The Study of
Curatorial Culture
Curatorial Culture
Oikonomia means “administration of the house.” In the Aristotelian (or pseudo-Aristotelian) treatise on economy, we can thus read that the technē oikonomikē differs from politics just as the house (oikia) differs from the city (polis). This distinction is restated in the Politics, in which the politician and the king—who belong to the sphere of the polis—are qualitatively opposed to the oikonomos and the despotēs—who are referred to the sphere of the house and the family.
——Giorgio Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory: For A Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government (Homo Sacer II, 2)1
Social Disagreement, Social Recognition and Social Diagonistic
It is since World War II that the Frankfurt thinkers Theodore W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer mentioned that we should mix the dialectics of enlightenment and negative dialectics, in order to make a livable world, in which the “poem can still be written”. In light of this notion, Habermas, in his Theory of Communicative Action and The (New)Structural Transformation of Public Sphere, has prolonged this line of thought in order to suggest that only the one who possesses communicative reason can enter into the social debate, and can reconstruct the so-called “new public sphere” in a digital way.
From a different angle, the French philosopher Jacques Rancière maintains in his Le Partage du Sensible and Le Meséntente that the movement of the sensible is at the core of contemporary aesthetics and politics, in which the “disagreement” is formed.2 In contrast to this, the Frankfurt School philosopher Axel Honneth states that recognition is prior to disagreement, and social recognition has been pointed right into the heart of aesthetics and politics.3 Indifferent to, and in order to de-accelerate this idea, Hartmut Rosa binds the “social acceleration” we are facing now in what he calls the “world relation” (Weltbeziehung) and “world resonance” (Weltresonanz).4 In this context, Rahel Jaeggi has urged that we should rethink the contemporary form of life as well as alienation as a remedy to the plight of interpretational conflicts mentioned above, in order to naturalize the whole social debate.
However, in what ways might the above-mentioned critical theories contribute to the deeper understanding of curatorship and curatography? Where do the social diagnostics any curator and curatography project need come from? In my view, these derive from an in-between, the very space or place formed between the parallel lines of the zigzag constituted by social disagreement, social recognition, social relation, and forms of social life, a conceptual fissure wherein we find the main locus of social diagnostics, which is the most urgent task of any curator and curatography agenda in the contemporary art scenes today, for they manifest a real zeal for the “social” in different ways. The more accurate the social diagnostics are, the more brilliant the exhibition will be.
Trans-Individuation, Spirituality, and the Economics of Curatorial Care
Hence, we live in such a clearly-cutted state. we live in a state of constant trans-individuation. By deploying the anti-hylomorphic aesthetic and technical objects, one individuates itself trans-individually with others. Similar to the French spiritualist Maine de Biran’s notion of the connection of the “intimate sense” (sens intime) from which the Kyoto School philosopher Kuki Shuzo has drawn inspiration from in his Iki nō kozo,5 it is in this sense a kind of “spirituality” is formed in such a process of trans-individuation, just as the great French philosopher of technology Gilbert Simondon mentions in his doctoral thesis, Individuation In light of Notion of Form and Information.6
Thus, if we push Simondon’s thesis one step further, steering it toward an artwork-or-exhibition-oriented mode, we can say every aesthetic or technical object, hence, every artwork and every exhibition is a hub of curl lines the curator collects from our world, our society, in which everybody is doing trans-individuation in an everyday-life-crossing ways. It is also in the sense of horizontality that any artwork or exhibition is always literally, positionally and directionally, higher than everybody’s individuation. It is also in this sense that we can see how the etymological roots of the English word “cure” (cura),7 “care” (*karō), “concern” (concernere; which means “sieve”), “trouble” (turbidus), even the word “turbid” (turba) all point to a downplay state.
The Muddy Buddha of Yao Jui-Chung
Such a downplay state also corresponds to the great Taiwanese contemporary artist Yao Jui-Chung’s artwork project, the Muddy Buddha. The Muddy Buddha (Picture 1 & Picture 2) demonstrates that the power of the eccentric religious icons of Taiwanese temples suggest “concern”—which means “sieve”—the “Muddy Sand Puzzle”(微塵惑) and all the sentient beings in the world, or even in the universe.
