detail. The exact words which Kant employs in stating the nervus probandi of the argument are that we can never represent (eine Vorstellung davon machen) space as non-existent, though we can very well think (denken) it as being empty of objects. The terms Vorstellung and denken are vague and misleading. Kant himself recognises that it is possible to conceive that there are beings who intuit objects in some other manner than in space. He cannot therefore mean that we are unable to think or conceive space as non-existent. He must mean that we cannot in imagination intuit it as absent. It is the necessary form of all our intuitions, and therefore also of imagination, which is intuitive in character. Our consciousness is dependent upon given intuitions for its whole content, and to that extent space is a form with which the mind can never by any possibility dispense. Pure thought enables it to realise this de facto limitation, but not to break free from it. Even in admitting the possibility of other beings who are not thus constituted, the mind still recognises its own ineluctable limitations. Kant offers no proof of his assertion that space can be intuited in image as empty of all sensible content; and as a matter of fact the assertion is false. Doubtless the use of the vague term Vorstellung is in great part responsible for Kant’s mistaken position. So long as imagination and thought are not clearly distinguished, the assertion is correspondingly indefinite. Pure space may possibly be conceived, but it can also be conceived as altogether non-existent. If, on the other hand, our imaginative power is alone in question, the asserted fact must be categorically denied. With the elimination of all sensible content space itself ceases to be a possible image. Kant’s proof thus rests upon a misstatement of fact. In a second respect Kant’s proof is open to criticism. He takes the impossibility of imagining space as absent as proof that it originates from within. The argument is valid only if no other psychological explanation can be given of this necessity, as for instance through indissoluble association or through its being an invariable element in the given sensations. Kant’s ignoring of these possibilities is due to his unquestioning belief that sensations are non-spatial, purely qualitative. That is a presupposition whose truth is necessary to the cogency of the argument.
- 57. Third Argument.—This argument, which was omitted in the second edition, will be considered in its connection with the transcendental exposition into which it was then merged. Fourth (in second edition, Third) Argument.—The next two arguments seek to show that space is not a discursive or general concept but an intuition. The first proof falls into two parts, (a) We can represent only a single space. For though we speak of many spaces, we mean only parts of one and the same single space. Space must therefore be an intuition. For only intuition is thus directly related to a single individual. A concept always refers indirectly, per notas communes, to a plurality of individuals. (b) The parts of space cannot precede the one all-comprehensive space. They can be thought only in and through it. They arise through limitation of it. Now the parts (i.e. the attributes) which compose a concept precede it in thought. Through combination of them the concept is formed. Space cannot, therefore, be a concept. Consequently it must, as the only remaining alternative, be an intuition. Only in an intuition does the whole precede the parts. In a concept the parts always precede the whole. Intuition stands for multiplicity in unity, conception for unity in multiplicity. The first part of the argument refers to the extension, the second part to the intension of the space representation. In both aspects it appears as intuitional.[440] Kant, in repeating his thesis as a conclusion from the above grounds, confuses the reader by an addition which is not strictly relevant to the argument, viz. by the statement that this intuition must be non-empirical and a priori. This is simply a recapitulation of what has been established in the preceding proofs. It is not, as might at first sight appear, part of the conclusion established by the argument under consideration. The reader is the more apt to be misled owing to the fact that very obviously arguments for the non-empirical and for the a priori character of space can be derived from proof (b). That space is non-empirical would follow from the fact that representation of space as a whole is necessary for the apprehension of any part of it. Empirical intuition can only yield the apprehension of a limited space. The apprehension of the comprehensive space within which it falls must therefore be non-empirical. “As we intuitively apprehend (anschauend erkennen) not only the space of the object which affects our senses, but the whole space, space cannot
- 58. arise out of the actual affection of the senses, but must precede it in time (vor ihr vorhergehen).”[441] But in spite of its forcibleness this argument is nowhere presented in the Critique. Similarly, in so far as particular spaces can be conceived only in and through space as a whole, and in so far as the former are limitations of the one antecedent space, the intuition which underlies all external perception must be a priori. This is in essentials a stronger and more cogent mode of formulating the second argument on space. But again, and very strangely, it is nowhere employed by Kant in this form. The concluding sentence, ambiguously introduced by the words so werden auch, is tacked on to the preceding argument. Interpreted in the light of § 15 C of the Dissertation,[442] and of the corresponding fourth[443] argument[444] on time, it may be taken as offering further proof that space is an intuition. The concepts of line and triangle, however attentively contemplated, will never reveal the proposition that in every triangle two sides taken together are greater than the third. An a priori intuition will alone account for such apodictic knowledge. This concluding sentence thus really belongs to the transcendental exposition; and as such ought, like the third argument, to have been omitted in the second edition. Kant’s proof rests on the assumption that there are only two kinds of representation, intuitions and concepts, and also in equal degree upon the further assumption that all concepts are of one and the same type.[445] Intuition is, for Kant, the apprehension of an individual. Conception is always the representation of a class or genus. Intuition is immediately related to the individual. Conception is reflective or discursive; it apprehends a plurality of objects indirectly through the representation of those marks which are common to them all.[446] Intuition and conception having been defined in this manner, the proof that space is single or individual, and that in it the whole precedes the parts, is proof conclusive that it is an intuition, not a conception. Owing, however, to the narrowness of the field assigned to conception, the realm occupied by intuition is proportionately wide, and the conclusion is not as definite and as important as might at first sight appear. By itself, it amounts merely to the statement, which no one need challenge, that space is not a generic class concept.
