by Steven Cochrane
May 2005 & January 2007
The underlying aim of the project that Nicolas Bourriaud and subsequent others have
termed “relational aesthetics” can perhaps be summarized as simply, “learning to inhabit the world
in a better way.” Artists working within the critical framework of relational aesthetics aim to do this
by providing alternatives to the dominant patterns that structure human interaction—the aim of this
work, “to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real 1.” As such an
endeavor, by its very nature, seeks a break with most inherited models of artistic practice, we
cannot hope to assess the merits of this new work in the conventional terms drawn from art history;
rather, we must endeavor to determine the efficacy of its tactics and, in turn, the quality of the
interactions that these works and practices engender 2. If the very substance of such work inevitably
arises from the intangible experiences of its participants or agents, how then can we hope to
maintain critical distance from it? Without a lens of criticality, how can we hope to problematize the
strategies of this work and suggest potential ways of improving it? and can any practice whose very
form seems to evade incisive external critique truly contribute to the dialogue of meaningful change
held in such high esteem by Bourriaud and the artists with whom he identifies?
For points of reference, we must look to the structure of the relationships engendered by
these practices as they differ between various models of relationality; in this way, we can
potentially evaluate the ways in which the manifestation of a given model either echoes, upsets, or
1
Bourriaud, Nicolas. Relational Aesthetics. Trans. Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods. Paris: Les Presses
du Réel. 2002. 13
2
Bishop, Claire. “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics.” October. 110 (2004) 64
analyzing the work on this level, we can begin to measure it against the ideal of radical democracy.
interaction, many artists working within the field of relational aesthetics are motivated by a broader
impulse towards the realization of radical democracy, even in its smallest manifestations. It seems
difficult to imagine that, in bringing strangers into a supposedly democratic or democratized location
(the gallery, in most cases) for the purpose of sharing food, company, or some other collective
experience, Rirkrit Tiravanija and others like him do not consider the broader potential of
unmediated discourse in unmediated spaces (whether or not a museum or gallery can be thought of
as being either democratic or unmediated). Few artists or collectives, though, have explored the
aims of radical democracy as thoroughly as the Bureau d’Études, a French artistic and activist
collective whose essay, Autonomous Knowledge and Power in a Society without Affects—which can
be seen as guiding the group’s entire artistic practice—unequivocally aligns the group with the goal
of promoting free, “lateral” discourse, as well as the independent production and distribution of
knowledge, skill, and information, in conjunction with grassroots political, social, and economic
action by self-directed individuals and organizations. The essay places as their primary objective the
capitalist oligarchy. The object of such activity, according to the essay, is always autonomy:
knowledge is liberated from the constraints of institutions and conventional media outlets, and
ideological allegiance. The consequence of autonomy is always, they maintain, the empowerment of
“Different kinds of autonomy stand out [from the context of what they term the 'world
supermarket culture']. They reveal themselves in the rising power of diffuse
intellectuality, diffuse creativity and diffuse resistance, exercised by individuals and
collectives creating forms of life (expressive, dietary, passional, urban), bringing forms
of social or civil disobedience into play, developing their skills and secreting meaning
autonomously, critically. These manifestations of autonomous knowledge/power provoke
a crisis in the monopoly of access to possibilities held by the productive organizations of
consumer society [...]Autonomous knowledge decolonizes possibilities, opens up the
existence and potential of being through horizontal exchanges of knowledge and
experience.”3
3
Bureau d'Études. “Autonomous Knowledge and Power in a Society without Affects” Trans. Brian Holmes.
