Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Critical analyses, case studies, and artist interviews examine works of art that are realized with the physical involvement of the viewer.

How are we to understand works of art that are realized with the physical involvement of the viewer? A relationship between a work of art and its audience that is rooted in an experience that is both aesthetic and physical? Today, these works often use digital technologies, but artists have created participatory works since the 1950s. In this book, critics, writers, and artists offer diverse perspectives on this kind of "practicable" art that bridges contemplation and use, discussing and documenting a wide variety of works from the last several decades. The contributors consider both works that are technologically mediated and those that are not, as long as they are characterized by a process of reciprocal exchange.

The book offers a historical frame for practicable works, discussing, among other things, the emergence and influence of cybernetics. It examines art movements and tendencies that incorporate participatory strategies; draws on the perspectives of the humanities and sciences; and investigate performance and exhibition. Finally, it presents case studies of key works by artists including and offers interviews with such leading artists and theoreticians asClaire Bishop,Thomas Hirschhorn, Matt Adams of Blast Theory,Seiko Mikamiand Bruno Latour. Numerous illustrations of artists and their works accompany the text.

Contributors
Matt Adams (Blast Theory), Jean-Christophe Bailly, Samuel Bianchini, Claire Bishop, Jean-Louis Boissier, Nicolas Bourriaud, Christophe Charles, Valerie Ch telet, Jean-Pierre Cometti, Sarah Cook, Jordan Crandall, Dominique Cunin, Nathalie Delbard, Anna Dezeuze, Diedrich Diederichsen, Christophe Domino, Larisa Dryansky, Gl ria Ferreira, Jean-Paul Fourmentraux, Gilles Froger, Masaki Fujihata, Jean Gagnon, Katrin Gattinger, Jochen Gerz, Piero Gilardi, Veronique Goudinoux, Usman Haque, Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen (HeHe), Jeppe Hein, Thomas Hirschhorn, Marion Hohlfeldt, Pierre-Damien Huyghe, Judith Ickowicz, Eric Kluitenberg, Janet Kraynak, Bruno Latour, Christophe Leclercq, Frederik Lesage, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Peter Lunenfeld, Lawrence Malstaf, Julie Martin, Seiko Mikami, Dominique Moulon, Hiroko Myokam, Ernesto Neto, Mayumi Okura, Eddie Panier, Fran oise Parfait, Simon Penny, Daniel Pinkas, Chantal Pontbriand, Emanuele Quinz, Margit Rosen, Alberto Sanchez Balmisa, Frederik Schikowski, Arnd Schneider, Madeline Schwartzman, Luke Skrebowski, Vanessa Theodoropoulou, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Andrea Urlberger, Erik Verhagen, Franz Erhard Walther, Peter Weibel, Renate Wiehager, Catherine Wood, Giovanna Zapperi, Anne Zeitz, David Zerbib

