Veröffentlichung von Ines Kleesattels Sammelbandbeitrag Situated Aesthetics for Relational Critique

Als Teil des Sammelbandes Aesthetics of the Commons, herausgegeben von Cornelia Sollfrank, Felix Stalder und Shusha Niederberger erscheint Ende Januar 2021 Ines Kleesattels Beitrag Situated Aesthetics for Relational Critique. On Messy Entaglements from Meintenance Art to Feminist Server Art.

Inhaltsbeschreibung des Sammelbandes
What do a feminist server, an art space located in a public park in North London, a ‘pirate’ library of high cultural value yet dubious legal status, and an art school that emphasizes collectivity have in common? They all demonstrate that art can play an important role in imagining and producing a real quite different from what is currently hegemonic; that art has the possibility to not only envision or proclaim ideas in theory, but also to realize them materially. Aesthetics of the Commons examines a series of artistic and cultural projects—drawn from what can loosely be called the (post)digital—that take up this challenge in different ways. What unites them, however, is that they all have a ‘double character.’ They are art in the sense that they place themselves in relation to (Western) cultural and art systems, developing discursive and aesthetic positions, but, at the same time, they are ‘operational’ in that they create recursive environments and freely available resources whose uses exceed these systems. The first aspect raises questions about the kind of aesthetics that are being embodied, the second creates a relation to the larger concept of the ‘commons.’ In Aesthetics of the Commons, the commons are understood not as a fixed set of principles that need to be adhered to in order to fit a definition, but instead as a ‘thinking tool’—in other words, the book’s interest lies in what can be made visible by applying the framework of the commons as a heuristic device.

Zusammenfassung von Ines Kleesattels Beitrag Situated Aesthetics for Relational Critique
Ines Kleesattel investigates the praxis of “Feminist Servers” from the point of view of institutional critique, in particular feminist positions that highlight the role of maintenance and care (in contrast to production and possession), such as Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Manifesto for Maintenance Art (1969). These practices, she argues, are best characterized as “Situated Aesthetics”: “an aesthetic relationality ... of differentiation, of partial connections, and an ongoing precarious commoning.” This opens a perspective to rethink, ground and extend the notion of a relational aesthetic, but also bring in the materiality and (more than human) sociality of the relations, the affective work—tensions, conflicts and agreements—that go into creating and maintaining the relations and the specific social spaces that are built through becoming related in that way. From this, a more complex notion of aesthetics and functionality emerges, one in which the two are intertwined, dynamic and continuously (re)produced.

Aesthetics of the Commons erscheint Ende Januar 2021 bei diaphanes, Zürich. Es ist als Taschenbuch zu ca. 25€ erwerben und in digitaler Version kostenfrei zugänglich, das Kapitel von Ines Kleesattel ist einzeln ebenfalls kostenfrei in digitaler Version verfügbar.