Turba and the Politics of Exhibition
In this sense, the main mission of any curator and exhibition is to arouse the emotivo-affective turmoil (turba) in the mind of the spectators, in order to make them to be at “ease,” or make them get rid of the “disease,” whose etymological meaning desaise can be traced back to early 14th century. In light of this, due to the epistemological root of the English word “trouble” or “troubleness,” from which we all now know “cure” or the “curation=care of the soul” equation is formed, can be traced to the word “tubid”, and “turbid” means “turmoil and crowd” at the same time, so any artwork and any exhibition can be considered as the repetition of the primal state of the Western logos, or the logo-phonocentrism that the great French philosopher Jacques Derrida mentions is always already built into any attempt at transcendental utterance and/or signification.
However, it is just in here, that we also see the amusing, or even “laughing” relationship between the “get rid of disease” and “trouble.” In Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, Hénri Bergson states,
This is the reason comic observation instinctively proceeds to what is general. It chooses such peculiarities as admit of being reproduced, and consequently are not indissolubly bound up with the individuality of a single person, -.a possibly common sort of un commonness, so to say,- peculiarities that are held in common. By transferring-them to the stage, it creates works which doubtless belong to art in that their only visible aim is to please, but which will be found to contrast with other.8
It is in this context we see the curator, the exhibition maker, and the spectators are being pushed to the limit forever in an amusing and laughing way, in the foreground.
Dispositif, Global Economy, Framework, and Homo Evolution
However, we still live in the state of what the French philosopher Michel Foucault calls the “dispositif” (le dispositif), or what Giorgio Agamben calls the “apparatus.” In this sense, our motion is immediately captured by those big technological companies and ourselves. The individuation model, or let us put it in another way, the “technical individuation-framework” model can enable the deep and profound penetration through the group mind of the heads of those big technological companies, hence letting the aesthetic and technical object remain aloof and creative. Hence, in this “technical individuation-framework” model, we also see new kinds of solidarities and collectives being laid down. We evolute ourselves from Homo Sapiens, Homo Faber, Homo Ludens, to Novus Homo Economicus and Novus Homo Deus, while making the global economy and the world we live in better.
Conclusion: In Praise of Hub, The Turmoil
It is this hub of curl lines that we shall praise in any artwork or exhibition. We now actually live in a state of “individuated pluralism” (獨多元主義) and “new worldism”(新世界主義). Different from previous contexts of traditional pluralism, individuated pluralism is a pluralism which tends to individuate the life condition in plural way, in order to make it so everybody can be seeing and seen, and everybody can be cared about in this village-city-based “new worldism.” We in fact possess only one earth, and one world, one overlapping-worlds world. Instead of the open that the great Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben mentions, this world is purely and quintessentially open. From the zigzag of social diagnostics, to the lines of transindividuation, then to the hub of curl lines and its moving forward, to connection, and beyond, we not only see the magic of the so-called “individuated pluralism” and “new worldism,” but also the tremendous force of any artwork and exhibition-to-come.
1 Giorgio Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory: For A Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government (Homo Sacer II, 2). Trans. Lorenzo Chiesa, Matteo Mandarini (Stanford University Press, 2011), 64.
2 Rancière states that “It did this in order to more effectively make art a witness to an encounter with the unpresentable that cripples all thought, and thereby a witness for the prosecution against the arrogance of the grand aesthetic-political endeavor to have “thought-becoming-world”.” Rancière, Jacques. Distribution of the Sensible: The Politics of Aesthetics, Trams. Gabriel Rockhill (Continuum, 2004), 37.
3 Axel Honneth claimed that: “Instead of ‘goods’, we should speak of relations of recognition; instead of ‘distribution’, we should think of other pat- terns for granting justice. Before I go into more detail, I must first clarify whether this inversion has any implications for the other building blocks of modern theories of justice. Can proceduralism maintain its state-centricity if the fabric of justice is no longer seen to consist in distributable goods but in intersubjective relations of reciprocity?”
Axel Honneth, The I in We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition, Trans., Joseph Ganahl (Polity Press, 2012), 42.
4 Hartmut Rosa mentions: “Alienation, in the sense of a mute, cold, rigid, or failed relationship to the world, is, then, the result of a damaged subjectivity, social and object configurations that are hostile to resonance, or an imbalance or lack of compatibility in the relation between a given subject and some segment of world. The sociology of our relationship to the world elaborated here thus seeks to overcome the problem of unwarranted essentializations. We need not indulge in any substantialist assumptions about the true essence of human nature in order to be able to make assertions about the success or failure of a given life, but rather can accept that said nature is just as historically and culturally mutable as are the social and cultural arrangements of the world itself.” Rosa Hartmut, Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World, Trans. James C. Wagner (Polity Press, 2019), 75.
