User Manual: Interdisciplinary Arts

2013-10-18

Laima Kreivytė

Published in the “In the Graveyards of Interdisciplinarity (?)” catalog, Vilnius, 2013. Republished from cultural weekly “7 meno dienos”, No. 13 (935), 01-04-2011

I must confess – this essay was inspired by a phone call. The caller suggested that there should be a clearer definition of interdisciplinary art. I was politely asked to give it some thought. I was given a week and assured that nothing would happen even if I did not come up with anything.

I usually avoid taking part in phone surveys. But the caller was not from a bank or a pizza house, it was an artist whom I respect and whose concern for interdisciplinary art was sparked not by personal ambition but a responsible approach to public duty. That is something rare indeed, almost an anomaly. I have always been impressed by this artist’s conceptuality and appreciation for complex phenomena and theories. Even in this case – the man could simply “follow his heart” or just shrug it off and waste no more time on it. But he takes interest. Because universal shrugging it off is what bears commercial, kitsch, pseudo-conceptual, official, and modern folk art monsters that get filed by culture bureaucrats in the pile of “interdisciplinary art” projects out of sheer inertia (or resignation). This pile has grown so big that it comes to resemble the Augean stables – and no white curtains can cover it up.

Interdisciplinarity has been written and spoken about extensively, especially in sciences and arts. In the West, since the early 1970s, in Lithuania, since 1990. The postmedium condition has been discussed by Rosalind Krauss, the ethnographic turn in contemporary art (emphasizing discursive strategies rather than the medium and technique), by Hal Foster. In Lithuania, Lolita Jablonskienė has written on the issues of the margins, Dovilė Tumpytė explained key concepts of contemporary art (including interdisciplinarity), Kęstutis Šapoka has presented several comprehensive remarks on interdisciplinary art. Vytautas Michelkevičius, the president of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association, has had his say as well. Everyone interested in the subject should refer to the above-mentioned authors in order to get a better understanding of historic and theoretical background of interdisciplinary art in Lithuania – all the sources are available online or in libraries. My aim, however, is less an academic analysis of interdisciplinarity than a synthesis of different definitions that (if I am successful) could serve as a simple user manual.

The stakes in this case are not philosophical, but pragmatic ones – under what criteria should project proposals be regarded as interdisciplinary
art under the guidelines of the Culture Support Fund? The Fund sets out funding quotas for different arts and occasionally reviews them in light of the number of applications. The share of interdisciplinary art projects has grown significantly in recent years, but the quota has not changed. A greater number of applications points to a trend of growing cooperation among professionals of different fields, but also to a complete “watering down” of the concept of interdisciplinarity. Any event that includes artists of several different fields is automatically termed interdisciplinary. But if a violinist performs at a photography exhibition during a poetry reading session, that does not make photography or literary readings an interdisciplinary project. Under what circumstances, though, can it do so?

First, let us read the list of arts funded by the Culture Support Fund: architecture, circus, fine art, photography, film, museums, cultural heritage, literature, music, dance, interdisciplinary art, folk art, theatre, and amateur art.

Which brings me to the first point of the user manual: interdisciplinary art is what does not fall into any other of the categories above: it is not fine art, not dance, not photography, not literature, not theatre, not film, not folk art, etc. That does not mean, however, that we will arrive at interdisciplinary art by substituting the affirmatives for the negatives and adding at least two components together. What is crucial to understand here is that every medium above must be seen from today’s perspective – or, to use Rosalind Krauss’s term, within the “expanded field.” Photography in the expanded field means that it can easily become an installation, photographed objects, etc. In case of literature, that readings can be interactive, resemble sporting events (slam poetry), performances. No one can claim that modern literature is just poetry, prose, and drama. Film and theatre includes collaboration by painters, writers, composers – but they all create within the boundaries of their respective disciplines, albeit using the most contemporary means of expression.

Second. Interdisciplinary art is something more than just a way of performance / transmission in other media (e.g., filmed dance, photographed circus performers). An interdisciplinary project welds image, sound, text, performance, improvisation into a new integral entity. It goes beyond a simple cocktail of several disciplines, it presents a qualitatively new product.

Third. Interdisciplinary art is also contemporary – it has emerged as an opposition to the purity of modern art as theorized by Clement Greenberg. Interdisciplinary art employs contemporary art language and contemporary techniques. Therefore setting fire sculptures aflame is not an interdisciplinary project – rather, it is a piece of modernized ethnoculture adapted for the society of the spectacle. Or folk art, if sculpture is its central element.

Fourth (related to the third). Interdisciplinary art is transgressive – i.e., it transcends boundaries. Initially, it transcends the boundaries of one discipline, unable as it is to contain itself within even its “expanded field.” Transgressiveness as the the key feature of interdisciplinary practices has been pointed out by Hal Foster. “According to Foster’s logic, transgression can be inferred in discursive artistic practices that summon and skillfully employ knowledge of different spheres. Such art creates an interactive/ critical/reflexive relation to a cultural, social, political environment, i.e., unfolds in the intersection of horizontality and verticality.” (Dovilė Trumpytė, “Keywords of the Current Art: Interdisciplinarity, Media, and Relational Aesthetics,” www.balsas.cc, 17 October 2005)

Fifth. It is more than art created by members of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association. Even though most of them do
make such kind of art, others do as well. They are most likely to be art professionals, but can also be amateurs (the Culture Support Fund provides assistance to them, too). Interdisciplinarity draws its legitimacy not from art institutions (the Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius Art Academy, the National Art Gallery, other galleries, etc.), but from creative practices transcending disciplinary boundaries.

If this manual can be of use to those writing project proposals and processing them – great. If it will prompt discussion and new, more accurate, and (especially!) more concise definitions of interdisciplinary art – even better.

I appreciate the call.