Page 125 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 125
Contemporary Slovenian Stage-plays and the Political 125
While discussing socially and politically engaged drama and theatre,
another viewpoint should be taken into consideration. In establishing the
autonomy of art in the Modern age art has undergone the process of aes-
theticization. But in the Postmodern a relative autonomy of art has fallen
apart, together with the Modern autonomies in other fields and spheres.
Art has become transgressive, while it has begun to include and appropri-
ate the functions, procedures, techniques and goals of other, previously
autonomous fields (e.g., science, politics), and this is especially significant
for contemporary visual, media and new media art. Such transgressive
art, usually strengthened, amplified, extended and profoundly altered by
(smart) technologies and in the dialogue with them, addresses and com-
ments on the issues of extended use of technology in present society, the
issues of the subject and (post)humanity, their new interactions, as well
as the dilemmas and utopias of ubiquitous computation and cyborgiza-
tion of society. Art today can appropriate social functions, as well—for
instance, it seeks to help people coping with social and living problems
by developing survival strategies in diverse fields (e.g., DIY or do-it-your-
self practices; let us note as an example Transborder Immigrant Tool, a
provocative mobile phone application devised by cyber group Electron-
ic Disturbance Theater 2.0 which was intended to guide the users at ille-
gal Mexican/US border crossing, to help them find water supplies, etc.).
Contemporary art undertakes political and activist issues; it educates,
warns, appeals, appropriates, hacks, creates political statements etc. The
sensible has become now social and political.
Yet several decades ago Umberto Eco described the different status
of an artistic product in contemporary society as ‘work in movement’, by
which he aimed not only at its openness and indetermination in inter-
pretative sense but also at its involvement into the circulation of new re-
lations and functions that an artwork has begun to undertake in the so-
ciety. This new receptive mode vis-à-vis the work of art “installs a new
relationship between the contemplation and the utilization of a work of
art” (Eco 1989, 23).
In his essay Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
Fredric Jameson discusses the painting of peasant shoes by van Gogh and
Warhol’s series of Diamond Dust Shoes. By comparing them, he introduc-
es the notion of new depthlessness as one of the crucial features of post-
modernism. Despite the fact that Jameson published his ground-break-
ing essay in 1984, many of his thoughts seem far-reaching and still useful.
In the world of multinational capital we are dealing with new superficial-
ity, networkability and extension of hierarchical relationships. The depth
While discussing socially and politically engaged drama and theatre,
another viewpoint should be taken into consideration. In establishing the
autonomy of art in the Modern age art has undergone the process of aes-
theticization. But in the Postmodern a relative autonomy of art has fallen
apart, together with the Modern autonomies in other fields and spheres.
Art has become transgressive, while it has begun to include and appropri-
ate the functions, procedures, techniques and goals of other, previously
autonomous fields (e.g., science, politics), and this is especially significant
for contemporary visual, media and new media art. Such transgressive
art, usually strengthened, amplified, extended and profoundly altered by
(smart) technologies and in the dialogue with them, addresses and com-
ments on the issues of extended use of technology in present society, the
issues of the subject and (post)humanity, their new interactions, as well
as the dilemmas and utopias of ubiquitous computation and cyborgiza-
tion of society. Art today can appropriate social functions, as well—for
instance, it seeks to help people coping with social and living problems
by developing survival strategies in diverse fields (e.g., DIY or do-it-your-
self practices; let us note as an example Transborder Immigrant Tool, a
provocative mobile phone application devised by cyber group Electron-
ic Disturbance Theater 2.0 which was intended to guide the users at ille-
gal Mexican/US border crossing, to help them find water supplies, etc.).
Contemporary art undertakes political and activist issues; it educates,
warns, appeals, appropriates, hacks, creates political statements etc. The
sensible has become now social and political.
Yet several decades ago Umberto Eco described the different status
of an artistic product in contemporary society as ‘work in movement’, by
which he aimed not only at its openness and indetermination in inter-
pretative sense but also at its involvement into the circulation of new re-
lations and functions that an artwork has begun to undertake in the so-
ciety. This new receptive mode vis-à-vis the work of art “installs a new
relationship between the contemplation and the utilization of a work of
art” (Eco 1989, 23).
In his essay Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
Fredric Jameson discusses the painting of peasant shoes by van Gogh and
Warhol’s series of Diamond Dust Shoes. By comparing them, he introduc-
es the notion of new depthlessness as one of the crucial features of post-
modernism. Despite the fact that Jameson published his ground-break-
ing essay in 1984, many of his thoughts seem far-reaching and still useful.
In the world of multinational capital we are dealing with new superficial-
ity, networkability and extension of hierarchical relationships. The depth