2002. 18 Mar 2005 <http://utangente.free.fr/anewpages/holmes.html>
universalized utopian vision; indeed, the ideal of autonomy stands in fundamental opposition to any
such universalizing tendencies. The approaches outlined by the Bureau are, rather, examples of
small, self-directed actions, ranging from software hacking and squatting to community
management of natural and economic resources to pirate radio and independent journalism, all
carried out at sites of tactical importance. In this regard, the types of activist gesture encouraged in
Autonomous Knowledge, which might at first seem to bear little resemblance to the gallery-located,
more clearly art-informed relational work, are revealed to be conceptually analogous to those
practices, in that both practices seek to disrupt and redirect the normal course of interaction
between people. They strive to create and exploit sites of potential, and, in other words, they seek
The notion of autonomy and its bearing on relational practice as a whole provides a stable
platform from which we can begin to understand (and perhaps assess the merits of) the Bureau
d’Études’ “experimental cartography,” an undertaking which has been the thrust of their artistic
practice. These “maps,” complex webs of icons, coded lines, and blocks of copy, chart the political,
economic, and cultural ties between key players (be they governments, agencies, corporations,
individuals, etc.) in world government and finance. The maps, which are available online as PDF
(Portable Document Format) files, and which the group offset-prints and distributes free of charge,
chart everything from the business ties of world religious organizations 4 and the spread of
information technologies5 to the extensive and unsettling influence of elite social clubs within the
nuclear industrial complex6. While one of the functions of these maps, much like the pencil-drawn
charts and timelines of the late Mark Lombardi, is to elucidate the often hidden complicities and
interdependencies that construct the apparatus of global capitalism, the maps’ bearing on relational
aesthetics (and the idea of autonomy) has more to do with the way the maps might be used. While,
as informative documents, the maps may at first seem impenetrable, close inspection reveals that
even in the tangle of manifold allegiances, there are weak points and blank spaces in the network.
For the Bureau, these are sites of opportunity, and acquiring a full, deconstructed view of the
system at hand is the first step towards concrete action; “On the basis of such a deconstruction,
4
Bureau d’Études. “Monotheism, Inc.” 2003 < http://utangente.free.fr/2003/monotheisminc.pdf>
5
Bureau d’Études. “Governing by networks.” 2003 <
http://utangente.free.fr/2003/governingbynetworks.pdf>
6
Bureau d’Études. “The Ring.” (free broadsheet). April 2005.
networks between administrations, lobbies, businesses etc., you can define modes of action or
The success of the maps lies in the efficacy with which they render the supposedly diffuse
network of global Neoliberal politics, in which corporations are said to exist independently from
competition, in the light of what it truly is: an integrated network of mutually-reliant players
operating in a structured, typically hierarchical pattern of complex power relationships. The maps
fail, however, in two areas. The first shortcoming is one of legibility: it could be argued that the
Bureau has yet to forge an effective compromise between the aesthetic form of their maps and their
intended use as informational resources, and, as such, the clarity of their data currently suffers. The
It must be acknowledged that, however broad their intentions, the Bureau d’Études is a
finite collective, and, as such, has finite access to the data used to produce their maps, a finite
amount of available time in which to produce them, and finite resources with which to distribute
them (though online distribution renders this last point only marginally significant). However, the
network of power they seek to map, integrated though it may be, is nearly infinite and ever-
shifting, with new nodes cropping up, others disappearing. New alliances are likely being forged and
broken at a pace difficult to imagine, yet the Bureau’s approach to production is heavily rooted in
time-consuming research and design concerns. It would be simply impossible for any collective, no
matter how mobile, to produce even remotely up-to-date maps using the Bureau’s current methods,
and, beyond even that, the mechanisms of capitalism are so immense that they could simply never
While these logistical concerns certainly do impede upon the certifiable use value of the
maps, they are less relevant to the artistic viability of the maps as mass-distributed “pieces.” There
is, however, a deeper, ideological discrepancy that arises from the group’s choice of collective
agency, which suggests that their current mode of practice is not in keeping with the broader
politics outlined in Autonomous Knowledge. For the Bureau d’Études to operate and produce content
as they do, that content must necessarily be filtered through the lens of a small group of artists and
intellectuals working primarily in France. While the group itself maintains autonomy, their project of
7
Bureau d’Études: Autonomous Knowledge and Power
that the group professes to find unacceptable, those that regulate content based on occult biases
and distribute it in unilateral fashion, communicating an air of impartiality and expertise that,
nevertheless, does not incorporate a venue for dissent. If the maps are to do nothing more than
highlight the need for a better understanding of the systems that govern us, then this model can
function, provided that the viewer approaches the information they receive with due skepticism. In
this case, the Bureau would operate in a role of artist-as-pedagogue, thus indebted to the likes of
Hans Haacke, much in the way other relational artists function in the role of artist-as-manager, an
approach inherited from the conceptual and performance work of the 60s and 70s. If, however, the
maps are intended to help locate and guide real action in the spirit of autonomy, the Bureau will
have to adopt another model of practice: they must explode the collective.
In a second essay, Resymbolising Machines: Art after Oyvind Fahlström, updated in 2004,
“The insufficiencies of our artisanal approach to information and the meeting of friendly
minds has led us to associate ourselves with them in order to create a map generator.