- 59. Incidentally certain unique characteristics of space are, indeed, forcibly illustrated; but the implied conclusion that space on account of these characteristics must belong to receptivity, not to understanding, does not by any means follow. It has not, for instance, been proved that space and time are radically distinct from the categories, i.e. from the relational forms of understanding. In 1770, while Kant still held to the metaphysical validity of the pure forms of thought, the many difficulties which result from the ascription of independent reality to space and time were, doubtless, a sufficient reason for regarding the latter as subjective and sensuous. But upon adoption of the Critical standpoint such argument is no longer valid. If all our forms of thought may be subjective, the existence of antinomies has no real bearing upon the question whether space and time do or do not have a different constitution and a different mental origin from the categories. The antinomies, that is to say, may perhaps suffice to prove that space and time are subjective; they certainly do not establish their sensuous character. But though persistence of the older, un-Critical opposition between the intellectual and the sensuous was partly responsible for Kant’s readiness to regard as radical the very obvious differences between a category such as that of substance and attribute and the visual or tactual extendedness with which objects are endowed, it can hardly be viewed as the really decisive influence. That would rather seem to be traceable to Kant’s conviction that mathematical knowledge is unique both in fruitfulness and in certainty, and to his further belief that it owes this distinction to the content character of the a priori forms upon which it rests. For though the categories of the physical sciences are likewise a priori, they are exclusively relational,[447] and serve only to organise a material that is empirically given. To account for the superiority of mathematical knowledge Kant accordingly felt constrained to regard space and time as not merely forms in terms of which we interpret the matter of sense, but as also themselves intuited objects, and as therefore possessing a character altogether different from anything which can be ascribed to the pure understanding. The opposition between forms of sense and categories of the understanding, in the strict Kantian mode of envisaging that opposition, is thus inseparably bound up with Kant’s doctrine of space and time as being not only forms of intuition, but as also in their purity and independence themselves intuitions. Even the sensuous subject matter of pure mathematics—so Kant would seem to contend—is a
- 60. priori in nature. If this latter view be questioned—and to the modern reader it is indeed a stone of stumbling—much of the teaching of the Aesthetic will have to be modified or at least restated. Fifth (in second edition, Fourth) Argument.—This argument is quite differently stated in the two editions of the Critique, though the purpose of the argument is again in both cases to prove that space is an intuition, not a general concept. In the first edition this is proved by reference to the fact that space is given as an infinite magnitude. This characteristic of our space representation cannot be accounted for so long as it is regarded as a concept. A general conception of space which would abstract out those properties and relations which are common to all spaces, to a foot as well as to an ell, could not possibly determine anything in regard to magnitude. For since spaces differ in magnitude, any one magnitude cannot be a common quality. Space is, however, given us as determined in magnitude, namely, as being of infinite magnitude; and if a general conception of space relations cannot determine magnitude, still less can it determine infinite magnitude. Such infinity must be derived from limitlessness in the progression of intuition. Our conceptual representations of infinite magnitude must be derivative products, acquired from this intuitive source. In the argument of the second edition the thesis is again established by reference to the infinity of space. But in all other respects the argument differs from that of the first edition. A general conception, which abstracts out common qualities from a plurality of particulars, contains an infinite number of possible different representations under it; but it cannot be thought as containing an infinite number of representations in it. Space must, however, be thought in this latter manner, for it contains an infinite number of coexisting parts.[448] Since, then, space cannot be a concept, it must be an intuition. The definiteness of this conclusion is somewhat obscured by the further characterisation of the intuition of space as a priori, and by the statement that it is the original (ursprüngliche) representation which is of this intuitive nature. The first addition must here, again, just as in the fourth argument, be regarded as merely a recapitulation of what has already been established, not a conclusion from the present argument. The introduction of the word ‘original’ seems to be part of Kant’s reply to the objections which had already been made to his admission in the first edition that there
- 61. is a conception as well as an intuition of space. It is the original given intuition of space which renders such reflective conception possible. The chief difficulty of these proofs arises out of the assertion which they seem to involve that space is given as actually infinite. There are apparently, on this point, two views in Kant, which were retained up to the very last, and which are closely connected with his two representations of space, on the one hand as a formal intuition given in its purity and in its completeness, and on the other hand as the form of intuition, which exists only so far as it is constructed, and which is dependent for its content upon given matter. Third Argument, and Transcendental Exposition of Space.—The distinction between the metaphysical and the transcendental expositions, introduced in the second edition of the Critique,[449] is one which Kant seems to have first made clear to himself in the process of writing the Prolegomena.