Edited bySamuel BianchiniandErik Verhagen with the collaboration ofNathalie DelbardandLarisa Dryansky.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Series Foreword (p. xi)
• Credits and Acknowledgments (p. xiii)
• Introduction: Practicable-Art in the Conditional (p. 1)
• I From Cybernetics Onward (p. 23)
• 1 Gordon Pask's Cybernetic Systems: Conversations After the End of the Mechanical Age (p. 25)
• 2 The Artist as Homo Arbiter Formae: Art and Interaction in Jack Burnham's Systems Essays (p. 39)
• 3 Two Decades of Interactive Art: Digital Technologies and Human Experience (p. 55)
• II Art Scenes and Movements in Search of Participation (p. 75)
• 4 Against the Spectacle: The Construction of Situations (p. 77)
• 5 From Program to Behavior: The Experience of Arte Programmata in Italy, 1958-1968 (p. 91)
• 6 "The Breath Is Up to You": On Some Works by Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark, and Lygia Pape (p. 113)
• 7 À la Recherche d'un Nouveau Spectateur: The Function and Significance of Play in the Participatory Environments of the Croupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel (p. 127)
• 8 Katsuhiro Yamaguchi: Performances and Environments (p. 143)
• 9 Tactical Media and the Aesthetics of Participation (p. 159)
• III From the Vantage Point of the Humanities and Social Sciences (p. 179)
• 10 Echoes of Pragmatism in Current Artistic Practices (p. 181)
• 11 Art/Anthropology Interventions (p. 195)
• 12 Habitable: Spectator Participation in Everyday Life (p. 215)
• 13 From the Practice of Roles to the Facts of Consciousness: Art and Its Qualities (p. 235)
• 14 Collaborating and Participating: A Connection Worth Examining (p. 253)
• 15 Public Operation: Net Art, Sociology, and Practicable Media (p. 265)
• 16 The Contractual Definition of the Work of Art: A Contribution to the Discussion of the Dispositif in Art (p. 279)
• IV Art in Action: On Performance (p. 295)
• 17 Why Participate? On the Concrete Experience of Participatory Performances (p. 297)
• 18 Haptic Vision: The Female Body and "Practicable" Art (p. 313)
• 19 Traveling Microbus Hordes: A Mobile Audience (p. 329)
• 20 Demo n.O (p. 345)
• V Bringing About Interaction, Grasping, and Seeing: Exhibiting Practicable Works of Art (p. 359)
• 21 Toward a Dramaturgy of Interactivity (p. 361)
• 22 Stop, Drop, and Roll With It: Curating Participatory Media Art (p. 377)
• 23 Taking Hold of Images: Some Thoughts on the Free Handling of Photographs in Contemporary Art (p. 397)
• VI Some Key Works: Case Studies (p. 409)
• 24 Robert Rauschenberg's Oracle: "A Laboratory for Testing Perceptions" (p. 411)
• 25 Lygia Clark's Caminhando (p. 421)
• 26 Charlotte Posenenske: Mimetic Minimalism and Practicability (p. 431)
• 27 The Artwork as Password: On Some Pieces by Piotr Kowalski (p. 441)
• 28 Robert Morris's Bodyspacemotionthings: Participation Reenacted (p. 449)
• 29 "Therapeutic" Participation: On the Legacy of Bruce Nauman's Yellow Room (Triangular) and Other Works (p. 459)
• 30 Welcome! On Dan Graham's Opposing Mirrors and Video Monitors on Time Delay (p. 469)
• 31 On Cruelty in Art: Marina Abramovic, Rhythm 0 (p. 479)
• 32 Viewer-Instrumented Play: Very Nervous System by David Rokeby (p. 493)
• 33 When Objects Speak in Images: Krzysztof Wodiczko's Homeless Vehicle Project as an Instrument of Public Discussion (p. 503)
• 34 Reflections on Jeffrey Shaw's Golden Calf, 1994 (p. 513)
• 35 Janet Cardiff's Walks (p. 525)
• 36 The Gravity of Art: On Carsten Höller's Untitled (Slide), 2011 (p. 531)
• 37 Exhibiting the Museum: The Hybrid Spaces of Workspace Unlimited (p. 543)
• VII Words from Artists and Theoreticians: Interviews (p. 551)
• 38 "Creating a Living Responsive Environment" (p. 553)
• 39 The Action Is the Original (p. 569)
• 40 From Interaction to Public Authorship (p. 583)
• 41 In Search of Relational Art (p. 595)
• 42 "Open Fields of Enactment" (p. 607)
• 43 Reading Beyond Interactivity (p. 621)
• 44 "Form Is a Position" (p. 633)
• 45 Observational Practices: A Conversation on Rhythm, Pace, and Crowd Interaction (p. 643)
• 46 "Is There a Revolution?" (p. 655)
• 47 "A Direct Dialogue with One's Own Perception" (p. 667)
• 48 Everything Is Sculpture (p. 667)
• 49 Out of Control (p. 691)
• 50 Blast Theory: Playing with Publics (p. 705)
• 51 "The Granularity of Participation" (p. 719)
• 52 Critical Design: Art and Politics of Public Spaces (p. 733)
• 53 Exhibiting the Visitor (p. 747)
• 54 "I See Each of My Works as a Tool" (p. 759)
• 55 Composing the Political Arts: On the Modes of Being of Artworks and Their Public (p. 771)
• 56 "Use Is Almost Meaning in Three Dimensions" (p. 781)
• 57 "The Myth of the Active Subject" (p. 795)
• Bibliography (p. 809)
• Contributors (p. 849)
• Index (p. 877)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Practicable is one of the latest additions to the MIT Press "Leonardo" series, which also includes such important titles as Erkki Huhtamo's Illusions in Motion (CH, Oct'13, 51-0659) and Linda Dalrymple Henderson's The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art (CH, Oct'13, 51-0658). Practicable is devoted to 20th- and 21st-century participatory or interactive art of all kinds, including new media art (which is not considered a separate category). Bianchini (L'École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris) and Verhagen (Université de Valenciennes, France) emphasized the international scope in their selection of authors and subjects and inclusion of many texts translated into English. The book's first five sections are devoted to, respectively, historical context, relevant art movements, interdisciplinary views, performance, and exhibition issues. The essays in these sections treat advanced research in interactive art, and so are most appropriate for scholars. But sections 6 and 7 include case studies of single works of art by artists such as Lygia Clark, Robert Morris, and Dan Graham and interviews with Bruno Latour, Clair Bishop, and others. This material be may useful for nonspecialists. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. --Abigail Susik, Willamette University