Social Practice.

One of the most useful things about this article1 is the fact that it describes a way in which cultural production can situate itself within a marxist framework. Its' author Alberto Toscano, is a lecturer in the sociology department at Goldsmiths University in London: An institution whose program only includes courses in the Creative Industries and Liberal Arts. Subsequently, it is of no surprise that the author's approach could be described as creative practitioner friendly. This framework relies on the assumption that any artwork could be considered an object of sorts. Everybody will have their own position on this: depending on how they situate themselves as an artist and as a maker. The way this essay (and inadvertently, Marx) describes it, even an individual's relationships can be considered objects of some description.

Toscano describes private property (an intimate component of capitalism) as the objectified powers of the human essence, in the form of sensuous, alien, useful objects2. On the same page he describes the fact that the distribution of the sensible in turn, functions as the expropriation of man's senses. He goes on to say that these objects, created by the individual, end up participating in the service of his own estrangement.  

It's a simple way to describe the way in which the art market or art production fits into a society of workers and individuals. Works (of Art) could be considered to function in the same manner as objects. If a work is purchased, or if it is cognitively taken on board in some way: then the maker's essence is being objectified (which is not necessarily a bad thing). In the future, the work will go on to have new meanings and associations that the maker never foresaw: this gradual development could be described as a process of estrangement. Sometimes it happens quickly, sometimes it takes awhile. Either way, it seems inevitable.

The above image3, by CK Rajan, is from the same book as Destructive Creation... (I believe it was also featured in Documenta 12). To this reader, it (like many works featuring appropriated imagery) serves as an illustration of this process: the estrangement embodied..

Seen here, are two seemingly unrelated images. They appear to be from different contexts, produced with different aims in mind and (in this reproduction) look like they have been printed using different methods. The fact that the original makers of these two individual images, had different aims is especially poignant. What we see here forms a completely different dialogue, a far cry even, from what the images would have said individually. Like the empty shells ejected from a shotgun, this image is an offshoot from the process of re-evaluating history.

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1  Toscano,  Alberto. “Destuctive Creation or Communism of the Senses.” Make  Everything New: A Project on Communism.  Ed. Grant Watson, Gerrie van Noord, and Gavin Everall. London: Book  Works, 2006. 119-128.

2 Toscano,  121.

3  Rajan, CK. “Collages 1992-1995.” Make  Everything New: A Project on Communism.  Ed. Grant Watson, Gerrie van Noord, and Gavin Everall. London: Book  Works, 2006. 137-148.