Practicable: From Participation to Interaction in Contemporary Art

by Samuel Bianchini (Editor), Erik Verhagen (Editor), Claire Bishop (Contributor)

Critical analyses, case studies, and artist interviews examine works of art that are realized with the physical involvement of the viewer.

How are we to understand works of art that are realized with the physical involvement of the viewer? A relationship between a work of art and its audience that is rooted in an experience that is both aesthetic and physical? Today, these works often use digital technologies, but artists have created participatory works since the 1950s. In this book, critics, writers, and artists offer diverse perspectives on this kind of “practicable” art that bridges contemplation and use, discussing and documenting a wide variety of works from the last several decades. The contributors consider both works that are technologically mediated and those that are not, as long as they are characterized by a process of reciprocal exchange.

The book offers a historical frame for practicable works, discussing, among other things, the emergence and influence of cybernetics. It examines art movements and tendencies that incorporate participatory strategies; draws on the perspectives of the humanities and sciences; and investigate performance and exhibition. Finally, it presents case studies of key works by artists including and offers interviews with such leading artists and theoreticians as Claire Bishop, Thomas Hirschhorn, Matt Adams of Blast Theory, Seiko Mikami and Bruno Latour. Numerous illustrations of artists and their works accompany the text.

Genres: Art

952 pages, Hardcover

First published October 28, 2016

About the author

Samuel Bianchini, an artist and researcher, is Associate Professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (EnsAD), PSL Research University Paris where he is the head of the "Reflective Interaction" Research Group of EnsadLab, the school's laboratory.