This paper will explore the possibilities for relational/dialogical aesthetics to work in the service of democracy. It will explore the dialogue between Bourriaud and Bishop as a starting point to investigate the ways that relational/dialogical art can either function as a catalyst for social change or be reappropriated by capital. Using Hardt and Negri's conception of the revolutionary potential of the multitude organized around technological networks, it will explore the ways in which art can work in service to their revolutionary project. It will also explore the functioning of power within the same works and how work may be inscribed simultaneously with revolutionary potential and clear avenues for the functioning of disciplinary power. The narrative of the paper will point to the need for digital art that work in the relational/dialogical sphere to work within and problematize the dialectics set forth by the debates around relational/dialogical art.
The paper's significance in contemporary art debates lies in its analysis of relational/dialogical aesthetics in digital art. This analysis will expand the debates set forth by Bourriaud and Bishop as new technology provides new possibilities for social interaction (ie: Ambient Awareness) and new possibilities for the creation of democracy (Hardt and Negri). But it will also seek to provide a framework for the critical analysis of art that works in the relational sphere but which merely reinscribes and reenforces relationships of power and capital. Hopefully, the paper can point to new ways of thinking about the process of creating relational/dialogical art as central to the transformative power of such art (Massumi hints at the importance of process in his introduction).
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