[450] It is a genuine improvement, marking an important distinction. It separates out two comparatively independent lines of argument. The terms in which the distinction is stated are not, however, felicitous. Kant’s reason for adopting the title metaphysical is indicated in the Prolegomena:[451] “As concerns the sources of metaphysical cognition, its very concept implies that they cannot be empirical.... For it must not be physical but metaphysical knowledge, i.e. knowledge lying beyond experience.... It is therefore a priori knowledge, coming from pure understanding and pure Reason.” The metaphysical exposition, it would therefore seem, is so entitled because it professes to prove that space is a priori, not empirical, and to do so by analysis of its concept.[452] Now by Kant’s own definition of the term transcendental, as the theory of the a priori, this exposition might equally well have been named the transcendental exposition. In any case it is an essential and chief part of the Transcendental Aesthetic. Such division of the Transcendental Aesthetic into a metaphysical and a transcendental part involves a twofold use, wider and narrower, of one and the same term. Only as descriptive of the whole Aesthetic is transcendental employed in the sense defined.
- 62. Exposition (Erörterung, Lat. expositio) is Kant’s substitute for the more ordinary term definition. Definition is the term which we should naturally have expected; but as Kant holds that no given concept, whether a priori or empirical, can be defined in the strict sense,[453] the substitutes the term exposition, using it to signify such definition of the nature of space as is possible to us. To complete the parallelism Kant speaks of the transcendental enquiry as also an exposition. It is, however, in no sense a definition. Kant’s terms here, as so often elsewhere, are employed in a more or less arbitrary and extremely inexact manner. The distinction between the two expositions is taken by Kant as follows. The metaphysical exposition determines the nature of the concept of space, and shows it to be a given a priori intuition. The transcendental exposition shows how space, when viewed in this manner, renders comprehensible the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge. The omission of the third argument on space from the second edition, and its incorporation into the new transcendental exposition, is certainly an improvement. In its location in the first edition, it breaks in upon the continuity of Kant’s argument without in any way contributing to the further definition of the concept of space. Also, in emphasising that mathematical knowledge depends upon the construction of concepts,[454] Kant presupposes that space is intuitional; and that has not yet been established. The argument follows the strict, rigorous, synthetic method. From the already demonstrated a priori character of space, Kant deduces the apodictic certainty of all geometrical principles. But though the paragraph thus expounds a consequence that follows from the a priori character of space, not an argument in support of it, something in the nature of an argument is none the less implied. The fact that this view of the representation of space alone renders mathematical science possible can be taken as confirming this interpretation of its nature. Such an argument, though circular, is none the less cogent. Consideration of Kant’s further statements, that were space known in a merely empirical manner we could not be sure that in all cases only one straight line is possible between two points, or that space will always be found to have three dimensions, must meantime be deferred.[455]
- 63. In the new transcendental exposition Kant adopts the analytic method of the Prolegomena, and accordingly presents his argument in independence of the results already established. He starts from the assumption of the admitted validity of geometry, as being a body of synthetic a priori knowledge. Yet this, as we have already noted, does not invalidate the argument; in both the first and the last paragraphs it is implied that the a priori and intuitive characteristics of space have already been proved. From the synthetic character of geometrical propositions Kant argues[456] that space must be an intuition. Through pure concepts no synthetic knowledge is possible. Then from the apodictic character of geometry he infers that space exists in us as pure and a priori;[457] no experience can ever reveal necessity. But geometry also exists as an applied science; and to account for our power of anticipating experience, we must view space as existing only in the perceiving subject as the form of its sensibility. If it precedes objects as the necessary subjective condition of their apprehension, we can to that extent predetermine the conditions of their existence. In the concluding paragraph Kant says that this is the only explanation which can be given of the possibility of geometry. He does not distinguish between pure and applied geometry, though the proof which he has given of each differs in a fundamental respect. Pure geometry presupposes only that space is an a priori intuition; applied geometry demands that space be conceived as the a priori form of external sense. Only in reference to applied geometry does the Critical problem arise:—viz. how we can form synthetic judgments a priori which yet are valid of objects; or, in other words, how judgments based upon a subjective form can be objectively valid. But any attempt, at this point, to define the nature and possibility of applied geometry must anticipate a result which is first established in Conclusion b.[458] Though, therefore, the substitution of this transcendental exposition for the third space argument is a decided improvement, Kant, in extending it so as to cover applied as well as pure mathematics, overlooks the real sequence of his argument in the first edition. The employment of the analytic method, breaking in, as it does, upon the synthetic development of Kant’s original argument, is a further irregularity.[459] It may be noted that in the third paragraph Kant takes the fact that geometry can be applied to objects as proof of the subjectivity of space.[460] He refuses to recognise the possibility that space may be subjective as a
