At the widest scope, sites of artistic production, consumption and display – where art “lives” – are constantly being contested by forces of media, culture, and commerce. These various forms of contestation cause re-arrangement, giving rise to new art forms, media and venues, from the street to the Internet. To what extent do old forms and new forms merge, replace or challenge one another? In what ways do the various sites of reception and display affect sites of production – from the artist’s studio to the community hall? Is there such a thing as interdisciplinarity? And how do artistic media work with and interpret cultural flows and institutionalized spaces?
Then comes the concern for knowledge and pedagogy. As we live in increasingly visual cultures, forms of media and medium intersect with a kind of ‘crisis of information’ that overloads everyday life. The classical, or standard, classifications of artforms by their architypes, forms and mediums are called into question by this historical experience. Thus, how we make meaning from theses vectors of media, medium, and society, undergo various processes of transformation. We need to interrogate arts histories, theories, paradigms and frameworks for critical analysis. To what extent do we need to develop new creative tools and research approaches to redefine classical disciplinary classifications? What does it mean to teach and learn through and about the arts?
We want to also consider how cultural institutions, such as museums and galleries, play a role in the larger projects of community formation, nation-building and global politics. Artists and the arts themselves sometimes referred to as ’cultural ambassadors’. Such a terms raise issues of political relevance and call into question related concerns of value neutrality, and the deployment of art forms and practices to signal or help to engage social and political conflict at local, regional and global levels. In what way does an implicit scope of ethical concern frame art practices? What is the nature of art, the artist, and artworlds as political actors? How does art shape cultural, community and national policy? What, finally, is the role of art in society at an institutional level?
Art worlds have centered power in the scattered heteronomy different kinds of art practices. There can be a tendency to “look in”. But there is also a demand for the arts to “look to” society; be within society. To address social, political, and community agendas in the arts. This is as issue not only for from and content. But of who we speak to as artists, teachers and researchers: the audience. ‘Which publics’ are represented or included? Who are the players, the gatekeepers, and to what extent do our mainstream institutions reinforce or reflect the hierarchies of art world structures and opportunities for artists? How do artists and cultural workers reconcile their projects with profit as measures of success? What are the structural constraints that create and perpetuate power in art worlds? How do shifting contexts create and redefine audiences and audience participation?
What are the sites of art?
In our twenty-first-century context, longstanding sites of production, consumption and display – such as the theatre, the museum, the gallery, and the publishing house – are being contested by new forces of media, popular culture, and commerce. These various forms of contestation and re-arrangement have given rise to new art forms, media and venues, from the street to the Internet. To what extent have old forms and new forms merged, replaced or challenged one another? In what ways do the various sites of reception and display affect sites of production – from the artist’s studio to the community hall? Is there such a thing as interdisciplinarity? And how do artistic media work with and interpret these cultural flows and institutionalized spaces?
How do we understand the media and mediation of art?
We live in an increasingly visual culture, where all forms of media intersect with the ‘crisis of information’ that overloads everyday life. These media include the visual arts, the textual arts, the aural and musical arts, the gestural and performative arts, and the spatial arts. These categories roughly correspond to standard classifications of artforms as music, theatre, literature, poetry, dance, painting, sculpture, photography, film and television, and architecture. Such are the disciplines and artforms of our historical experience. While these disciplines undergo various processes of transformation and at times destabilization, they are sometimes displaced by new means of production and their related meanings (the raw materials and methodologies of representation), reproduction of forms and meanings (first mechanical and now digital), and distributions of meaning (the methods of reaching audiences and interacting with them). To what extent do we need to develop new creative tools and research approaches to redefine classical disciplinary classifications?
How does art shape educational, cultural and national policy?
Given the proliferation of cultural institutions, such as museums and galleries, what role do these institutions play in larger projects of community formation, nation-building or international relations? How are hierarchies of art world classifications reproduced or challenged by new forms of institution-building and policy-making? Artists and the arts themselves are often referred to as ’cultural ambassadors’ in international forums. Such terms raise issues of political relevance and call into question related concerns of value neutrality, and the deployment of art forms and practices to signal or help to dissolve social and political conflict at local, regional and international levels. What is the role of public education in these debates? ‘Which publics’ are represented or included?
Who are the participants in art worlds?
Has the art world fragmented into a scattered heteronomy of ‘art worlds’? Who are the players, the gatekeepers, and to what extent do our mainstream institutions reinforce or reflect the hierarchies of art world structures and opportunities for artists? How do artists and cultural workers reconcile their visionary projects with the mundane pursuits of marketing and profit as measures of success? What are the structural constraints that create and perpetuate the motif of the “starving artist”? How do shifting contexts create and redefine audiences and audience participation? What is the responsibility of the artist to explore these and other issues? What, finally, is the role of art in society?