Semblance and Event
Author: Massumi, Brian
ISBN: 9780262525367
Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE US
Year first published: 16 Aug 2013
Pages: 232
Format: Paperback / softback
b>An investigation of the "occurrent arts" through the concepts of the "semblance" and "lived abstraction."/b>p>Events are always passing; to experience an event is to experience the passing. But how do we perceive an experience that encompasses the just-was and the is-about-to-be as much as what is actually present? In i>Semblance and Event/i>, Brian Massumi, drawing on the work of William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze, and others, develops the concept of "semblance" as a way to approach this question. /p>p>It is, he argues, a question of abstraction, not as the opposite of the concrete but as a dimension of it- "lived abstraction." A semblance is a lived abstraction. Massumi uses the category of the semblance to investigate practices of art that are relational and event-oriented-variously known as interactive art, ephemeral art, performance art, art intervention-which he refers to collectively as the "occurrent arts." Each art practice invents its own kinds of relational events of lived abstraction, to produce a signature species of semblance. The artwork's relational engagement, Massumi continues, gives it a political valence just as necessary and immediate as the aesthetic dimension. /p>
ISBN: 9780262525367
Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE US
Year first published: 16 Aug 2013
Pages: 232
Format: Paperback / softback
b>An investigation of the "occurrent arts" through the concepts of the "semblance" and "lived abstraction."/b>p>Events are always passing; to experience an event is to experience the passing. But how do we perceive an experience that encompasses the just-was and the is-about-to-be as much as what is actually present? In i>Semblance and Event/i>, Brian Massumi, drawing on the work of William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze, and others, develops the concept of "semblance" as a way to approach this question. /p>p>It is, he argues, a question of abstraction, not as the opposite of the concrete but as a dimension of it- "lived abstraction." A semblance is a lived abstraction. Massumi uses the category of the semblance to investigate practices of art that are relational and event-oriented-variously known as interactive art, ephemeral art, performance art, art intervention-which he refers to collectively as the "occurrent arts." Each art practice invents its own kinds of relational events of lived abstraction, to produce a signature species of semblance. The artwork's relational engagement, Massumi continues, gives it a political valence just as necessary and immediate as the aesthetic dimension. /p>
