Research Article
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The Human Condition in the 21st Century: Body and Architectural Space in Contemporary Art

Year 2024, Volume: 3 Issue: 2, 145 - 161, 01.08.2024

Cansu Sözer , Can Boyacıoğlu

https://doi.org/10.58850/bodrum.1420382

Abstract

Architectural practices that sustain economic power structures often overlook the complexity of place, prioritizing rationality and utility for funding while perpetuating issues like climate crises and income inequality. In contrast, art offers critical perspectives unconstrained by immediate practicality. This research examines how contemporary artists understand and create space to reach a spatial design approach that activates subjects and fosters new connections between humans and non-humans. In the scope of this research, seven contemporary artists who produce artworks related to either the body or space have been chosen. The discourses of artists exploring the body-space relationships serve as primary sources. Two methods are employed: logical argumentation and analysis by analogy. The latter involves visualizing the analysis of textual discourses through messy word maps to extract insights from artists’ concepts and tactics. “Artist topographies” contribute to a collective “cognitive topography,” revealing commonalities around themes of exploitation, oppression, profit, borders, otherness, agency, and complexity. The conclusion presents suggestions for an alternative spatial design approach based on the discourses and cognitive topography.

Keywords

Contemporary Art Theory of Architecture Body Deconstruction Posthumanism

References

  • Antmen, A. (2007). Hale Tenger: İçerdeki yabancı=Stranger within. YKY no: 2468 Türkiye’de Güncel Sanat 01. Yapı Kredi Yayınları.
  • Balanuye, Ç. (2008). Beden ve aşkınlık. FLSF Felsefe ve Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 6(September), 49-59.
  • Barad, K. (2012). Matter feels, converses, suffers, desires, yearns and remembers. Open Humanities Press. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/o/ohp/11515701.0001.001/1:4.3/--new-materialism-interviews-cartographies?rgn=div2;view=fulltext#note_1 (05.02.2024).
  • Baudrillard, J. (2010). Kötülüğün şeffaflığı. (I. Ergüden, Trans.). Ayrıntı Yayınları.
  • Beloufa, N. (2015). I don’t think we should be too serious about art: Neïl Beloufa on making images for a post-artist world interview by Dylan Kerr. Artspace. http://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/neil-beloufa-interview (05.02.2024).
  • Cairns Art Gallery. (2019, October 1). Patricia Piccinini: Life clings closest,Cairns Art Gallery artist talk [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlHvA2P_mvE (05.02.2024).
  • Crawford, K., & Vladan J. (2018). Anatomy of an AI system: The Amazon Echo as an anatomical map of human labor, data and planetary resources. AI Now Institute and Share Lab. http://www.anatomyof.ai (05.02.2023).
  • Dale, K., & Gibson B. (2003). An-aesthetics and architecture. In Art and Aesthetics at Work, Eds. A. Carr, P. Hancock, (p. 155-173). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230554641_11
  • Draganova, V. (2018). Neïl Beloufa reveals the multi-dimensional mechanisms of power. Frieze, November 8. https://www.frieze.com/article/neil-beloufa-reveals-multi-dimensional-mechanisms-power (05.02.2024).
  • Faruki, M. (2018a). My own private Buffalo: Course syllabus for ARC 493 & 593. Google Docs. 2018. https://docs.google.com/document/d/15bflqbDVDHpjHBpA3K_ij9EQ7LqhV0a0rleadpK3thA/edit?usp=drive_open&ouid=110970827448515595095&usp=embed_facebook (05.02.2024).
  • Faruki, M. (2018b). My own private Buffalo: Towards an encyclopedia of representational agendas. TheLab-Lab. 2018. http://www.thelab-lab.com/ub2018 (05.02.2023).
  • Faruki, M. (2018c). Taking humor seriously: An interview with Mustafa Faruki, winner of the 2017 League Prize. Interview by Catarina Flaksman and Matt Ragazzo. The Architectural League of New York. https://archleague.org/article/league-prize-2017-interview-mustafa-faruki/ (05.02.2024).
  • Goethe-Institut Schweden. (2020, March 31). Keynote speech of French-algerian artist Neil Beloufa with a response from Linda Zachrison. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOOKCy_00To (05.02.2024).
  • Groat, L. N., & David W. (2013). Architectural research methods. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Guattari, F. (1995). Chaosmosis: An ethico-aesthetic paradigm. Indiana University Press.
  • Haraway, D. (1987). A manifesto for cyborgs: Science, technology, and socialist feminism in the 1980s. Australian Feminist Studies, 2(4), 1-42.
  • Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
  • Harvard GSD. (2019, March 13). Rosi Braidotti, “Posthuman Knowledge” [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CewnVzOg5w (05.02.2024).
  • Heaney, L. (2019). Quantum computing and complexity in art. Leonardo 52(3), 230-235. https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_01572
