Shaking the habitual: a synthesis between Bakhtinian dialogism and Shklovsky’s defamiliarisation through relational aesthetics

Momentarily setting aside the radical implications that Shklovsky’s statements have, I would like to establish a connection between his theories and the Bakhtinian concept of dialogicity. Bakhtin used this term in his theories on the novel, which as a genre is engendered by its heteroglossia, or multivoicedness. His theory assumes that within the structure of a novel, more than one voice is present at any given time and that these voices enter into a dialectic relation with each other, their meanings informed by and formed through their dialogue. Opposed to this is monoglossia, the authoritative voice, which in Bakhtin’s analysis is exemplified by the genre of the epic. Because of its monolithic nature, authoritative discourse "enters our consciousness as a compact and indivisible mass," prompting one to "either totally affirm it, or totally reject it" [Bakhtin, 1981, p. 343]. Bakhtin focussed his theories on discourse in the novel but he is deliberate in reminding us "that dialogic relationships in the broad sense are also possible among different intelligent phenomena'' [Bakhtin, 2003, p. 184]. What happens then when we take works of art to be ‘utterances’ in a Bakhtinian sense? An arguably classic method of looking at art is to treat a work as authoritative, a single voice, a single utterance. However Shklovsky’s claim that perception, an activity that originates from the subject but is empty without an object, is an end in itself suggests that he acknowledged the importance of the relation between art and its observer. Thus, in including the subject into the process of art, I would argue that Shklovsky introduces a heteroglossic element and makes it "more multi-voiced" so that it "no longer [gravitates] toward itself or its referential object" [Bakhtin, 2003, p. 226]. Therefore the voices of the object and the subject "instead of following one after the other and being uttered by two different mouths, are superimposed one on the other and merge into a single utterance issuing from a single mouth" [Bakhtin, 2003, p. 209]. The dialogic relation creates art.

A view on aesthetics that seems almost tailor-made in relation to this is proposed by Bour-riaud. In his book Relational Aesthetics he develops an aestheticism that focuses on the relational aspect of art. This view stresses the importance of inter-subjectivity and human relations. However insofar as humans can be regarded as social constructs it can be contended that so too Bakhtinian utterances, in this case works of art, are merely social constructs. With this interpretation, Bourriaud’s framework becomes almost a rephrasing of the Bakhtin-Shklovsky synthesis outlined above. Art for Bourriaud functions as "an opening to unlimited discussion" where the "encounter between beholder and picture, and the collective elaboration of meaning" [Bourriaud, 2009, p. 15] is the crux. His claim that "art is a state of encounter" [Bourriaud, 2009, p. 18] and can only exist within "the dynamic relationship [...] with other formations" [Bourriaud, 2009, p. 21] clearly mirrors a Bakhtinian dialogic relation. Further strengthening the parallels (besides Bourriaud’s frequent use of the term ‘dialogue’) is the juxtaposing of this relational aestheticism at the "opposite end" of what Bourriaud derisively terms a "pettifogging historical" and "authoritarian version of art" [Bourriaud, 2009, p. 22]. Just like in Bakhtin’s monoglossia, this ‘art as an indivisible mass’ functions through the "negation of dialogue" [Bourriaud, 2009, p. 22], thereby preventing the very process that should give birth to it. Bour-riaud also repeatedly refers to installations in galleries, wherein the visitors are integral parts of the exhibition. Examples include an artist’s announcement that he would release half a cubic metre of helium into the air, creating an artwork that "only exists as an artwork by virtue of [its] observation" [Bourriaud, 2009, p. 29], or settings in which people were allowed to adjust, move or even take pieces from the exhibition [Bourriaud, 2009, p. 39], among many others. All of these works relied on the presence, interaction, and contribution of the subject. Their prerequisite to function, to even exist, is a dialogistic relation which therefore inherently calls into question the ‘author’ of the work. Again Bakhtin offers relevant insights. He states that in becoming discourse, the becoming of a heteroglossic utterance, a dialogistic relation must: receive an author, that is, a creator of the given utterance whose position it expresses. Every utterance in this sense has its author, whom we hear in the very utterance as its creator. Of the real author, as he exists outside the utterance, we can know absolutely nothing at all. [Bakhtin, 2003, p. 184]

Generally the use of a reductio ad absurdum argument is pitted against this inclusive view of art. Let us look at a few concrete (if sometimes fictional) examples of defamiliarisation, in order to see what is meant. Shklovsky’s own examples are mostly taken from works by Tolstoy, the "harsh example" that he gives is the defamiliarisation of "the act of flogging [...] by the description and by the proposal to change its form without changing its nature" [Shklovsky, 2012, p. 13]. In the same vein, one can look at Ulysses by James Joyce as its form is radically ‘other.’ Not only does this infamous novel use defamiliarisation in its sentence-level language use (describing objects as if they were first seen, avoiding accepted names, etc.), but its paragraphs, and even its suprastructure, are so convoluted that the process of perception is prolonged considerably. Here I would like to add that the process of perception is, in this analysis, not limited to observation, that is, does not pertain exclusively to affecting animate nerve organs.

