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

[naxsmash]

Robert I would be interested in any stories you might have about  
particular perfomance artists and events that you 've witnessed ,  
wriiten about.. Specific moments when you noticed this kind of  
heightened or intense techne.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 2, 2009, at 6:49 PM, Robert Summers <robtsum at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
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