- 64. form of receptivity, and yet also be a mode in which things in themselves exist. This, as regards its conclusion, though not as regards its argument, is therefore an anticipation of Conclusion a. In the last paragraph Kant is probably referring to the views both of Leibniz and of Berkeley. CONCLUSIONS FROM THE ABOVE CONCEPTS[461] Conclusion a.—Thesis: Space is not a property of things in themselves, [462] nor a relation of them to one another. Proof: The properties of things in themselves can never be intuited prior to their existence, i.e. a priori. Space, as already proved, is intuited in this manner. In other words, the apriority of space is by itself sufficient proof of its subjectivity. This argument has been the subject of a prolonged controversy between Trendelenburg and Kuno Fischer.[463] Trendelenburg was able to prove his main point, namely, that the above argument is quite inconclusive. Kant recognises only two alternatives, either space as objective is known a posteriori, or being an a priori representation it is subjective in origin. There exists a third alternative, namely, that though our intuition of space is subjective in origin, space is itself an inherent property of things in themselves. The central thesis of the rationalist philosophy of the Enlightenment was, indeed, that the independently real can be known by a priori thinking. Even granting the validity of Kant’s later conclusion, first drawn in the next paragraph, that space is the subjective form of all external intuition, that would only prove that it does not belong to appearances, prior to our apprehension of them; nothing is thereby proved in regard to the character of things in themselves. We anticipate by a priori reasoning only the nature of appearances, never the constitution of things in themselves. Therefore space, even though a priori, may belong to the independently real. The above argument cannot prove the given thesis. Vaihinger contends[464] that the reason why Kant does not even attempt to argue in support of the principle, that the a priori must be purely subjective, is that he accepts it as self-evident. This explanation does not, however, seem satisfactory. But Vaihinger supplies the data for modification of his own assertion. It was, it would seem, the existence of the antinomies which first and chiefly led Kant to assert the subjectivity of space and time. [465] For as he then believed that a satisfactory solution of the antinomies is possible only on the assumption of the subjectivity of space and time, he regarded their subjectivity as being conclusively established, and
- 65. accordingly failed to examine with sufficient care the validity of his additional proof from their apriority. This would seem to be confirmed by the fact that when later,[466] in reply to criticisms of the arguments of the first edition, he so far modified his position as to offer reasons in support of the above general principle, even then he nowhere discussed the principle in reference to the forms of sense. All his discussions concern only the possible independent reality of the forms of thought.[467] To the very last Kant would seem to have regarded the above argument as an independent, and by itself a sufficient, proof of the subjectivity of space. The refutation of Trendelenburg’s argument which is offered by Caird[468] is inconclusive. Caird assumes the chief point at issue, first by ignoring the possibility that space may be known a priori in reference to appearances and yet at the same time be transcendently real; and secondly by ignoring the fact that to deny spatial properties to things in themselves is as great a violation of Critical principles as to assert them. One point, however, in Caird’s reply to Trendelenburg calls for special consideration, viz. Caird’s contention that Kant did actually take account of the third alternative, rejecting it as involving the “absurd” hypothesis of a pre- established harmony.[469] Undoubtedly Kant did so. But the contention has no relevancy to the point before us. The doctrine of pre-established harmony is a metaphysical theory which presupposes the possibility of gaining knowledge of things in themselves. For that reason alone Kant was bound to reject it. A metaphysical proof of the validity of metaphysical judgments is, from the Critical point of view, a contradiction in terms. As the validity of all speculations is in doubt, a proof which is speculative cannot meet our difficulties. And also, as Kant himself further points out, the pre-established harmony, even if granted, can afford no solution of the Critical problem how a priori judgments can be passed upon the independently real. The judgments, thus guaranteed, could only possess de facto validity; we could never be assured of their necessity.[470] It is chiefly in these two inabilities that Kant locates the “absurdity” of a theory of pre- established harmony. The refutation of that theory does not, therefore, amount to a disproof of the possibility which we are here considering. Conclusion b.—The next paragraph maintains two theses: (a) that space is the form of all outer intuition; (b) that this fact explains what is otherwise entirely inexplicable and paradoxical, namely, that we can make a priori
- 66. judgments which yet apply to the objects experienced. The first thesis, that the pure intuition of space is only conceivable as the form of appearances of outer sense, is propounded in the opening sentence without argument and even without citation of grounds. The statement thus suddenly made is not anticipated save by the opening sentences of the section on space.