In this last session we first tried to trace our steps and identify some of the highlights of our group. That is, the concepts that according to each participant were most valuable.

Edwards key point, was the notion of trying to understand and respect other worldviews. For Lucas both collaboration and hybridity formed key points. But also the question, if art could possibly mean something in leading us back to a sustainable economy? He referred to a recent exhibition on eco-art, related to eco-aesthetics, both in relation to the notion of sustainability. Patrice pointed out the process of trying to shape the garden. But next to that, also the concept of hybridity, and interdisciplinarity, opening up the walls, and thus maybe also creating new walled gardens.

Edward also elaborated on the concept of irreconcilability. How irreconcilable are other worldviews for example? This again means thinking in terms of frictions. As in both using friction to understand, and spreading understanding and respect, but also the preservation of the importance of friction. As it maybe creates a dynamic energy that is productive, or non-productive in ways that are valuable. For example, the friction between humanistic and non-humanistic value systems.

Next to friction also some important ideas about aesthetics were browsed upon. For example its relation to economics and technology. But also its reconfiguration from objects towards processes, from imbedded meaning to emergence (See other notes, Ascott, 60’s). An important shift in aesthetics that now maybe functions as a model for imagining different aesthetic values. Because this first shift only relates to one specific system of aesthetic values. What other values might we imagine? And what are the possible roles of art in addressing these new values?

Then as Edward points out, maybe it is about pushing the disciplinary limits of art (eg. Ascott). Like for example Hans Haacke has done, as someone who is also engaged in tools and techniques of sociology and anthropology, next to the arts, suggesting a breakdown of disciplinary boundaries. A trend that according to Edward may become ever more pervasive and complicated. Then in contrast to ‘everyone an artist’ maybe ‘no one an artist’, and art no longer ceases to be a meaningful category, as everything else ceases to be a meaningful category. What were left with, is trying to figure out what the problems are and how to solve them, with any means necessary, as a collective practice, joining whatever skills we have at our exposal, and trying to figure out ways of sharing those skills, in a synthetic and hybrid process.

According to Patrice, this situation is only sustainable if all other categories are also dissolved, you can’t do that for art only. Edward thinks it is most fruitful to again approach this situation in terms of friction. In this sense, the friction between the evaporation in significance, and meaning of disciplinary autonomy and the necessity of disciplinary autonomy. Patrice disagrees, because problems around autonomy in the arts and science don’t come about because there is an intrinsic need for these categories to be autonomous, but because they are autonomous by themselves. It needs to be argued and defended, because they are under attack in real life, both by outsiders and insiders. We can declare the end of all categories, but only then we have to do something in real life to achieve that. So you need to understand the problems of real life, while at the same time keeping eye on what the ideal is, in this case what the absolute autonomy of the arts would look like.

Edward questions, if we are able to abolish all categories, then we would be stuck with the problem of having to do whatever work those categories were succeeding in doing, with all their shortcomings and failings. And what sort of structure could actually emerge that could get that work done, that would be different and eliminate some of the problems that we see the current system producing, for example, the schizophrenic situation of supporting and demeaning, and the separation and difficulty of communication across disciplines etc. The futurist for example tried to start from ground zero and burn all the museums. But is there ever a ground zero, no says Edward, there always is a residue.

To practice the frontiers of science you have to fictionalize what might be and then experiment. Look for example at nano-technology, which is fore most part still very fictional. Patrice points out the importance of these frontiers, the place where it all is happening. But where is the border? It goes with the hybridity Patrice notes. Lucas questions if we are all that bound. Patrice answers yes, we are terribly bound, except for the limited space of liberty that we get.

Edward defines friction as the main quality, and proposes to approach the main concepts in relation to their frictional qualities. Which means that friction also has to be problematized by non-friction. This means having an ontology set up between friction and non-friction. Then under the subcategory of friction we have these relationships of friction; the understanding and irreconcilability of worldviews, autonomy and hybridity, humanist and non-humanist values, exterior and interior (frictionless ideal within) of the walled garden, a wall that maybe also is permeable (Skin, membrane) and transparent.

Edward returns to Patrice earlier statement of the coming of the end of the world. Edward notes the collapse of the capitalist economy, something inevitable, but something that doesn’t necessarily should make us depressed. And art may be illuminating certain paths for recovery (see also earlier notes). This leads Patrice to Virillio’s notion of L’accidente Integrale (Transl. Original accident). According to this notion the coming of the end of the world is the result of what we did ourselves. Every time humankind invented something, a technology, at the same time it also invented its accident. But at the same time this is a moment of redemption, and this is a place where art should be understood as the redeemer, according to Patrice (Virillio). Edward elaborates, if at this redemptive moment art comes into play, then it is at this time when it no longer makes sense to make distinctions between artists, scientists, etc. But, in what sense is this redemptive moment an art moment, and not another moment, Edward wonders.

Moments of collapse always request some form of redemption, maybe better said some sort of reconstitution, or reconstruction (Eg. 9/11). Because as Lucas points out, the danger is that this ‘redemptive moment’ leads us back to a certain mystification of art. Therefore Edward is critical on the aforementioned thinking of Virilio (L’accidente integrale). Because again we have this friction, between the historical mystical attribution of art and a post-structuralist questioning of that mystification of art.

Lucas points out another friction, one within the practice of design. A lot of design is very positive about changing its environment, so design could be about designing for social friction. Lucas mentions for example the Electronic Disturbance Theater (Mapping of state borders), but also ‘Google will eat itself’. A sort of design for electronic civil disobedience, an important strategy for contemporary art. But what might the next step be, Edward wonders. Because civil disobedience has become rather unproductive, as it isn’t looked at anymore.

Then Edward goes back to the earlier mentioned concept of the existence of different art worlds that are coexisting. The one with the big market, galleries, biennales etc, and the one that is more connected to institutions as the Waag and mediamatic for example. Then one of the things that is so interesting about the Internet as platform, is that it allows the formation of all sorts of different communities. Then, as Edward points out, maybe the most effective path for art in the future is maybe not giving a shit about some sort of art world out there that is still connected to some sort of market economy. Instead, these artists shouldn’t really care if people see them or not, and just be involved in their own creative practices amongst practitioners, who share similar sort of values, and want to explore those ideas collectively.