Contemporary Art and New Social Paradigms I

07.12.2011 |

MASKA
Vol. XXVI, No. 141–142 (autumn 2011)

Contemporary Art and New Social Paradigms I

Editorial

This year’s volume of Maska began with the subject “Body, Philosophy, Art” with particular focus on the complex phenomenology of body and its contextualization in art practices and theory alike and it has been rounded off with topics which expand further – to the reflection of art phenomena in social contexts.

Here, too, we deal with aspects of corporeality and embodiment; however, they are not reflected in a phenomenological but rather a social and political context. Various aspects of corporeality are addressed in texts by Antonio Negri and Jonathan Beller that can be found in the theory section “Contemporary Art and New Social Paradigms I” contributed by Janez Strehovec, which will be continued in the next issue of the journal.

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The transdisciplinary notion of the intersection of contemporary art practices, science, technology and society was the starting point of a discussion panel organised this spring by the Slovenian Ministry of Culture. A transcription of this discussion on the theoretical and actual possibilities of connecting art and science is published in this Maska; it’s about the possibilities that, following the experience of art autonomy concepts in the 20th century are (no longer) self-evident.

The relation between corporeality and its inevitable embeddedness in society is the fil rouge of the interview with the American theoretician Susan Foster, who termed the concept of the so-called hired body, indicating the result of tendencies in contemporary dance training. In addition, said interview also provides a critical reflection on some dance performances from this year’s Springdance international festival held in Utrecht. The contributions by Ana Perne and Katja Čičigoj also bring an informative and critical overview of two other international festivals, i.e. a more traditional Europe Theatre Prize held this year in St. Petersburg, and a more “contemporary-oriented” ICAF Festival (Utrecht) investigating the issues of community art. The Reviews, Extensions section brings a phenomenology-based reflection by Janez Strehovec on Tanja Vujinović’s installation exhibited at the Kapelica Gallery in Ljubljana.

And finally, let me draw attention to the visual identity of this issue. Objects-materialisations selected from some projects of Slovenian contemporary art were, especially for this issue, taken by x-ray. Their processing and visualisation on the journal’s pages (the idea and its realisation by Miha Turšič) gives its own answer to the topics reflected in this year’s volume of Maska. X-ray visualisation provides an extension to a human’s ability of perception, and it is therefore an extension of the biological. A relevant question as to the emancipation of the technological is thus how technology perceives the existing artworks – in a different way, of course, when it perceives what a human cannot and doesn’t perceive what a human does.

Maja Murnik

Translated by Melita Silič

Editor-in-chief: Maja Murnik
Editor of the theory section: Janez Strehovec, PhD
Editorial Board: Janez Strehovec, PhD, Tomaž Toporišič, PhD
Permament Contributors: Katja Čičigoj, Janez Janša, Bojana Kunst, PhD, Jana Pavlič, Mojca Puncer, PhD, Monika Vrečar
Content Visualisation: Miha Turšič