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Essay / Autonomy as an important concept by Theodor W. Adorno
Autonomy, a word, a concept to ponder, a fundamental human right and one of the principles of bioethics, a tangible concept and with such power real which creates a broad social spectrum impact on our contemporary society. (John M. Last, 2007). Autonomy is a compound word derived from the two Greek words “Auto” and “Nomos”. “Auto” is the “Self” and “Nomos” is the “Law”, so the word by definition means self-governed. However, to try to understand the true meaning of Autonomy, we must first understand its antinomy, Heteronomy, another compound Greek word derived from “Hetero”, “Other” and “Nomos”, the “Law” which describes the situation in which we are governed. by forces beyond our control. (T. Honderich, 2005). Adorno presents a compound treatment of the autonomy of art. This essay will attempt to highlight and articulate the impact of autonomous art, through understanding the autonomous theories of Theodor Adorno and Cornelius Castoriadis. This will analyze Steve Paxton's autonomous art in relation to my personal views as a critical observer and practitioner of the arts, as my artistic endeavors focus on the pursuit of autonomous art through the form of improvisation of contact and free movement. For Adorno, autonomous art conveys an immediate message to a social construct but has no direct social function. Remarkably a social function to have no function. This is what Theodor Adorno called Autonomous Art. Creating something without purpose or function is the direct “unconsciously” “goal” of autonomous art. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayAdorno argues that works of art and artists should free themselves from the capitalist system and the art market, and from the capitalist culture of normality. However, there is a dialectical relationship between autonomy and commodification throughout his analyses. In a more complex and philosophical approach, its position implies two functions that have no function, the social and the aesthetic and these two create a dialectic, supporting each other, autonomy and commodification cannot exist without the thesis and antithesis that create this dialectical synthesis. (Andy Hamilton.p.251, (2009). But is autonomy an important concept worthy of research and investigation in both academia and the contemporary art world? Autonomous art was born at the same time and in response to capitalism, hence the paradoxical relationship Art is freedom and creation and not a construction of the capitalist system At a time when, from a purely visual point of view, “art. was easily absorbed by neighboring disciplines such as design, fashion, architecture or advertising for economic, political or social purposes, artists emerged with a "radical autonomy" reminding us that "art could and. should be, a sanctuary for futility, darkness, insight, ambivalence, joy and unease” (E-flux.com, 2018). 7: 331) of the cultural industry in 1983 in a psychologically complex way: “since the commodity is always composed of exchange values and use values, the same now applies to pure use values , the illusion of which must be preserved by In a fully capitalist society, cultural goods are replaced by pure exchange value which, precisely as exchange value, deceptively assumes the function of use value . The specific fetishistic character of music is constituted by this counterpart: the effects directed towards the exchange value create the appearance of aimmediacy, which is simultaneously denied by the relationship to the object, the latter being based on the abstraction of exchange value. All “psychological” derivatives, all pseudo-accomplishment (Ersarzbefrieddigung) depend on such social substitution.” (vol. 14:24-5) This statement will provide the guidelines from which this essay will attempt to explore how contemporary art has misunderstood Adorno, examining the ways in which autonomous art can function ethically by understanding the theories of Adorno, Castoriadis and many other theorists. The category of autonomy, as it has been developed in critical theory since Marx, radicalizes the Enlightenment ideal. The dignified emergence from the “self-inflicted immaturity” claimed by Kant presupposes access to culture and the time necessary to appropriate it – in short, a privileged social position and existence (Immanuel Kant, pp. 54 -5 (1991). Art has a correlation with human autonomy. Therefore, this could be understood in several ways. Through the political concepts of liberty and freedom, we can understand the importance of autonomy. in art today, which summarizes and accounts for a broader social impact on how we might behave and create a position through concepts and habits Timothy Snyder says in his book “On Tyranny. , Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century,” that “life is political not because the world cares what you feel, but because the world responds to how you feel The minor choices we make are themselves. a sort of vote, making it more or less likely that free and fair elections will be held in the future. In the politics of everyday life, our words and actions, or lack thereof, matter. much" (Snyder, (2017)). In the next paragraphs, this essay will reflect on the importance of the word autonomy for Cornelius Castoriadis. Castoriadis was a Greek-French philosopher, social critic and psychoanalyst who influenced, through his writings on autonomy and social institutions, many academics and activists He was a practitioner, immersed in the idea of autonomy and we see that the word Autonomy appears in his work from the beginning in 1949. Castoriadis questioned and practiced. autonomy in his work and in his daily life He envisages a different society and asks himself the following question: “How can we reconcile the autonomy of individuals with the existence of real social laws and with the existence