The Radicant, Nicolas Bourriaud

For M. Bourriaud, art is an optical tool for looking at the world(pp.8).  He agrees with Francis Fukuyama that history can no longer be the supreme measure of 20th century art and challenges the obsession with maintaining diversity in a globalized society.  He favors a global society integrated in what he terms "Altermodernity," an effort to put a label on what he thinks is happening in contemporary art today.  To him globalization is causing an overall homogenization of world cultures.  Through the internet, which he calls "the priveliged medium of [the] proliferation of information, the material symbol of [the] atomization of knowledge into multiple specialized and independent niches."-pp. 20, the creative playing field is being leveled allowing people from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds access to the same information.  

The following is a excerpt from a paper I wrote for Contemporary Issues in Clay, Fall 09:

"A seldom discussed common thread in conversations regarding the concept of a Radicant and radicantity is that of trespassing.  Trespassing is defined as “to intrude into another person’s property,” but also as "to go beyond.” (Wikipedia).  This second definition aligns with the thinking of Nicolas Bourriaud in his most recent book The Radicant, in which he writes about artists moving freely between cultures creating a new shared world lexicon.  This theoretical artistic Esperanto, so to speak, allows artists to revert to mankind’s early nomadic tendencies and meld cultures in ways previously thought taboo.  With this in mind we can recognize the impact of the world’s current transition away from a provincial world population with large city centers toward a globalized economy. The rise of the internet has provided a democratic platform for communication and expression provided one has computer and telecommunications access.  This adolescent growing online community acts as a blank wall for the graffiti artist within us all, allowing us to place any work we wish before a massive audience.   This global dialogue that leaves lines of influence in its wake connecting distant cultures has expanded the role of the artist and the role of artwork into new territory, emphasizing the wonderment of art-making and romanticizing its habit of trespassing new boundaries not yet explored.  These boundaries are often social constructs that are rooted in the histories of various, seemingly unrelated media.  However, this new way of thinking and seeing acts as a tabula rasa which allows us to trespass these boundaries and simultaneously forge connections between different eras of our history and cross-pollinate ideas between contemporary cultures while transcending, or simply accepting, previously limiting stereotypes.  It may sound idealistic and utopian, but there it is."

After taking another look at the text, even with only a couple of months between readings, I feel differently about what Bourriaud is saying.  He defines Altermodernity as a new way to conceptualize cultural identity.  Now I'm not so sure we need a new definition.  Cultural identities may shift and change over time, new ones may emerge and affect or eradicate others, but re-conceptualizing it altogether seems like a real long-shot.  It almost flies in the face of his assertion in the beginning of Post Production when he says that "the artistic question is no longer "What can we make that is new?" but "how can we make do with what we have?'"  Why throw our conception of cultural identity out the window when it helps us define who we are in the present day.  My point is that we don't have the choice to start all over with a tabula rasa.  My point is that we can't just go severing our roots according to some post-modern conceptual persona.  We need to make do with the roots we have and celebrate our cultural identities and the ways they change.  We need to live in our own time and use the past as a tool instead of dropping it like a bad habit.