Towards a Relational Autonomy: Contemporary Urban Cultural Movements

Abstract

From the late seventeenth century to the present da y the idea of the autonomy of art and its pursuit of emancipation from the authorities in each historical period has gone through a long and intense evolution, with plenty o f successes and failures, which is still alive today spurring the cultural and artistic acti vity in our cities. During the Enlightenment self-determination of the individual was sough t beyond the power and control of the Absolutist State and the field of aesthetics wa s finally decoupled from theological purposes. Later on modernity focused on exposing an d fighting a certain atmosphere of boredom and false morality typical of the bourgeois ie by interfering with the prevailing notion of normality and its unifying tendency. However, all the stimul ating potential of the first formulation of autonomy disappeared and a rtistic practices ceased to have sociopolitical implications, becoming a mere and tast eful ornament. From then until now many movements have struggled to propose an alterna tive to the prevailing culture, dealing and negotiating simultaneously with the vul garity and the invasion of mass culture and the voracity of the art market. This work, linked to the research group Urban Derives. Artistic interventions in the territory , intends to discover and add value to current artistic practices connected to the tradition of co untercultural movements. Strategies such as occupation, self-management or co-management are employed to promote critical debate around issues such as the function of public space or the ability and the right of ci tizens to actively participate in the production, dif fusion and reception of culture. This way it is provided a contribution to the definition and articulation of relational aesthetics.