[471] It is an essentially new doctrine. Hitherto Kant has spoken of space only as an a priori intuition. The further assertion that as such it must necessarily be conceived as the form of outer sense (i.e. not only as a formal intuition but also as a form of intuition), calls for the most definite and explicit proof. None, however, is given. It is really a conclusion from points all too briefly cited by Kant in the general Introduction, namely, from his distinction between the matter and the form of sense. The assertions there made, in a somewhat casual manner, are here, without notification to the reader, employed as premisses to ground the above assertion. His thesis is not, therefore, as by its face value it would seem to profess to be, an inference from the points established in the preceding expositions. It interprets these conclusions in the light of points considered in the Introduction; and thereby arrives at a new and all-important interpretation of the nature of the a priori intuition of space. The second thesis employs the first to explain how prior to all experience we can determine the relations of objects. Since (a) space is merely the form of outer sense, and (b) accordingly exists in the mind prior to all empirical intuition, all appearances must exist in space, and we can predetermine them from the pure intuition of space that is given to us a priori. Space, when thus viewed as the a priori form of outer sense, renders comprehensible the validity of applied mathematics. As we have already noted,[472] Kant in the second edition obscures the sequence of his argument by offering in the new transcendental exposition a justification of applied as well as of pure geometry. In so doing he anticipates the conclusion which is first drawn in this later paragraph. This would have been avoided had Kant given two separate transcendental expositions. First, an exposition of pure mathematics, placed immediately after the metaphysical exposition; for pure mathematics is exclusively based upon the results of the metaphysical exposition. And secondly, an exposition of applied mathematics, introduced after Conclusion b. The explanation of applied geometry is really the more essential and central of
- 67. the two, as it alone involves the truly Critical problem, how judgments formed a priori can yet apply to objects. Conclusion b constitutes, as Vaihinger rightly insists,[473] the very heart of the Aesthetic. The arrangement of Kant’s argument diverts the reader’s attention from where it ought properly to centre. The use which Kant makes of the Prolegomena in his statement of the new transcendental exposition is one cause of the confusion. The exposition is a brief summary of the corresponding Prolegomena[474] sections. In introducing this summary into the Critique Kant overlooked the fact that in referring to applied mathematics he is anticipating a point first established in Conclusion b. The real cause, however, of the trouble is common to both editions, namely Kant’s failure clearly to appreciate the fundamental distinction between the view that space is an a priori intuition and the view that it is the a priori form of all external intuition, i.e. of outer sense. He does not seem to have fully realised how very different are those two views. In consequence of this he fails to distinguish between the transcendental expositions of pure and applied geometry.[475] Third paragraph.—Kant proceeds to develop the subjectivist conclusions which follow from a and b. “We may say that space contains all things which can appear to us externally, but not all things in themselves, whether intuited or not, nor again all things intuited by any and every subject.”[476] This sentence makes two assertions: (a) space does not belong to things in and by themselves; (b) space is not a necessary form of intuition for all subjects whatsoever. The grounds for the former assertion are not here considered, and that is doubtless the reason why the oder nicht is excised in Kant’s private copy of the Critique. As we have seen, Kant does not anywhere in the Aesthetic even attempt to offer argument in support of this assertion. In defence of (a) Kant propounds for the first time the view of sensibility as a limitation. Space is a limiting condition to which human intuition is subject. Whether the intuitions of other thinking beings are subject to the same limitation, we have no means of deciding. But for all human beings, Kant implies, the same conditions must hold universally.[477]
- 68. In the phrase “transcendental ideality of space”[478] Kant, it may be noted, takes the term ideality as signifying subjectivity, and the term transcendental as equivalent to transcendent. He is stating that judged from a transcendent point of view, i.e. from the point of view of the thing in itself, space has a merely subjective or “empirical” reality. This is an instance of Kant’s careless use of the term transcendental. Space is empirically real, but taken transcendently, is merely ideal.[479] KANT’S ATTITUDE TO THE PROBLEMS OF MODERN GEOMETRY This is an appropriate point at which to consider the consistency of Kant’s teaching with modern developments in geometry. Kant’s attitude has very frequently been misrepresented. As he here states, he is willing to recognise that the forms of intuition possessed by other races of finite beings may not coincide with those of the human species. But in so doing he does not mean to assert the possibility of other spatial forms, i.e. of spaces that are non-Euclidean. In his pre-Critical period Kant had indeed attempted to deduce the three-dimensional character of space as a consequence of the law of gravitation; and recognising that that law is in itself arbitrary, he concluded that God might, by establishing different relations of gravitation, have given rise to spaces of different properties and dimensions. “A science of all these possible kinds of space would undoubtedly be the highest enterprise which a finite understanding could undertake in the field of geometry.”[480] But from the time of Kant’s adoption, in 1770, of the Critical view of space as being the universal form of our outer sense, he seems to have definitely rejected all such possibilities. Space, to be space at all, must be Euclidean; the uniformity of space is a presupposition of the a priori certainty of geometrical science.[481] One of the criticisms which in the Dissertation[482] he passes upon the empirical view of mathematical science is that it would leave open the possibility that “a space may some time be discovered endowed with other fundamental properties, or even perhaps that we may happen upon a two-sided rectilinear figure.” This is the argument which reappears in the third argument on space in the first edition of the Critique.[483] The same examples are employed with a somewhat different wording.