5 Hiroshi Nara, The Structure of Detachment: The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shuzo: With A Translation of Iki No Kozo (University of Hawaii Press, 2004),13.
6 Gilbert Simondon mentions in his main doctoral thesis that “Spirituality is not merely what remains, but also what shines forth in the instant between two indefinite depths of obscurity, and then is covered over forevermore; the desperate, unknown gesture of the slave in revolt is just as much spirituality as Horace’s writing. Culture gives too much weight to written, spoken, expressed, or recorded spirituality. This spirituality, which tends toward eternity through its own objective forces, is nevertheless not the only one; it is only one of the two dimensions of lived spirituality; the other, that of the spirituality of the instant, which does not seek eternity and shines like the light of a glance only to fade away afterwards, also really exists. Spirituality would have no signification if there were not this luminous adherence to the present, this manifestation that gives an absolute value to the instant and consummates within itself sensation, perception, and action. Spirituality is not another life, nor is it the same life; it is other and same, it is the signification of the coherence of the other and the same in a superior life. Spirituality is the signification of the being as separate and attached, as alone and as a member of the collective; the individuated being is both alone and not alone; it must possess both dimensions; in order for the collective to be able to exist, separated individuation must pre- cede it and still contain the pre-individual, that through which the collective will be individuated by joining the separated being. Spirituality is the signification of the relation of the individuated being to the collective and there- fore also the signification of the foundation of this relation, i.e. the fact that the individuated being is not entirely individuated but still contains a certain charge of non-individuated, pre-individual reality that it preserves and respects, living with the awareness of its existence instead of retreating into a substantial individuality, a false aseity. Spirituality is the respect of this relation of the individuated and the pre-individual. It is essentially affectivity and emotivity; pleasure and pain, sadness and joy are the extreme disparities in- volved in this relation between that which is individual and pre-individual in the subject being one should not speak of affective states but rather of affective exchanges, exchanges between the pre-individual and the individuated within the subject being. ” Gilbert Simondon, Individuation In Light of Notions of Form and Information, Trans., Taylor Adkins (University of Minnesota Press, 2020), 278.
7 One can read in the Online Etymological Dictionary: “Cure-c. 1300, “care, heed,” from Latin cura “care, concern, trouble,” with many figurative extensions over time such as “study; administration; office of a parish priest; a mistress,” and also “means of healing, successful remedial treatment of a disease” (late 14c.), from Old Latin coira-, a noun of unknown origin. Meaning “medical care” is late 14c.” September 10, 2024, https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=cure.
8 Henri Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, Trans., Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell (Macmillan, 1913), 170.
1 Giorgio Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory: For A Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government (Homo Sacer II, 2). Trans. Lorenzo Chiesa, Matteo Mandarini (Stanford University Press, 2011), 64.
2 Rancière states that “It did this in order to more effectively make art a witness to an encounter with the unpresentable that cripples all thought, and thereby a witness for the prosecution against the arrogance of the grand aesthetic-political endeavor to have “thought-becoming-world”.” Rancière, Jacques. Distribution of the Sensible: The Politics of Aesthetics, Trams. Gabriel Rockhill (Continuum, 2004), 37.
3 Axel Honneth claimed that: “Instead of ‘goods’, we should speak of relations of recognition; instead of ‘distribution’, we should think of other pat- terns for granting justice. Before I go into more detail, I must first clarify whether this inversion has any implications for the other building blocks of modern theories of justice. Can proceduralism maintain its state-centricity if the fabric of justice is no longer seen to consist in distributable goods but in intersubjective relations of reciprocity?”
Axel Honneth, The I in We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition, Trans., Joseph Ganahl (Polity Press, 2012), 42.
4 Hartmut Rosa mentions: “Alienation, in the sense of a mute, cold, rigid, or failed relationship to the world, is, then, the result of a damaged subjectivity, social and object configurations that are hostile to resonance, or an imbalance or lack of compatibility in the relation between a given subject and some segment of world. The sociology of our relationship to the world elaborated here thus seeks to overcome the problem of unwarranted essentializations. We need not indulge in any substantialist assumptions about the true essence of human nature in order to be able to make assertions about the success or failure of a given life, but rather can accept that said nature is just as historically and culturally mutable as are the social and cultural arrangements of the world itself.” Rosa Hartmut, Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World, Trans. James C. Wagner (Polity Press, 2019), 75.