of a State, with the meaning of this mechanism as we know it today, while maintaining a kind of power (Vibrating, 2014) For many artists, art has a direct link with social issues and society? Castoriadis stated that the content of socialism is radical autonomy, aimed at breaking down those who predominate and taking the reins of productivity, which creates antagonism with those who practice these directions as an exercise. Cornelius Castoriadis looks to the “Nomos” of autonomy to understand it as autonomous government and aims for a radical transformation of society. Perhaps Castoriadis, just like Adorno, have been misunderstood by various groups of people, such as anarchists, who read the word Autonomy in a different way. I read in the sense of “hating the world, therefore opposing it” through an erroneous praxis and an undeveloped and immature way of seeing autonomy developing. Looking behind the words, Castoriadis sees in the analyzes and practices of his life his perception of the word Autonomy. To many this seems like a revolutionary fantasy, but I believe that the way in which Castoriadis oriented his understanding of this transformation can be well understood through the self-manifestation on how laws andStandards are created for an individual. Furthermore, a coaction between the collective and the individual, which implies the institution of law as a norm but not of heterosexuality, must be formed and reformed collectively. Autonomy must coexist with praxis and emancipation, a personal construction and a theory that becomes a theory. direct objective. Cornelius Castoriadis had repeatedly argued in favor of organization, saying that people needed to be aware of how they organized themselves to function and not just follow the orders of heteronomous and hierarchical figures (N. Et1, 1984). The social conditions adapted by individuals are based on individual empowerment. However, if individuals begin to create, structure and follow their own laws, the possibility of generalizing autonomy shifts from individual to collective empowerment. Autonomy then becomes a revolutionary concept to the extent that its nature becomes the overcoming of antagonistic relationships in a collective and inclusive manner. If self-realization becomes the first priority of society, then simultaneously people will be happy and will be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor to achieve and maintain their dignity and freedom. Currently, it is a life led by a few, artists, intellectuals and idle dilettantes, but the logic of autonomy dictates the need to overcome given social constraints and take charge of inequalities, those who are excluded and change. the form of domination anchored and structured in our daily capitalist normality. For Isaiah Berlin, there are two types of freedom, negative freedom and positive freedom. Negative freedom, freedom of instruction, coercion, prevention and construction. If others prevent me from doing what I might otherwise do, I am not free to that degree; and if this domain is contracted by other men beyond a certain minimum, I may be described as being constrained, or, perhaps, enslaved […] You seek freedom and political freedom only if d Other hierarchies tell you to achieve a goal. human figures (Isaiah Berlin, (1959). In Ben Lewis' documentary we can see that even in the arts there are artists who create works according to the instructions of the "established" galleries in order to "fill" space and to be recognized and a prefabricated success while seeming to have achieved an objective of a hierarchical figure (The Contemporary Art Bubble, 2009) Positive freedom according to Berlin is free to act. from the word “freedom” comes from the word “freedom”. “I want my life and my decisions to depend on myself, and not on external forces of any kind.” or I wish to be the instrument of my free will, to be a subject, not an object; to be moved by reasons, by conscious designs which are mine, and not by causes which affect me, so to speak. from the outside I wish to be someone, not a person; deciding, not being decided, directed by himself and not acted by external nature or by other men as if I were one. thing, or an animal, or a slave incapable of playing a human role, that is, of designing my own goals and policies and freeing them” (Berlin, 1991). I can certainly see a relationship between Berlin's positive freedom and Castoriadis's orientation towards autonomy. Berlin's way of seeing freedom could exist with the sense of how Castoriadis sees autonomy, which is more self-institutional, in order to be "free" and "autonomous". it must be understood that one cannot exist without the other, which leads to a more dialectical thought related to Adorno's point of view. ThereAdorno's criticality of dialectical thinking in relation to the aesthetics of art can prove how art is political in its nature through the practice and aesthetics of art. When this relates to the theories and theorists studied in this essay, we can continue to explore the fundamental idea of this Adornian dialectical theory. Quoting Adorno: “Art can only be understood by its laws of movement, and not according to a set of invariants. It is defined by its relationship to what it is not. The specifically artistic of art must derive concretely from its other; this alone would be enough to meet the demands of a materialist-dialectical aesthetic. Art acquires from: its law of movement is its law of form. It only exists in relation to its other; it is the process that transpires with its other” (BRUNS, 2008 p.233). Indeed, as JM Bernstein says, the aim of dialectical thinking is not to resolve contradictions but to experience them reflexively (Bernstein, JM (2001). Theodor W Adorno had a main theory of his aesthetics and it But form is never an autonomous concept but has others, all the more experiential and somehow heavy, due to the subjectivity of the artist and of