- 69. “It would not even be necessary that there should be only one straight line between two points, though experience invariably shows this to be so. What is derived from experience has only comparative universality, namely, that which is obtained through induction. We should therefore only be able to say that, so far as hitherto observed, no space has been found which has more than three dimensions.” But that Kant should have failed to recognise the possibility of other spaces does not by itself point to any serious defect in his position. There is no essential difficulty in reconciling the recognition of such spaces with his fundamental teaching. He admits that other races of finite beings may perhaps intuit through non-spatial forms of sensibility; he might quite well have recognised that those other forms of intuition, though not Euclidean, are still spatial. It is in another and more vital respect that Kant’s teaching lies open to criticism. Kant is convinced that space is given to us in intuition as being definitely and irrevocably Euclidean in character. Both our intuition and our thinking, when we reflect upon space, are, he implies, bound down to, and limited by, the conditions of Euclidean space. And it is in this positive assumption, and not merely in his ignoring of the possibility of other spaces, that he comes into conflict with the teaching of modern geometry. For in making the above assumption Kant is asserting that we definitely know physical space to be three-dimensional, and that by no elaboration of concepts can we so remodel it in thought that the axiom of parallels will cease to hold. Euclidean space, Kant implies, is given to us as an unyielding form that rigidly resists all attempts at conceptual reconstruction. Being quite independent of thought and being given as complete, it has no inchoate plasticity of which thought might take advantage. The modern geometer is not, however, prepared to admit that intuitional space has any definiteness or preciseness of nature apart from the concepts through which it is apprehended; and he therefore allows, as at least possible, that upon clarification of our concepts space may be discovered to be radically different from what it at first sight appears to be. In any case, the perfecting of the concepts must have some effect upon their object. But even—as the modern geometer further maintains—should our space be definitely proved, upon analytic and empirical investigation, to be Euclidean in character, other possibilities will still remain open for speculative thought. For though the nature of our intuitional data may constrain us to interpret them through one set of concepts rather than
- 70. through another, the competing sets of alternative concepts will represent genuine possibilities beyond what the actual is found to embody. Thus the defect of Kant’s teaching, in regard to space, as judged in the light of the later teaching of geometrical science, is closely bound up with his untenable isolation of the a priori of sensibility from the a priori of understanding.[484] Space, being thus viewed as independent of thought, has to be regarded as limiting and restricting thought by the unalterable nature of its initial presentation. And unfortunately this is a position which Kant continued to hold, despite his increasing recognition of the part which concepts must play in the various mathematical sciences. In the deduction of the first edition we find him stating that synthesis of apprehension is necessary to all representation of space and time.[485] He further recognises that all arithmetical processes are syntheses according to concepts.[486] And in the Prolegomena[487] there occurs the following significant passage. “Do these laws of nature lie in space, and does the understanding learn them by merely endeavouring to find out the fruitful meaning that lies in space; or do they inhere in the understanding and in the way in which it determines space according to the conditions of the synthetical unity towards which its concepts are all directed? Space is something so uniform and as to all particular properties so indeterminate, that we should certainly not seek a store of laws of nature in it. That which determines space to the form of a circle or to the figures of a cone or a sphere, is, on the contrary, the understanding, so far as it contains the ground of the unity of these constructions. The mere universal form of intuition, called space, must therefore be the substratum of all intuitions determinable to particular objects, and in it, of course, the condition of the possibility and of the variety of these intuitions lies. But the unity of the objects is solely determined by the understanding, and indeed in accordance with conditions which are proper to the nature of the understanding....” Obviously Kant is being driven by the spontaneous development of his own thinking towards a position much more consistent with present-day teaching, and completely at variance with the hard and fast severance between sensibility and understanding which he had formulated in the Dissertation and has retained in the Aesthetic. In the above Prolegomena passage a plasticity is being allowed to space, sufficient to permit of