5 Hiroshi Nara, The Structure of Detachment: The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shuzo: With A Translation of Iki No Kozo (University of Hawaii Press, 2004),13.
6 Gilbert Simondon mentions in his main doctoral thesis that “Spirituality is not merely what remains, but also what shines forth in the instant between two indefinite depths of obscurity, and then is covered over forevermore; the desperate, unknown gesture of the slave in revolt is just as much spirituality as Horace’s writing. Culture gives too much weight to written, spoken, expressed, or recorded spirituality. This spirituality, which tends toward eternity through its own objective forces, is nevertheless not the only one; it is only one of the two dimensions of lived spirituality; the other, that of the spirituality of the instant, which does not seek eternity and shines like the light of a glance only to fade away afterwards, also really exists. Spirituality would have no signification if there were not this luminous adherence to the present, this manifestation that gives an absolute value to the instant and consummates within itself sensation, perception, and action. Spirituality is not another life, nor is it the same life; it is other and same, it is the signification of the coherence of the other and the same in a superior life. Spirituality is the signification of the being as separate and attached, as alone and as a member of the collective; the individuated being is both alone and not alone; it must possess both dimensions; in order for the collective to be able to exist, separated individuation must pre- cede it and still contain the pre-individual, that through which the collective will be individuated by joining the separated being. Spirituality is the signification of the relation of the individuated being to the collective and there- fore also the signification of the foundation of this relation, i.e. the fact that the individuated being is not entirely individuated but still contains a certain charge of non-individuated, pre-individual reality that it preserves and respects, living with the awareness of its existence instead of retreating into a substantial individuality, a false aseity. Spirituality is the respect of this relation of the individuated and the pre-individual. It is essentially affectivity and emotivity; pleasure and pain, sadness and joy are the extreme disparities in- volved in this relation between that which is individual and pre-individual in the subject being one should not speak of affective states but rather of affective exchanges, exchanges between the pre-individual and the individuated within the subject being. ” Gilbert Simondon, Individuation In Light of Notions of Form and Information, Trans., Taylor Adkins (University of Minnesota Press, 2020), 278.
7 One can read in the Online Etymological Dictionary: “Cure-c. 1300, “care, heed,” from Latin cura “care, concern, trouble,” with many figurative extensions over time such as “study; administration; office of a parish priest; a mistress,” and also “means of healing, successful remedial treatment of a disease” (late 14c.), from Old Latin coira-, a noun of unknown origin. Meaning “medical care” is late 14c.” September 10, 2024, https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=cure.
8 Henri Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, Trans., Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell (Macmillan, 1913), 170.
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Author
Yenchi Yang is currently an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Transdisciplinary Arts, Taipei National University of the Arts. He is also the founding director of the Center for Critical Framework Studies (CCFS) and the Motricity Lab, both established in 2024. Prior to his current role, he served as an adjunct assistant professor at Taipei National University of the Arts. His past positions include post-doctoral researcher at the Project Office of Digital Humanities, National Chengchi University; adjunct assistant professor at the Graduate Institute of Transdisciplinary Arts, National Kaohsiung Normal University; assistant researcher at the Art Archive Center in Taiwan, Tainan National University of the Arts; and post-doctoral researcher at s.School, Feng Chia University. Additionally, he has been the exclusive
collaborator of Taiwanese artist Ching-Yuan Hsu（許進源）
His main research fields include philosophy of Gilbert Simondon, Phenomenology of Digital World, Philosophy of Technology, Relationship between Contemporary Art and Society, Aesthetics, and Cultural Studies. He is currently making several video installation works, curating an exhibition concerning the point, the line, and the surface in “civil war” (stasis) and “nature” (phùsis), and translating Michel Foucault’s Le Discours philosophique and Gilbert Simondon’s L’Individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d’information from French into traditional Chinese. He is also writing a short monograph concerning the relationship among AI, contemporary crisis, framework, and world philosophy. He has also implemented the “The Life Studies and Philosophical Fictional Project of Taiwanese philosopher Tian-Zhong Zheng（曾天從）”. In 2025, he will hold an international conference “On Now: Simondon, Stiegler and Crisis of Humanities”.
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