course, Adorno was a thinker. dialectical and not analytical, he did not want to expose concepts but to put them into play in the movement and then nothing seems to be expected of what it is not (BRUNS, 2008) The experiential therefore has an immediate link with the. individual then with the social Most art forms are very experiential when they thrive on the autonomous need to react within capitalist normality and to be directed by oneself through autonomous processes Andre Lepecki mentioned in his. book that “McKenzie analyzed how the constitutive ambiguity of the word performance appeared during the 20th century, in two spheres: what he called organizational performance with the implementation of “efficiencies” in state domains, institutional, corporate and industrial. environment and what he calls “cultural performances” meaning those that “foreground” and resist dominant norms of social control” (Lepecki, 2016). In this regard, following this essay, I will attempt to briefly analyze my personal opinion on why dance has focused on Steve's Paxton Contact Improvisation occupies a privileged critical position of analysis and resistance to with regard to the rationality and subjectivity of capitalism and neoliberalism. Steve Paxton is a pioneer, a dancer with a background in Martial Arts who then became a member of several modern dance companies in New York in the 1960s, he collaborated with the revolutionary, the choreographer Merce Cunningham and his partner John Cage. Steve Paxton was a pioneer not because he participated with avant-garde artists, but because he had the courage to free himself from the rationalities of dance and the hierarchical figures of heteronomous groups, by freeing from the specificity of movements created from another figure. so that the dancers illustrate each practice of heterosexuality. Paxton created Contact Improvisation at a time when capitalist society and the commodification of art were flourishing. He challenged the assumptions of dance and opened up new possibilities for the art form, questioning the types of movements that could be considered dance and how dances are created. “Contact improvisation is an open exploration of the kinesthetic possibilities of bodies moving through contact. Sometimes wild and athletic, sometimes calm and meditative, it is a form open to all curious bodies and minds” according to the announcement of the Ray Chung workshop, London,2009. (Contactquarterly.com, 2018) The philosophy beyond contact improvisation runs counter to the usual dance company. setting. Modern and postmodern dance is already much more inclusive. In modern dance, dancers have been seen and used more equally than in traditional ballet institutions. Despite this, contact improvisation went much further in equalizing partnerships between dancers as well as loosening the teacher-student relationship. This is partly why Paxton has been considered anarchic, although he prefers to call himself an individualist. The emphasis on the private, self-reflexive experience of the viewer shifted the context of avant-garde art from idealized time and space, aesthetic conventions, and transcendence toward the exploration of one's own relationship personal and immediate with literal and direct experiences and interactions. This sensitivity has allowed us to explore phenomena such as how our sense of self evolves over time and space, and how our immediate experience of the world helps shape the way we perceive ourselves in the world (Paxton , S. and Mazzaglia, R. 2013).At first, Steve followed his interest in becoming more aware of the possibilities and limitations of the body, even while simply standing. Miranda Tufnell mentioned in her book that improvisation practices were used as a source of original material and as training in perception (Dance Books, 1993'). "Starting in 1967 and throughout the following years of contact improvisation, Paxton would ask his students to do what is commonly called the "little dance", also described as "finding that limit to which you can no longer relax without falling” due to a “sustaining effort which constantly continues in the body”. Standing, the dancers did not play, but watched their “bodies fulfill their function”. “Our body is not in space like things; he inhabits or haunts a space. It applies to space like a hand to an instrument; and when we want to move, we do not move the body as we move an object. We transport it without instruments as if by magic, since it belongs to us and thanks to it we have direct access to space. For us, the body is much more than an instrument or a means; it is our expression in the world, the visible form of our intentions. Even our most secret effective movements, the most deeply linked to the humoral infrastructure, contribute to shaping our perception of things” (Merleau-Ponty, 2012). It is these actions that deeply affect our unconscious and the energetic composition of our body that create change. But they are rendered invisible by the achievement-oriented methods of our rational mind, which are reflected in patriarchy, whiteness, ableism, etc. When we forget that our experience is not in the mind but in the body, we begin to think that the way forward is to fill our brains with information, but neglect to pay attention to our deepest unconscious patterns . Contact improvisation appears to be a development of Paxton's earlier method. interest in pedestrian traffic. Paxton also emphasizes the need for "peripheral vision" and peripheral attention to coexist both in one's own dancing and in one's immediate understanding of the partner's potential for leverage, movement, and support. On the one hand, the consciousness of improvisation in contact develops from within and is always directed inwards; on the other, the dancer must be connected to the space between him and his partner. He must realize who else is moving in space, without inhibiting his actions and reactions..