Prometheanism 2.0

May 1 2016

Symposium organised by Bassam el Baroni, with Yuk Hui, P. Wolfendale and I. Wilkins, May 1, 2016, in Arnhem, NL (DAI Institute)

Nontrivial Art: Transformative Instrumentalism by Patricia Reed, artist, writer and designer Contemporary Art (CA), in its systemic condition, is buttressed by four core axioms that have been notably identified by Amanda Beech and Suhail Malik: art can be anything and anywhere; it is semantically precarious; it can only gain meaning through the correlation of interpretation; and, it is non-propositional. Guided by such conditions, CA can only adhere to models of negative freedom (functionally speaking) that are isomorphic with our neoliberal hegemony, even though the rhetoric and discursive sphere surrounding CA make political claims otherwise.