Definitions by Michelle Atherton
#Aura
Aura perhaps remains an ambivalent concept, but if we can move away from reification, and also take up the sociologist Hartmut Rosa’s reading of Benjamin, we might see aura as a ‘counter-sense’ to alienation (whereby alienation refers to skewed relations, a non-relation, rather than things we simply dislike). Sensed in this way, aura might refer to a different way of relating ‘where the thing looks back at you, it is speaking to you, it is somehow getting through’.
Rosa Hartmut 2010 'Acceleration and Alienation: Towards a Critical Theory of Late-modern Temporality' Aarhus NSU Press
#Exhibition
What of the exhibition as medium, as resonance – as the space and time for reverberations? A site for re-soundings, not for simple agreement – simple fusion, simple harmonies, not the echo chamber, but where dissonance can be really be heard, as a quality of relations.
#Dissemination
Dissemination as scattering enabled by genes, wind, ink, frequencies as the carriers of DNA/RNA, hieroglyphs, emojis and block chains for the codes. Casting them out, and then some are cast out. Biblical and sexual metaphors may abound – seeds fall on stoney ground, but what if we emphasis the dis – to asunder, to break apart as a significant act of dissemination? This is a reversal of authenticating knowledges through interferences and diffractions. It makes a joyful mockery of individuated noise-cancelling headphones, (unless you are needing to use a pneumatic drill).
Last seen: 5 years ago