  • Heaney, L. (n.d.). Programming the Weird: A guide to quantum computing for artists. The Space (blog). https://www.thespace.org/resource/programming-the-weird-a-guide-to-quantum-computing-for-artists/ (05.02.2024).
  • Hessel, K. (2023, April 17). “Like an exploded iPhone”: Why Sarah Sze is the perfect artist for the age of information overload. The Guardian, sec. Art and design. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/apr/17/exploded-iphone-sarah-sze-age-of-information-overload (05.02.2024).
  • Lax, T. J. (2016). Projects 102: The colonies by Neïl Beloufa [Exhibition Catalogue]. MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art). https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1623?locale=en (05.02.2024).
  • Libby Heaney. (2020, June 11). Touch is response-ability: Documentation [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CefRCdcdHc (05.02.2024).
  • MIT List Visual Arts Center. (2020, December 2). Shifter session: Mustafa Faruki and Kameelah Janan Rasheed [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP_NM1vUwWA (05.02.2024).
  • Morton, T. (2020). İnsan türü: İnsan olmayanlarla dayanışma. Profil Yayıncılık.
  • Murata, S. (2019). Kasiyer (H. C. Erkin, Trans.). Turkuvaz Kitap.
  • Nasher Sculpture Center. (2016, November 16). Redefining space: artist Sarah Sze [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Yd8ymJ8Dc (05.02.2024).
  • Perry, S. (2016). Wet and wavy looks—Typhon coming on for a three monitor workstation. Sondra Perry. https://sondraperry.com/Wet-and-Wavy-Looks-Typhon-coming-on-for-a-Three-Monitor-Workstation (05.02.2024).
  • Perry, S. (2018). A chat with Sondra Perry on black radicality + things that are yet to happen in “Typhoon coming on” Interview by Tamar Clarke-Brown. AQNB. https://www.aqnb.com/2018/05/01/adrift-in-the-chroma-key-blues-a-chat-with-sondra-perry-on-black-radicality-things-that-are-yet-to-happen-in-typhoon-coming-on/ (05.02.2024).
  • Perry, S., Nora K., & Cherry C. (2018). A wild ass beyond: Apocalypse RN. American Artist. https://americanartist.us/works/a-wild-ass-beyond (05.02.2024).
  • Piccinini, P. (2007). The naturally artificial world interview by Laura Fernandez Orgaz. Patricia Piccinini. https://www.patriciapiccinini.net/essays/29 (05.02.2024).
  • Piccinini, P., & Hennessey, P. (2016). Alone with the gods | Stories & Ideas. MCA Australia. https://www.mca.com.au/stories-and-ideas/alone-gods/ (05.02.2024).
  • Pothast, E. (2022, March 16). The tactical utopianism of Sondra Perry. Medium (blog). https://emilypothast.medium.com/the-tactical-utopianism-of-sondra-perry-59cd3ff3c45c (05.02.2024).
  • QAGOMA. (2018, June 25). Go behind-the-scenes as Patricia Piccinini discusses her artwork [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0613V38a38s (05.02.2024).
  • Schirn Künsthalle Frankfurt. (2018, August 29). Schirn Interview. Neïl Beloufa [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRduSzySNo (05.02.2024).
  • Seattle Art Museum. (2018, May 23). Sondra Perry: Eclogue for [in]Habitability [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2V0fws7aq0 (05.02.2024).
  • Sennett, R. (2014). Ten ve taş: batı uygarlığında beden ve şehir (T. Birkan, Trans.). Metis Yayınları.
  • Somerset House. (2020, November 30). Amplify 2020 | FIGURES, £igur€$, go figure? by Libby Heaney [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daixJKnzc4o (05.02.2024).
  • Spencer, D. (2018). Neoliberalizmin mimarlığı (A. Terzi, Trans.) (1. Baskı). İletişim Yayınları.
  • Stelarc. (2017). Rewired/remixed: Event for Dismembered Body. Journal of Posthuman Studies, 1(1), 44. https://doi.org/10.5325/jpoststud.1.1.0044
  • Sze, S. (2016). Sarah Sze on Why She Had to Invent a New Way of Making Sculpture Interview by Okwui Enwezor. Artspace. http://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/sarah-sze-okwui-enwezor-interview (05.02.2024).
  • Tenger, H. (2019). Hale Tenger interview by İdil Deniz Türkmen. QP Women. https://www.galerinevistanbul.com/usr/documents/press/download_url/100/2019_qp_i-dil-deniz-turkmen.pdf (05.02.2024).
  • Tenger, H. (2020). Hale Tenger’le Yeni Sergisi Rüzgârlarin Dinlenḋiği Yer: Çıkarmadık Su Altındaki Ölüyü İnterview by Anıl Olcan and Ayşegül Oğuz. 1+1 Express. https://birartibir.org/cikarmadik-su-altindaki-oluyu/ (05.02.2024).
  • The Museum of Contemporary Art. (2021, March 27). Virtual studio visits: Klaus Biesenbach in conversation with Sarah Sze [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-ZggzriWsE (05.02.2024).
  • The Museum of Modern Art. (2016, June 3). An evening with Neïl Beloufa | Modern Mondays [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUawV3ZVKKI (05.02.2024).
  • TheLab-Lab. (n.d). TheLab-Lab. http://www.thelab-lab.com (25.06.2023).
  • Vassaf, G. (2020). Cehenneme övgü - Gündelik hayatta totalitarizm (Z. Gencosman and Ö. Madra, Trans.) (37. Baskı). İletişim Yayınları.

