3 Images of Institutionalised Art Image 3) Aggregation The world of institutionalised contemporary employs various aggregating mechanisms, techniques or conventions which I will consider shortly, beforehand I want to make one or two points about aggregation. Aggregation is a simple mathematical technique that involves adding, dividing and creating a result or product. A football contest may involve two teams playing a home leg and an away leg, the sum total of their goals from the two stages is combined to produce an overall result. This seems reasonable enough. Averages and simple statistics are forms of aggregation. We are used to odd sounding statistics that are created by dividing a grand total, such as households with 2.3 children, but we understand this statistical idiom, and quickly grasp the information that is being expressed. But, as wise King Solomon demonstrated long ago, there are some things that cannot be divided and re-distributed without changing their fundamental character. Averaging out or aggregating some things out does not always work or make perfect sense. For instance, I start a new job, at the tea break I am asked to make a certain number of cups of tea, coffee and hot chocolate with varying quantities of sugar and milk. I go the kitchen and measure all the ingredients and quantities together in a pan. I then divide the contents between the appropriate number of mugs. I should not be surprised when my new colleagues are not well pleased, and say they have not been given what they asked. But I argue my corner. “Overall you have. In total you’ve got all the ingredients and quantities that you asked for. I’ve just arranged them into a labour-saving new beverage.” Clearly this is not what was required. What was required were cups of tea etc. made using the appropriate ingredients, in the appropriate way, according to individual specification. The relevant properties of drinkable tea emerge when a particular process is followed that uses the relevant ingredients. Amalgamating ingredients and dividing out the product does not allow the right outcome or the relevant properties to emerge. Now, you would have thought this kind of mistake was just too stupid, or too obvious, for people to make in real life. And indeed it is. But it is a mistake that is common in social situations, organisational thinking and in is embedded into many bureaucratic structures. You would not have thought people could make an analogous mistake about aesthetic experience, aesthetic judgements and critical verdicts about art and artists. I’m not so sure. Averaging and aggregating techniques are used widely in the world of institutionalised contemporary art. Here are a few examples:
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 12:34:03 +0000
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