On Social Sensibility Research and Development and Work/Live
An Introduction by Alessandro Rolandi and Zhao Tianji
Social Sensibility Research and Development (SSR&D) is a department created for artist Alessandro Rolandi in Bernard Controls, a French company producing actuators for nuclear valves, with its Beijing branch located in a factory near the south 5th ring.
What is the Social Sensibility? After five years working on it, with it and for it, I still don’t know. This term was chosen together with the CEO of Bernard Controls Guillaume Bernard in 2011. We continue to resist specific models and definitions, hoping it will exist as a form of its own in order to stay active and alive.
Art is not the purpose, but a side effect that can influence the sensibility of those who are exposed to it. Social Sensibility attempts to extend this side effect to a broader audience, and to transform the relationship between art and people in creating an active and shared space. This is done by inviting artists to interact with people in working environments on a long-term base and in an informal way. By bringing art practice in direct contact with daily and working life, the aim is to inspire an audience of art users, instead of art viewers, whereas artists are challenged through this firsthand participatory experience. Economically speaking, Social Sensibility proposes the emergence of a parallel model to the existing one, in which artists would be supported financially not for the production of objects, but for their involvement with experimental and daring ideas, in the reality of society and working environments.
Social Sensibility engages with two socially driven forces: a transformative one and one that belongs to the realm of vigilance. The first one employs creativity, communication, critical thinking and art as a vehicle to give birth to a new organic social dynamic. The second one resists alienation, short-circuits hardwired behavior, and supports diversity, mutual respect and collective interaction as premises to awaken the social imagination for a foreseeable change.
The key moment is this physical encounter between artists and people, in which the rules of engagement are invented and negotiated all the time. In a tangible and relational space, this small and humble moment is very fragile but extremely precious, and it possesses unlimited potentialities. From this undisclosed territory of becoming, an intuition emerges and gradually takes the form of a quest into the nature of free will.
社会敏感性研发部是为艺术家李山在伯纳德设备控制有限公司所成立的一个部门,这家专事生产电动阀门执行器的法国公司位于北京南五环外的一座工厂内。
什么是社会敏感性? 经过五年的工作,我仍然无法确定。这个词汇是在2011年和伯纳德的总裁伯涛一起选定的。我们不断抵制着特定的模式和定义,希望它能建立起一种独立的存在方式并持续保持活力。
艺术不是目的,而是可影响人们敏感性的一个副作用。社会敏感性试图把这个副作用延伸给更广泛的观众。通过邀请艺术家在工作环境中与人们进行长期的非正式互动来转变艺术与人的关系,并尝试创建一个活跃和共享的空间。艺术实践在此直接地接触日常工作和生活,旨在激发艺术的观看者成为实践者,反之艺术家也将被这第一手的参与性体验所挑战。从经济上讲,社会敏感性提出了与现有条件平行的模式。它不针对艺术品的生产,而是支持艺术家在社会现实和工作环境中去实验、去尝试大胆的想法。
社会敏感性涉及到两股社会性力量:转变性的和警惕性的。第一股力量使用创造性、沟通力、批判性思维和艺术来生成新的动态的有机社会。第二股力量为抗拒异化,使僵化的概念短路,支持多样性、相互尊重、集体互动——并在这些前提下为可预知的改变去唤醒社会的想象力。
关键的时刻是艺术家和人们的相遇,同时参与的规则也在不断商议和变化中。在感知的关系空间中,这短暂的瞬间很脆弱但极其珍贵,具有无限的潜力。一种直觉从这未知的转化过程中浮现, 并逐渐形成对自由意志的探索。 |