Dialogic Practice and the Discursive Turn
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Overview
| General Focus and Presentation Thesis | Questions Raised in Discussion | Dialogic Strategies | Questions, Comments, Concerns |
| This presentation aims to:
(1) Revisit the ethic of dialogic practice by mining the utterance for its symbolic significance--its function in the symbolic order (so this presentation is grounded in Lacanian psychoanalysis) <br> (2) review the significance of response by comparing and contrasting Bakhtinan and Lacanian subjectivities "The Lacanian intervention makes subjectivity dependent upon the recognition of an irreducible distance separating self from other, and in so doing, turns psychic life into a series of irremediable losses and misrecognitions. But while Lacan seems to see human beings as eternally susceptible to the lure, as ontologically defined by lack and imperfection, as subject to a desire that can only lead to an impasse of dissatisfaction, Bakhtin foregrounds the human capacity to mutually "author" one another, the ability to dialogically intersect on the frontiers between selves." source<br> (3) Arguing the "discursive turn" in art (exemplified by CP's barcamps, Ian Wilson's lectures, Hans Ulrich Obrist's curatorial conversations) is about much more than just restoring the social bond (Clare Bishop) - it's also about more than interdisciplinary epistemological inquiry (Mic Wilson) - This presenter wants to argue that it's about creating an opportunity for encounter where we locate ourselves in relation to an other. How isn't this about fortifying the social bond? This inquiry is not necessarily "positive" - While Bohm and others might define dialogue as well-mannered, there are other notions - including Mouffe's notion of Agonism (4) What's important here is the encounter - and it's attending to the politics of a wide-range of encounters (encounters with different types of others) that we cultivate new and complex subjectivities that surprise even ourselves - but there has to be this aspect of risk - and trust - it's not about policing intersubjective exchange to ensure it's fair - it's about immersing oneself in it with the view observing the forces that produce difference. (4) Observing and responding to this production of difference is what distinguishes a reflexive practitioner<br> |
(a) Contrary to earlier comments to the effect that Bakhtinian subjectivity is imperial, are you suggesting it's actually a more ethical position because it declares its dependence on an Other? (b) Recalling the question in the previous presentation: Is reflexivity primarily performative? How does it get inscribed? (c) Is the reflexivity you're describing really an entreprenurialism? How does it relate to the instrumentalization of artistic sensibilities under capitalism? I'm thinking here, for example of Even Chiapello's argument as well as, for example, Seth Godin recasting of Beuys notion that everyone's an artist? | Enacts Lacanian lack by defining this notion of the negative - What it's not...it's not discourse, it's not conversation, it's not dialectics...(all of which will be defined in the glossary instead of in the text - Though there should be some confusing over this terminology at least one other time during the barcamp) |
| Presenter | Biog | Rationale for selection | A combination of Neil and Malcolm |
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