affect: used as a synonym for passion, sentient, mood, feeling, or emotion. Aristotle's affect is a force embodied through pleasure and pain that shifts our condition and judgment. Descartes' affect is fortified by a movement of the spirit; the body and mind are allowed to communicate. Affect is affected by shifts in social arrangements, human cognition, and manipulation.
appropriation: the direct taking over of an existing work of art or real object into a new work of art. The aim is to create a new situation or new meaning in association with a familiar image. It raises questions of authorship and originality. Collages usually involve appropriation.
performance/performativity: the medium is the artist's own body and the artwork takes the form of actions performed by the artist. It is limited by it's ephemeral nature and the human characteristics of the body. It's recorded through photographs or video.
nomadism: the way of life of people who have no permanent home but move from one location to another, often following the seasons, trade routes, or food supplies.
body/embodiment: the physical structure and material substance of an animal, living or dead. Crosses over with themes of identity and performativity. The relationship of body and mind has been explored- feats of physical endurance and the ability of the mind to suffer pain. In the 1960s women focusing on bodily themes brought to attention the physicality of the female body through exploration of sexuality. Artists challenge ideals of bodies as only healthy and beautiful. Artists use the body as a site for social discourse, as a tool or medium (could be just part of the body), and to question or define beauty. To embody is to give a concrete form to an idea or spirit.
space/place (contested, liminal): a particular portion of space, whether definite or indefinite extent, set apart for a particular purpose. There are social, political, personal, and emotional memory-based associations attached to locations. Places can change physically and metaphorically, they can intersect time through memory and history, and they have literal or symbolic values that trigger physical and emotional responses. Some artists devote their work to the protection of particular places, while others construct or deconstruct artificial places.
surreal: initially led by Andre Breton and originally identified by Freud's research of the human mind where memories and our most basic instincts are stored. The aim of Surrealism was to reveal the unconscious and reconcile it with rational life. It was also associated with social attitudes and behavior through use of bodies or landscapes.
conceptual: art that involves thinking beyond the limits of traditional media. Instead the ideas are worked out in whatever form is appropriate. All planning and decisions are made beforehand. Could be anything that doesn't take the form of a conventional art object, but frequently performance art and land art are placed under this category.
permanence/impermanence (ephemeral): not intended to be kept or preserved. Understood in the creation process that environmental and performance art will only be viewed for a finite amount of time.
body politic: A group or nation could be likened to a human body. All the people that comprise a country are being considered a single group.
identity politics: how you view yourself, how others perceive you, and how society defines a group of people. Ethnicity, gender, age, class, sexual orientation, education, and life experience define identity. Questions the true nature of the self in terms of social or cultural identities. Work deals with the deconstruction of stereotypes.
happening: a non-verbal theatrical production that abandons stage-audience structure as well as the usual plot or narrative line of traditional theatre. Events were created by artists in the late 1950s and early 1960s (Fluxus), and typically took place in a gallery setting. May involve improvisation and/or audience participation. Fluxus involves a continuous succession of changes and implies an alternative attitude towards art-making.
institutional critique: the act of critiquing an institution (a museum or art gallery) as artistic practice, a response to the art institution perceived as a place of cultural confinement and thus something to attack aesthetically, theoretically, and politically. popular in the 1960s, although in the 1990s the discussions were held within the galleries, making them not only the problem but the solution.
minimalist: work stripped down to the most fundamental features, rooted in reductive acts of Modernism, often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism and a bridge to Postmodernism. Involves process art and conceptual art. It is unmetaphorical and self-referential. The reductive appearance shocked viewers and questioned the definition of art.
ornament: accessory, decoration, adornment, or detail that has been applied to an object or structure to beautify its appearance.
kitsch: used in English to describe particularly cheap, vulgar, and sentimental forms of popular and commercial culture. Souvenir-like qualities might include plastic or porcelain models of Hello Kitty. Involved in Pop Art. Critic Clement Greenberg contrasted it with avant-garde styles. Judged to have little or no aesthetic value.
