Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the autonomous potential of artistic expressions to create and change the meanings of a place. By emphasizing the relevance of sensorial and perceptive experiences of participating in contemporary art practices I discuss their potential epistemological effect.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the autonomous potential of artistic expressions to create and change the meanings of a place. By emphasizing the relevance of sensorial and perceptive experiences of participating in contemporary art practices I discuss their potential epistemological effect.

Based on the approach to expression proposed by philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari I explore the site-specific and socially engaged artistic practices as expressions that are not unidirectionally determined by a certain content but rather as autonomous events with a potential to act upon places, ideas and things and create new meanings. Thus the meaning of an art event is not only to be a representation of a certain idea but an open possibility for an undetermined emergence.

Based on ethnographic examples from site-specific art projects conducted in different locations in Estonia I explore the sensorial and perceptual processes by which people engage with their environment while participating in the art practices. I ask what kind of experience and knowledge these practices can create and communicate.

In addition I examine the practices of anthropologists to ask how experiences in the field could lead to ethnographic expressions with a similar creative potentiality.