- 71. essential modification in the conceptual processes through which it is articulated. But, as I have just stated, that did not lead Kant to disavow the conclusions which he had drawn from his previous teaching. This defect in Kant’s doctrine of space, as expounded in the Aesthetic, indicates a further imperfection in his argument. He asserts that the form of space cannot vary from one human being to another, and that for this reason the judgments which express it are universally valid. Now, in so far as Kant’s initial datum is consciousness of time,[488] he is entirely justified in assuming that everything which can be shown to be a necessary condition of such consciousness must be uniform for all human minds. But as his argument is not that consciousness of Euclidean space is necessary to consciousness of time, but only that consciousness of the permanent in space is a required condition, he has not succeeded in showing the necessary uniformity of the human mind as regards the specific mode in which it intuits space. The permanent might still be apprehended as permanent, and therefore as yielding a possible basis for consciousness of sequence, even if it were apprehended in some four-dimensional form. Fourth Paragraph.—The next paragraph raises one of the central problems of the Critique, namely, the question as to the kind of reality possessed by appearances. Are they subjective, like taste or colour? Or have they a reality at least relatively independent of the individual percipient? In other words, is Kant’s position subjectivism or phenomenalism? Kant here alternates between these positions. This fourth paragraph is coloured by his phenomenalism, whereas in the immediately following fifth paragraph his subjectivism gains the upper hand. The taste of wine, he there states, is purely subjective, because dependent upon the particular constitution of the gustatory organ on which the wine acts. Similarly, colours are not properties of the objects which cause them. “They are only modifications of the sense of sight which is affected in a certain manner by the light.... They are connected with the appearances only as effects accidentally added by the particular constitution of the sense organs.”[489] Space, on the other hand, is a necessary constituent of the outer objects. In contrast to the subjective sensations of taste and colour, it possesses
- 72. objectivity. This mode of distinguishing between space and the matter of sense implies that extended objects are not mere ideas, but are sufficiently independent to be capable of acting upon the sense organs, and of thereby generating the sensations of the secondary qualities. Kant, it must be observed, refers only to taste and colour. He says nothing in regard to weight, impenetrability, and the like. These are revealed through sensation, and therefore on his view ought to be in exactly the same position as taste or colour. But if so, the relative independence of the extended object can hardly be maintained. Kant’s distinction between space and the sense qualities cannot, indeed, be made to coincide with the Cartesian distinction between primary and secondary qualities. A second difference, from Kant’s point of view, between space and the sense qualities is that the former can be represented a priori, in complete separation from everything empirical, whereas the latter can only be known a posteriori. This, as we have seen, is a very questionable assertion. The further statement that all determinations of space can be represented in the same a priori fashion is even more questionable. At most the difference is only between a homogeneous subjective form yielded by outer sense and the endlessly varied and consequently unpredictable contents revealed by the special senses. The contention that the former can be known apart from the latter implies the existence of a pure manifold additional to the manifold of sense. Fifth Paragraph.—In the next paragraph Kant emphasises the distinction between the empirical and the transcendental meanings of the term appearance. A rose, viewed empirically, as a thing with an intrinsic independent nature, may appear of different colour to different observers. “The transcendental conception of appearances in space, on the other hand, is a Critical reminder that nothing intuited in space is a thing in itself, that space is not a form inhering in things in themselves ... and that what we call outer objects are nothing but mere representations of our sensibility, the form of which is space.” In other words, the distinction drawn in the preceding paragraph between colour as a subjective effect and space as an objective existence is no longer maintained. Kant, when thus developing his position on subjectivist lines, allows no kind of independent existence to anything in the known world.
- 73. Objects as known are mere Ideas (blosse Vorstellungen unserer Sinnlichkeit), the sole correlate of which is the unknowable thing in itself. But even in this paragraph both tendencies find expression. “Colour, taste, etc., must not rightly be regarded as properties of things, but only as changes in the subject.” This implies a threefold distinction between subjective sensations, empirical objects in space, and the thing in itself. The material world, investigated by science, is recognised as possessing a relatively independent mode of existence. Substituted Fourth Paragraph of second edition.—In preparing the second edition Kant himself evidently felt the awkwardness of this abrupt juxtaposition of the two very different points of view; and he accordingly adopts a non-committal attitude, substituting a logical distinction for the ontological. Space yields synthetic judgments a priori; the sense qualities do not. Only in the concluding sentence does there emerge any definite phenomenalist implication. The sense qualities, “as they are mere sensations and not intuitions, in themselves reveal no object, least of all [an object] a priori.”[490] The assertion that the secondary qualities have no ideality implies a new and stricter use of the term ideal than we find anywhere in the first edition—a use which runs counter to Kant’s own constant employment of the term. On this interpretation it is made to signify what though subjective is also a priori. Here, as in many of the alterations of the second edition, Kant is influenced by the desire to emphasise the points which distinguish his idealism from that of Berkeley.