sublime: an artistic effect productive of the strongest emotion the mind is capable of feeling. Sublime is fear or reaction to terror present in Turner's landscapes and other Romantic art. Involves reality outside the human sense of perception.
utopian: an ideal or visionary system of political or social perfection. Often utilizes the creation of synthetic environments, because utopias are ultimately unrealizable.
vernacular: commonly appear in daily life in a particular culture; language written or spoken by ordinary, everyday people. Implies culture meaning negotiated within language. Also relates to photography in the form of snapshots.
abject: a complex psychological, philosophical, and linguistic concept developed in Julia Kristeva's 1980 book Powers of Horror involving elements of the body that transgress and threaten our sense of cleanliness and propriety, and deemed inappropriate for public display or discussion. Has a strong feminist context because they're abjected by a patriarchal social order.
authorship: questioned in Postmodern art, along with authenticity and ideas of style progression. Especially linked with appropriation and kitsch, but also present in performance and environmental art.
absence/presence: describe fundamental states of being, both self-referential dependent upon the notion of being. Reference Plato's "Allegory of the Cave, metaphysics, and deconstruction. Can something become absent if it was once present? Questioned in narrative photography (Cindy Sherman) among other media.
uncanny: incorporated new and unusual with mistrust, unease, and hostility. A correlation begins to emerge between new/foreign/hostile and old/known/familiar which gives rise to feelings of uncertainty associated with the uncanny. Considered by Freud to be a function of the unconscious and connected to a fear of death.
gaze: to look fixedly, intently, or deliberately at something, or to look vacantly or curiously about. Discussed in terms of art more consistently than any other synonym for "look". Gaze is used as a vehicle for communication that bridges the gap between art form and social theory. A gaze can either emanate from the viewer or from the work of art. Sartre saw the gaze as a battleground for the self to define and redefine itself; we become aware of the Self as object when confronted with the gaze of the Other.
posthuman: addresses the body as superfluous, indicating an ultimate goal beyond humanism. Some definitions are grounded in transcendence of certain human capabilities or features, while others are wholly without a trace of humanity.
meme: from "mnemone" or "mimeme," Richard Dawkins defines it as a cultural element or behavioral trait whose transmission and consequent persistence in a population, although occurring by non-genetic means, is considered as analogous to the inheritance of a gene, especially imitation. Like genes, they may be given and received involuntarily, which is interesting in discussion of artists in terms of correlation with past art examples, especially in fashion.
phenomenology: the study of anything which may be a subject of observation, the starting point from which causality is determined. Often reserved for things which seem exceptional and extraordinary.
social practice: a concept constructed by society. Artists blur the lines between object-making, performance, and activism that creates a participatory art that pushes "art" close to the breaking point. Includes providing social services to the general public and commissions of installations.
new media: the mass influx of media that can enable the production and distribution of art digitally from CD-roms to mobile phones to the world wide web. Not only how art is initially shared but also shapes how art is talked about and revisited.
bio-art: raises questions about the future of life, evolution, society, and art. The dominant aspect is genetic art, specifically a green fluorescent rabbit genetically engineered in 2000. This will probably flourish and develop as access to biotechnology increases. Also brings up questions of purpose and authorship.
eco-aesthetics: addresses art and literature in a period of climate change or discourse. Involves art as a strategy for improving the world, moving towards sustainability. Focuses on social or cultural identity.
dichotomy (binary): division into two mutually exclusive or contradictory groups. The division of the "art" and "craft" distinctions as well as Art versus Life (or art as the opposition to life or death). Present in Dadaism and Fluxus.
slippage: movement away from an original or secure place; tension between high art and popular culture. Showcases influential musicians as visual artists in gallery settings (Bowie, Byrne). Can be discussed in context with any new art movement and the transitory period between them or between individual artists.
Reference glossaries here, here, here, and here.
