[-empyre-] Response to Judith on Bourriaud and Foucault / "Relational Aesthetics" and "Aesthetics of Existence"

[Robert Summers]

Judith states, ""Aesthetics" as used in Bourriaud's/other art
theorists' "relational aesthetics" is not the same as "aesthetics"
used in Foucault's "aesthetics of existence."

Yes, this is (too) obvious, I argue: they are "not the same," okay.
But I was wondering _how_ not to be so obvious.  And, I was wondering
how do a "queer reading," how to "make" an ostensibly "non-queer"
test, or texts, "queer," how to think relationally and beside.
Furthermore, I want(ed) to fold the two together -- even if some rough
edges emerge as a result.  So, without stating the obvious, or
thinking the obvious, or re-inscribing some sort of unfathomable
folding ("relational aesthetics" and "aesthetics of existence" as
inherently not the same [which sounds so hetero -- as if not the same
cannot produce "sameness in difference"]).  Finally, can we be more
creative, so go on a "line of flight," inhabit an "in-between" -- such
as Foucault and Deluze and Guattari were thinking, doing, enacting --
not to say that these are discrete categories?  I think we can, and I
think this is the challenge.

As ever, Robert

Robert Summers, PhD/ABD
Lecturer
Art History and Visual Culture
Otis College of Art and Design
e: rsummers at otis.edu
w: http://ospace.otis.edu/robtsum/Welcome