The Human Condition in the 21st Century: Body and Architectural Space in Contemporary Art

Year 2024, Volume: 3 Issue: 2, 145 - 161, 01.08.2024

Cansu Sözer , Can Boyacıoğlu

https://doi.org/10.58850/bodrum.1420382

Abstract

Architectural practices that sustain economic power structures often overlook the complexity of place, prioritizing rationality and utility for funding while perpetuating issues like climate crises and income inequality. In contrast, art offers critical perspectives unconstrained by immediate practicality. This research examines how contemporary artists understand and create space to reach a spatial design approach that activates subjects and fosters new connections between humans and non-humans. In the scope of this research, seven contemporary artists who produce artworks related to either the body or space have been chosen. The discourses of artists exploring the body-space relationships serve as primary sources. Two methods are employed: logical argumentation and analysis by analogy. The latter involves visualizing the analysis of textual discourses through messy word maps to extract insights from artists’ concepts and tactics. “Artist topographies” contribute to a collective “cognitive topography,” revealing commonalities around themes of exploitation, oppression, profit, borders, otherness, agency, and complexity. The conclusion presents suggestions for an alternative spatial design approach based on the discourses and cognitive topography.

Keywords

Contemporary Art Theory of Architecture Body Deconstruction Posthumanism

References

  • Antmen, A. (2007). Hale Tenger: İçerdeki yabancı=Stranger within. YKY no: 2468 Türkiye’de Güncel Sanat 01. Yapı Kredi Yayınları.
  • Balanuye, Ç. (2008). Beden ve aşkınlık. FLSF Felsefe ve Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 6(September), 49-59.
  • Barad, K. (2012). Matter feels, converses, suffers, desires, yearns and remembers. Open Humanities Press. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/o/ohp/11515701.0001.001/1:4.3/--new-materialism-interviews-cartographies?rgn=div2;view=fulltext#note_1 (05.02.2024).
  • Baudrillard, J. (2010). Kötülüğün şeffaflığı. (I. Ergüden, Trans.). Ayrıntı Yayınları.
  • Beloufa, N. (2015). I don’t think we should be too serious about art: Neïl Beloufa on making images for a post-artist world interview by Dylan Kerr. Artspace. http://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/neil-beloufa-interview (05.02.2024).
  • Cairns Art Gallery. (2019, October 1). Patricia Piccinini: Life clings closest,Cairns Art Gallery artist talk [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlHvA2P_mvE (05.02.2024).
  • Crawford, K., & Vladan J. (2018). Anatomy of an AI system: The Amazon Echo as an anatomical map of human labor, data and planetary resources. AI Now Institute and Share Lab. http://www.anatomyof.ai (05.02.2023).
  • Dale, K., & Gibson B. (2003). An-aesthetics and architecture. In Art and Aesthetics at Work, Eds. A. Carr, P. Hancock, (p. 155-173). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230554641_11
  • Draganova, V. (2018). Neïl Beloufa reveals the multi-dimensional mechanisms of power. Frieze, November 8. https://www.frieze.com/article/neil-beloufa-reveals-multi-dimensional-mechanisms-power (05.02.2024).
  • Faruki, M. (2018a). My own private Buffalo: Course syllabus for ARC 493 & 593. Google Docs. 2018. https://docs.google.com/document/d/15bflqbDVDHpjHBpA3K_ij9EQ7LqhV0a0rleadpK3thA/edit?usp=drive_open&ouid=110970827448515595095&usp=embed_facebook (05.02.2024).