The generator will be a machine allowing everyone to generate the maps they need for
their actions, by entering data concerning the business or administration in which they
work, or about which they have found some information. The accumulation and
coordination of all the information should gradually permit the visualisation of the
immense lines of production [...] contributing to the design/production/distribution/use
of a computer.”8
When and if this “generator” project is realized, it will potentially rectify not only the
up the field of their collective practice to a limitless, unmediated network of autonomous agents, it
foresees the establishment of a venue that would not only aid in the carrying out of separate
autonomous activity, but would integrate the values of autonomous knowledge and power into its
very workings. In a laudable and distinctly contemporary gesture, they have incorporated their own
eventual obsolescence as a collective into their projected goals. At the time of writing, no concrete
timetable for the development or implementation of the generator had been published.
At this point, it seems appropriate to return to the notion that the work of relational
aesthetics can best be judged in terms of its success or failure by addressing the need for spaces of
8
Bureau d'Études. “Resymbolizing Machines: Art After Oyvind Fahlstrom” Trans. Brian Holmes. 2004. 28
Apr 2005 < http://ut.yt.t0.or.at/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=102&Itemid=70>
mechanisms of capitalism and the spectacle), where it tends to fail, though, is in implementing
radical democracy as a mechanism in its own right. This is attributable, in many cases, to the work’s
reliance on existing museum-institutions (with their accumulated baggage of racial, class, and
educational privilege) for funding and for venue; to the fact that the pieces often generate a profit
for either the artist or the host-institution; to the finite temporal existence of the work, and to the
fact that much of relational work relies on a construction, either in the form of instruction or actual
objects and environments, created by an artist or artistic agent whose involvement in the piece
distances her from the interactions of other parties, that which effectively constitutes “her” work.
If we accept that what truly produces these works is not the artist but the relationships,
temporary or otherwise, that arise between the viewers/participants/agents, who are supposedly
random and supposedly equal in the “world” of the piece, and that the object of the work is to
fashion and promote meaningful alternatives to the repressive governances of daily life, it would
make sense that the presence of the individual “artist” should be marginalized to as a great a
degree as possible in order that the work operate, as much as possible, in a realm of “pure
relationality.” The Bureau d’Études’ proposal for the generator anticipates precisely that.
One of the foundational falsehoods of Neoliberal capitalist ideology is the notion of free
competition (with its implicit lack of covert allegiances), the professed—but never realized—diffuse
network of autonomous competing powers; it is this dream of capitalism, perhaps, which appeals
most poignantly to the fondness for democracy and liberty so often expressed in our society. What
the Bureau has worked to do with their maps, thus far, has been to destroy the illusion that
capitalism follows democratic principles and works toward democratic aims, doing so by revealing
integrated nature of the capitalist network. What the generator stands poised to do is to implement
an actual diffuse network specifically brought into existence for the purpose of subverting the
self-governing meta-collective purposed for the facilitation of dissent and radical change.
To the end of illustrating the way in which the proposed generator presents us with a model
of relationality that fully integrates the aims and means of radical democracy, I will turn now to a
art and art-informed practice, but which, nevertheless, embodies many of qualities that the
Wikipedia (from the Hawaiian wiki wiki, frequently translated as “very fast”9) is an online
project conceived of by a retired stock options trader who, in the late 1990s, found himself suddenly
rich thanks to the “dot-com boom” and his well-timed departure from it10. The goal of his project
was to create an encyclopedia that would not only be free to access, but would be based on
software that allowed any user of the site to freely contribute information, in formation that, in turn,
any other person could freely edit. The project was met with enthusiasm, and, after four years in
operation, the database contains some 1.3 million articles submitted by over 16,000 people writing
same types of relationship investigated and promoted by the Bureau, and it performs effectively the
same task as the Bureau's proposed generator, in that it enables and fosters the autonomous
characteristics are likewise closely aligned with the goals for independent information production
and distribution as outlined in Autonomous Knowledge, as well as the aims of relational art: the
nature of the project eschews conventional copyright laws in favor of “open-license” modification,
content. The system of submitting and editing content entirely deëmphasizes traditional expertise in
favor of an intense system of peer review, which discourages the undue influence of institutional
convention and pressure, all the while fostering an engaged interaction between participants. The
format, by allowing for unmediated editing of content and free discussion of any additions and
changes made, embraces spontaneity and disagreement, both elements vital to the fostering of
radical democracy. Because Wikipedia, unlike the Bureau's printed maps, never approaches or
claims to be a “complete” document, it resists obsolescence and likewise rejects the trappings of
document,” always a product of the engaged relationships between a far-flung, diffuse network of
9
Wikipedia (EN). “Wiki”. 28 Mar 2005 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki>
10
Pink, Daniel H. “The Book Stops Here” Wired 13.03
(2005):<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html >
11
Ibid. (figures current as of May 2005)
of the diffuse network as a relational model, but radical democracy in a self-perpetuating system.
