[-empyre-] Queer Relationally -- Queer Aesthetics of Exsistence

[Robert Summers]

Homosexuality is a historic occasion to reopen affective and
relational virtualities, not so much through the intrinsic qualities
of the homosexual but because the 'slantwise' position of the latter,
as it were, the diagonal lines [s/]he can lay out in the social fabric
allow these virtualities to come to light.  - Foucault

[Foucault argued in his late work for] inventing new possibilities of
life.  Existing not as a subject but as a work of art -- and the last
phrase presents thought as artistry.  - Deleuze

Aesthetic experiences should be considered no better or worse -- no
higher or lower -- than sexual ones.  - Dean

I start off with these three quotes in order to gesture toward other
modes of life and art practices and productions, which would be an
"aesthetics of existence" (Foucault), and which are not at all related
to what we currently find in galleries and museums.  I think we have
to re-think art's placement in the social-sphere and daily life, and
rethink it as a techne, and also what constitutes art today -- by
which I mean art that is awarded prizes, galley shows, etc.  I think
that such a re-thinking will surface an art (relational to be sure)
that foregrounds the intertwining of aesthetics, politics, and ethics;
for example, the art of the cruise, the art of the fuck, the art of
living an existence that resists the State apparatus.  I think that by
following the late work of both Foucault and Tim Dean we can develop
new forms of (embodied) art practices and (queer) relationships and
realtionalities, and ironically (?) these are only to be found in
non-normative sexual "communities."

- Robert Summers, PhD/ABD