- 74. THE TRANSCENDENTALAESTHETIC SECTION II TIME METAPHYSICAL EXPOSITION OF THE CONCEPTION OF TIME Time: First Argument.—This argument is in all respects the same as the first argument on space. The thesis is that the representation[491] of time is not of empirical origin. The proof is based on the fact that this representation must be previously given in order that the perception of coexistence or succession be possible. It also runs on all fours with the first argument in the Dissertation. “The idea of time does not originate in, but is presupposed by the senses. When a number of things act upon the senses, it is only by means of the idea of time that they can be represented whether as simultaneous or as successive. Nor does succession generate the conception of time; but stimulates us to form it. Thus the notion of time, even if acquired through experience, is very badly defined as being a series of actual things existing one after another. For I can understand what the word after signifies only if I already know what time means. For those things are after one another which exist at different times, as those are simultaneous which exist at one and the same time.”[492] Second Argument.—Kant again applies to time the argument already employed by him in dealing with space. The thesis is that time is given a priori. Proof is found in the fact that it cannot be thought away, i.e. in the fact of its subjective necessity. From this subjective necessity follows its objective necessity, so far as all appearances are concerned. In the second edition Kant added a phrase—“as the general condition of their
- 75. possibility”—which is seriously misleading. The concluding sentence is thereby made to read as if Kant were arguing from the objective necessity of time, i.e. from its necessity as a constituent in the appearances apprehended, to its apriority. It is indeed possible that Kant himself regarded this objective necessity of time as contributing to the proof of its apriority. But no such argument can be accepted. Time may be necessary to appearances, once appearances are granted. This does not, however, prove that it must therefore precede them a priori. This alteration in the second edition is an excellent, though unfortunate, example of Kant’s invincible carelessness in the exposition of his thought. It has contributed to a misreading by Herbart and others of this and of the corresponding argument on space. “Let us not talk of an absolute space as the presupposition of all our constructed figures. Possibility is nothing but thought, and it arises only when it is thought. Space is nothing but possibility, for it contains nothing save images of the existent; and absolute space is nothing save the abstracted general possibility of such constructions, abstracted from it after completion of the construction. The necessity of the representation of space ought never to have played any rôle in philosophy. To think away space is to think away the possibility of that which has been previously posited as actual. Obviously that is impossible, and the opposite is necessary.”[493] Were Kant really arguing here and in the second argument on space solely from the objective necessity of time and space, this criticism would be unanswerable. But even taking the argument in its first edition form, as an argument from the psychological necessity of time, it lies open to the same objection as the argument on space. It rests upon a false statement of fact. We cannot retain time in the absence of all appearances of outer and inner sense. With the removal of the given manifold, time itself must vanish. Fourth Argument.[494]—This argument differs only slightly, and mainly through omissions,[495] from the fourth[496] of the arguments in regard to space; but a few minor points call for notice. (a) In the first sentence, instead of intuition, which alone is under consideration in its contrast to conception, Kant employs the phrase “pure form of intuition.” (b) In the third sentence Kant uses the quite untenable phrase “given
- 76. through a single object (Gegenstand).” Time is not given from without, nor is it due to an object. (c) The concluding sentences properly belong to the transcendental exposition. They are here introduced, not in the ambiguous manner of the fourth[1] argument on space, but explicitly as a further argument in proof of the intuitive character of time. The synthetic proposition which Kant cites is taken neither from the science of motion nor from arithmetic. It expresses the nature of time itself, and for that reason is immediately contained in the intuition of time. Fifth Argument.—This argument differs fundamentally from the corresponding argument on space, whether of the first or of the second edition, and must therefore be independently analysed. The thesis is again that time is an intuition. Proof is derived from the fact that time is a representation in which the parts arise only through limitation, and in which, therefore, the whole must precede the parts. The original (ursprüngliche) time-representation, i.e. the fundamental representation through limitation of which the parts arise as secondary products, must be an intuition. To this argument Kant makes two explanatory additions. (a) As particular times arise through limitation of one single time, time must in its original intuition be given as infinite, i.e. as unlimited. The infinitude of time is not, therefore, as might seem to be implied by the prominence given to it, and by analogy with the final arguments of both the first and the second edition, a part of the proof that it is an intuition, but only a consequence of the feature by which its intuitive character is independently established. The unwary reader, having in mind the corresponding argument on space, is almost inevitably misled. All reference to infinitude could, so far as this argument is concerned, have been omitted. The mode in which the argument opens seems indeed to indicate that Kant was not himself altogether clear as to the cross-relations between the arguments on space and time respectively. The real parallel to this argument is to be found in the second part of the fourth[1] argument on space. That part was omitted by Kant in his fourth argument on time, and is here developed into a separate argument. This is, of course, a further cause of confusion to the reader, who is not prepared for such arbitrary rearrangement. Indeed it is not surprising to find that when Kant became the reader of his own work, in preparing it for the second edition, he was himself misled by the intricate perversity of his exposition. In re-reading the argument he seems to have forgotten that it
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