It should not be entirely difficult to imagine how a similar web interface could be applied to
the type of content that the Bureau d’Études’ database would eventually contain. Developments in
vector-based graphical interfaces and Dynamic HTML markup language could easily, in the hands of
reconfigure the spatial relationships of nodes on the computerized version of the newly-
computerized maps, while, using database and search-query technology, users would be able to set
any number of variables to automatically limit the size and scope of personalized maps to suit their
individual needs and interests. Users could also comment directly on, correct, modify of expand
upon the contributions of other users and the relationships they demarcate, and, if the precedent
set by Wikipedia were to hold, all of this could be done with a minimum of regulation on the part of
Interestingly, two projects have emerged that apply the use of a graphical interface and
open-editing capabilities to the very types of power relationships tackled by the Bureau’s maps.
Theyrule.net compiles information about the individuals who sit on the boards of many of the
world’s largest companies, which individual users are invited to use to compile graphical, Bureau-
style maps based on themes, relationships, and problems of interest to them; these maps can then
saved on the site’s server to be viewed by others. The list of board members is not continually
updated, however, and that information is not subject to editing by individual users. Doug McCune,
a student at Stanford University recently, and with no prior knowledge of the Bureau d’Études or
their work—though partly inspired by Mark Lombardi’s maps 12--set about to create a parody of the
geared towards illustrating the “networking” of global politics13. On the original Friendster, individual
users maintain profiles of personal information and formalize relationships by inviting other
members to join their “friends groups,” which in turn overlap to create vast network of tangentially
associated individuals. McCune applies a derivative structure to the world of politics, with users able
to add information concerning a given figure or institution to the database and then define links
12
Email correspondence. 3 May 2005.
13
McCune, Doug. Political Friendster. 1 May 2005 < http://www.politicalfriendster.com>
All relational work makes manifest a root impulse to, in any manner possible, be it local and
temporary or enduring and global, create and share some vision of a different way in which we, as
an ever-increasingly atomized society, might be able to live and interact with one another. In what
way, though, can projects such as Wikipedia, TheyRule, and PoliticalFriendster, in conjunction with
the Bureau's own work, both real and proposed, aid us in the establishment and refinement of a
critical framework for assessing all relational art? How can a practice such as the Bureau's illuminate
a practice such as Tiravanija's? How can a user-maintained database of corporate and governmental
data help us understand the cooking and serving of free pad thai in a gallery space?
The Bureau, Wikipedia, and the proposed generator represent what can be thought of,
perhaps, as the least ephemeral instantiation of Bourriaud's idea of relational art. The workings of
the generator can be witnessed directly in the form of its code and the data it produces, and, more
importantly, it produces a definitive record of the interactions it engenders, as its first and primary
locus of interaction is mediated through text, which is subsequently archived and preserved. What
occurs as a result of these interactions can likewise be recorded, and the changes they effect will,
one assumes, be borne out in the data of generator itself. What the generator may lack in
relationality not conceivably possible in other ways. That the generator, in and of itself, is unable or
unlikely to foster, directly, the kind of emotional exchanges in shared physical space that occur
among participants in Tiravanija's work should not diminish our appreciation of the its functional
accessibility; by that same token, the degree of functional accessibility absent in Tiravanija's
installations should not diminish our appreciation of its capacity for emotional and physical
engagement.
The generator proposal and similar projects should instead teach us about the potential for
true autonomy in relational art. They can teach us how social art can exist when the role of the
artist is considerably diminished and the institution is all but completely absent. We might begin to
advance new theories of relationality in which the functions and workings of the generator have
conceptual or even metaphorical relevance to other manifestations of social art. Comparison and
critical understanding of both. The way in which such a comparison illuminates the composite
accomplishments and shortcomings of each practice makes possible the assessment of its overall
success or failure. The mechanisms of the generator, of the diffuse network, shore up premise of
relational artwork, and provide a more solid platform for building and improving upon a set of
practices which, by their very aims and definition, are rooted in the intangible.