Jacques Ranciere

 

 Jacques Ranciere is a french philosopher who wrote an novel on Intellectual Emancipation, lately i have been skimming through both 'The Emancipated Spectator' and 'The Ignorant School Master' as well as the Participation book on the essay by Claire Bishop -  Viewers as Producer.  

What i am interested in all of these readings is that it is part of our human condition to adapt to this continuous change. In reference to Ranciere’s writing The Emancipated Spectator, a ‘viewer becomes an active participant as opposed to passive voyeur’ (Ranciere, J, 2009). It is only through this encounter that we begin to realize that a work can be independent and all the viewer needs is what lies before them not what is added through interpretation. The way in which Ranciere describes the viewers as a performer is also interesting as i am interested in the viewers movement around the work causing forms and shapes to appear and disappear on the muted surface of the paper. 

Claire Bisphop write:

 That "art should actively intervene in and provide a model for allowing viewers to be involved in the processes of production." 

I don't see my art as an active performance with a subject mater and a rehearsed context, but as a subtle illusion that keeps the viewer moving and interested in the work as it is ever changing through light and layers. This become a sort of performance for the viewer as they may become determined to know more or see more. The viewer has a close engagement to the materials i am using and how they operate on paper, through their movement as layers from underneath the surface of paint begin to reveal themself as light hits the edges of the forms.