  • Faruki, M. (2018b). My own private Buffalo: Towards an encyclopedia of representational agendas. TheLab-Lab. 2018. http://www.thelab-lab.com/ub2018 (05.02.2023).
  • Faruki, M. (2018c). Taking humor seriously: An interview with Mustafa Faruki, winner of the 2017 League Prize. Interview by Catarina Flaksman and Matt Ragazzo. The Architectural League of New York. https://archleague.org/article/league-prize-2017-interview-mustafa-faruki/ (05.02.2024).
  • Goethe-Institut Schweden. (2020, March 31). Keynote speech of French-algerian artist Neil Beloufa with a response from Linda Zachrison. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOOKCy_00To (05.02.2024).
  • Groat, L. N., & David W. (2013). Architectural research methods. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Guattari, F. (1995). Chaosmosis: An ethico-aesthetic paradigm. Indiana University Press.
  • Haraway, D. (1987). A manifesto for cyborgs: Science, technology, and socialist feminism in the 1980s. Australian Feminist Studies, 2(4), 1-42.
  • Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
  • Harvard GSD. (2019, March 13). Rosi Braidotti, “Posthuman Knowledge” [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CewnVzOg5w (05.02.2024).
  • Heaney, L. (2019). Quantum computing and complexity in art. Leonardo 52(3), 230-235. https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_01572
  • Heaney, L. (n.d.). Programming the Weird: A guide to quantum computing for artists. The Space (blog). https://www.thespace.org/resource/programming-the-weird-a-guide-to-quantum-computing-for-artists/ (05.02.2024).
  • Hessel, K. (2023, April 17). “Like an exploded iPhone”: Why Sarah Sze is the perfect artist for the age of information overload. The Guardian, sec. Art and design. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/apr/17/exploded-iphone-sarah-sze-age-of-information-overload (05.02.2024).
  • Lax, T. J. (2016). Projects 102: The colonies by Neïl Beloufa [Exhibition Catalogue]. MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art). https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1623?locale=en (05.02.2024).
  • Libby Heaney. (2020, June 11). Touch is response-ability: Documentation [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CefRCdcdHc (05.02.2024).
  • MIT List Visual Arts Center. (2020, December 2). Shifter session: Mustafa Faruki and Kameelah Janan Rasheed [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP_NM1vUwWA (05.02.2024).
  • Morton, T. (2020). İnsan türü: İnsan olmayanlarla dayanışma. Profil Yayıncılık.
  • Murata, S. (2019). Kasiyer (H. C. Erkin, Trans.). Turkuvaz Kitap.
  • Nasher Sculpture Center. (2016, November 16). Redefining space: artist Sarah Sze [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Yd8ymJ8Dc (05.02.2024).
  • Perry, S. (2016). Wet and wavy looks—Typhon coming on for a three monitor workstation. Sondra Perry. https://sondraperry.com/Wet-and-Wavy-Looks-Typhon-coming-on-for-a-Three-Monitor-Workstation (05.02.2024).
  • Perry, S. (2018). A chat with Sondra Perry on black radicality + things that are yet to happen in “Typhoon coming on” Interview by Tamar Clarke-Brown. AQNB. https://www.aqnb.com/2018/05/01/adrift-in-the-chroma-key-blues-a-chat-with-sondra-perry-on-black-radicality-things-that-are-yet-to-happen-in-typhoon-coming-on/ (05.02.2024).
  • Perry, S., Nora K., & Cherry C. (2018). A wild ass beyond: Apocalypse RN. American Artist. https://americanartist.us/works/a-wild-ass-beyond (05.02.2024).
