Fred Forest. For an Aesthetics of Communication
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Communication Aesthetics directly envisages transposing the perceptible principles which are observable in the evolution of the environment and of our world onto the function of art itself. From now on, therefore, this fonction should no longer be considered in terms of isolated objects, but in terms of relationships and integration : works of art, information and art systems must all be perceived as being integrated wholes, and ones which cannot be divided or reduced in any way to the sum of their separate material parts. What constitutes the " work " is no longer its material medium, nor its visual or pictorial representation, but that which precisely is not perceptible by our senses, but only by our awareness. In generalising the methods of production of images and making the process commonplace, our society has limited its aesthetic treatment of them, and has transferred legitimate artistic intervention from the production process to the invention of models. The inflation of images has inevitably led to their devaluation. Aesthetics now seeks its favoured ground elsewhere than in the incarnation of the plastic sign. No longer able to operate on the method or representation, the artist now intervenes directly on reality, that is to say the carries out his symbolic and aesthetic activity using different means from those which he has used up to now.
The approach in which I am currently engaged is work which has comunication in itself as a goal. It consists not only of thinking about communicatino, but also practical activity in and around the field. Such a position throws all of the traditional data on artistic activity into disorder and makes the perception of them problematical. We are witnessing not just a change in the object of art, but also in the means of achieving it. Through a range of experiences, " Sociological Art " supported the existence of an art of action.
An art of action whose programmed development was situated in a social space, and took into account the environment into which it was born. Based on a theory of actions, it acted on the world in order to bring about change. It brought communiation theory into play by producing a process of interactions between individuals or group or individuals. This type of art functions as a transmitter of original messages, which are both specific and disturbing. The artist takes up the position of the sender of the messages. He speeds up and activates communication. He innovates,either by introducing parasitic messages into established circuits, or else by setting up his own parallel networks. Sometimes this is achieved by setting up intersections and connections between them. Such a utilisation immediately results in a critical use of pervading information and overloads the routine function of such specialized circuits. It must be emphasized that the novelty here is found in the transfer of the field of action of artistic practices. The communication artist generates symbols just as the traditional artist colonises other realms and annexes other fields of endeavour. He is not content with preestablished places and circuits reserved for his particular use and for a particular public, but he deliberately transfers his production to other fields and channels. By transiting through mass-media rather than through art museums, the messages have less specific targets, but the target the museum aims at is nonetheless hit through this channel. In any event, this can only widen the circle of potential recipients, reach them from afar, and in this way achieve a new type of relationship with them, encouraged by the originality of the situation thus created. He introduces his own signs which not only work through the daily communication media (newspapers, radio stations, television and telephone) but are also " about " them. He justaposes them with societal signs, also vehicled by these same channels. Thus the communciation artist is operating on the space of his time, which is the space of information. Into this space of information he insinuates himself, he installs and stages his symbols. Of course, a as result of his chosen framework of action,the communication strategy he employs will dictate the choice of medium, timing and type of or organisation, in function of the message to be put over and the goal to be achieved. By appropriating other channels in this way, the artist also points out the thoroughly relative space which up until now has been allotted to artistic creation in our society, isolated as it is in highly localised preserves. Today the field of information is opening up an unlimited space of action for artists who are capable of inventing specific forms of art. The practice of sociological art has always drawn particular attention to communication problems. Certain detractors have accused it of inflating information through his own working, particularly with reference to the activities of the Sociological Art Collective... This is someting specific to the methods of Sociological Art, following its logical thread. The expression of this communiation has been translated into various forms. Recourse it had to various media appropriate to the moment and to the circumstances. For understandable financial reasons, the mailing of documents was the most widely used of these means. Obviously, it allowed for the saturation of the public to whom they were adressed: above all " arbiters of taste ", who, in their turn, relayed the information, could be reached.. Nonetheless, our occasional actions throug the mass communication channels of press, radio and television were numerous and well remarked upon. Both the dynamic and the amplificaion of information are part of the dimension which we always gave to our work. Major information channels allowed us to endow our events with the immediacy and the social impact which we expected of them. We always gave careful thought first to the preparation of this information and then to its circulation. The techniques of communication in all of our actions was the subject of prior in-depth research, the object of an exhaustive plan. Although this was an integral part of our work methods, the plan of action had to be flexible enough to allow for adaptation to any unexpected situation. Our action on the " Artistic Square Metre " was exemplary in this respect as shown by the results achieved at the time. Without a doubt it is there that an ability to intuit both media and an awareness or their operating procesures comes into play. This awareness is borne on the air of the times, induced by the informational environment into which we are all plunged.