  • Piccinini, P. (2007). The naturally artificial world interview by Laura Fernandez Orgaz. Patricia Piccinini. https://www.patriciapiccinini.net/essays/29 (05.02.2024).
  • Piccinini, P., & Hennessey, P. (2016). Alone with the gods | Stories & Ideas. MCA Australia. https://www.mca.com.au/stories-and-ideas/alone-gods/ (05.02.2024).
  • Pothast, E. (2022, March 16). The tactical utopianism of Sondra Perry. Medium (blog). https://emilypothast.medium.com/the-tactical-utopianism-of-sondra-perry-59cd3ff3c45c (05.02.2024).
  • QAGOMA. (2018, June 25). Go behind-the-scenes as Patricia Piccinini discusses her artwork [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0613V38a38s (05.02.2024).
  • Schirn Künsthalle Frankfurt. (2018, August 29). Schirn Interview. Neïl Beloufa [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRduSzySNo (05.02.2024).
  • Seattle Art Museum. (2018, May 23). Sondra Perry: Eclogue for [in]Habitability [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2V0fws7aq0 (05.02.2024).
  • Sennett, R. (2014). Ten ve taş: batı uygarlığında beden ve şehir (T. Birkan, Trans.). Metis Yayınları.
  • Somerset House. (2020, November 30). Amplify 2020 | FIGURES, £igur€$, go figure? by Libby Heaney [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daixJKnzc4o (05.02.2024).
  • Spencer, D. (2018). Neoliberalizmin mimarlığı (A. Terzi, Trans.) (1. Baskı). İletişim Yayınları.
  • Stelarc. (2017). Rewired/remixed: Event for Dismembered Body. Journal of Posthuman Studies, 1(1), 44. https://doi.org/10.5325/jpoststud.1.1.0044
  • Sze, S. (2016). Sarah Sze on Why She Had to Invent a New Way of Making Sculpture Interview by Okwui Enwezor. Artspace. http://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/sarah-sze-okwui-enwezor-interview (05.02.2024).
  • Tenger, H. (2019). Hale Tenger interview by İdil Deniz Türkmen. QP Women. https://www.galerinevistanbul.com/usr/documents/press/download_url/100/2019_qp_i-dil-deniz-turkmen.pdf (05.02.2024).
  • Tenger, H. (2020). Hale Tenger’le Yeni Sergisi Rüzgârlarin Dinlenḋiği Yer: Çıkarmadık Su Altındaki Ölüyü İnterview by Anıl Olcan and Ayşegül Oğuz. 1+1 Express. https://birartibir.org/cikarmadik-su-altindaki-oluyu/ (05.02.2024).
  • The Museum of Contemporary Art. (2021, March 27). Virtual studio visits: Klaus Biesenbach in conversation with Sarah Sze [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-ZggzriWsE (05.02.2024).
  • The Museum of Modern Art. (2016, June 3). An evening with Neïl Beloufa | Modern Mondays [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUawV3ZVKKI (05.02.2024).
  • TheLab-Lab. (n.d). TheLab-Lab. http://www.thelab-lab.com (25.06.2023).
  • Vassaf, G. (2020). Cehenneme övgü - Gündelik hayatta totalitarizm (Z. Gencosman and Ö. Madra, Trans.) (37. Baskı). İletişim Yayınları.
There are 47 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Architectural History, Theory and Criticism, Architectural Design, Installation
Journal Section Research Articles
Authors

Cansu Sözer 0009-0003-1517-6180

Can Boyacıoğlu 0000-0003-0387-6625

Publication Date August 1, 2024
Submission Date January 15, 2024
Acceptance Date July 10, 2024
Published in Issue Year 2024 Volume: 3 Issue: 2

Cite

APA Sözer, C., & Boyacıoğlu, C. (2024). The Human Condition in the 21st Century: Body and Architectural Space in Contemporary Art. Bodrum Journal of Art and Design, 3(2), 145-161. https://doi.org/10.58850/bodrum.1420382
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