A work needs not be actually, perceptually present for one to engage with it. I would argue that consuming a work of art does, indeed, start with physical perception, but as long as you engage with it (e.g. through the retroactive realisation of something or delayed contemplation on a work’s meaning and such) you are still in the dialogic process of perception. T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland , for example, achieves this with its footnotes that continuously take the reader out of the text, or the need, for all but the most polyglot readers, to constantly translate the various snippets of diverse languages. Such convolution can be said to lead to absurd situations (and indeed some find Ulysses to be just that) where complexity of form takes precedence over complexity of content, but as Shklovsky states: "in our analysis of the work of art [...] there is no need for the concept of 'content’" [qtd. in Denner, 2014, p. 383]. He considers these essentially expressions of the same thing.

On the opposite end of using complexity to defamiliarise are works like Mondrian's grid-based paintings or Malevich’s Black Square. These kinds of works are simple in their outward characteristics and their defamiliarisation therefore relies on other aspects. In this case the works arguably rely on the upset of established norms within the world of art. Another way is to rely on the viewer of the painting to assume the painter had an intention, which they subsequently will try to assess with minimal assistance from the work itself. Furthermore, even the realisation of the subject that there might not be an inherent meaning in the object could in itself be such a defamiliarising experience that the process of perception is lengthened considerably. These again already hint at the possible absurdity contained within this definition of art. Indeed this has been a persistent critique of much modern art. Fountain by Marcel Duchamp, a urinal exhibited at an art gallery, is an excellent example of the contentious nature of such artworks. After all, critics say, if a toilet can be art, where is the limit? A gallery filled to the brim with garbage? Would that count as art? According to Iris Clert, who did exactly that in her gallery in 1960, it would. For the skeptics, Shklovsky’s assertion that "defamiliarization is found almost everywhere form is found" [Shklovsky, 2012, p. 18] is a damaging claim, and according to them a false conclusion follows from his allegation. Their reductio ad absurdum is as follows: (1) If it can be defamiliarised, it is art. (2) Everything can be defamiliarised. (3) Therefore, everything is art. It is not true that everything is art, not (3). Therefore, reductio: (1) entails not (2). (2) entails not (1). So either exclusively (1), or exclusively (2). In their eyes the third premise is false, but on what do they base this? A Bakhtinian interpretation might point out the similarities of this rejection to the hallmarks of authoritative discourse. The earlier analysis of art was that it was a system that was "analogous with the system of a language" [Bakhtin, 1981, p. 273], and that it was incapable of standing in a dialogic relation. Thus, from this point of view "the artistic work as a whole [...] is a self-sufficient and closed, authorial monologue, one that presumes only passive listeners beyond its boundaries" [Bakhtin, 1981, p. 274]. According to Bakhtin, there was a tendency in Europe to concentrate the scrutiny of philosophical thought on the "firmest, most stable, least changeable and most mono-semic aspects of discourse [...] that are furthest removed from the changing socio-seman-tic spheres of discourse" [Bakhtin, 1981, p. 274]. This single-voicedness "demands our unconditional allegiance" and, as outlined above, this "renders the artistic representation of authoritative discourse impossible" [Bakhtin, 1981, pp. 343-344]. The skeptic’s rejection of this proposed definition of art therefore relies on a reaffirmation of exactly that which is impossible to maintain in its requisite dialogic relation.

If, as I hope to have shown, the skeptic’s reductio ad absurdum is a fallacious (or at least an irrelevant) argument, and indeed everything can be art, what does this entail? Critics of this view might argue that it is a destructive notion, that if everything is art, nothing is art, thereby destroying the significance of the field. However I would argue that this is an extremely negativistic outlook. Rather than subscribing to a pessimistic interpretation, I propose a positivistic, life-affirming and creative mode d’emploi for this definition of art. While writing this, I have become thoroughly familiarised with the white, stuccoed wall behind the monitor. As an object it has faded for the subject of my consciousness.

However through actively imposing defamiliarisation on the plaster, by entering into a dialogic relation and letting the utterances of the object and subject resonate, I become once again able to experience the artfulness of the thing as it is perceived, not as it is known. I might marvel at the physics that make it possible, how the gypsum and water molecules arrange themselves in stable patterns after being heated to a certain degree; or at the economics involved, how the collaborative effort of various businesses that create, trade, transport, and apply plaster interact; or at the underlying cultural factors, how it came to be a thing in society that millions of people smear coagulated sulfate minerals on their walls; or at how a myriad of humans have, over the course of countless lives, gradually contributed to something as simple as a few square feet of plastered wall. It is a cumulative miracle of epic proportions. It is neither the object nor the subject responsible for the artfulness of this, the author of this ‘artwork’ is the dialogic relation created in that very moment. In this way, in this moment, by the transformative process of shaking the habitual, the ordinary becomes art.

Bakhtin, M. Discourse in Dostoevsky // Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics / trans. C. Emerson. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota, 2003. P. 181–237.

Bakhtin, M. Discourse in The Novel // The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays / ed. M. Holquist. Austin: Univ. of Texas, 1981. P. 269–422.

Bourriaud, N. Relational Aesthetics / trans. Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods. Dijon: Leses Du Rél, 2009.

Denner, M.A. Dusting off the Couch (and Discovering the Tolstoy Connection in Shklovsky’s “Art as Device”) // The Slavic and East European Journal 52.3 2008. P. 370–388. JSTOR . Web. 23 Aug. 2014.

Shepherd, D. Bakhtin and the Reader / ed. D. Shepherd // Bakhtin and Cultural Theory / ed. K. Hirschkop. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1989. P. 91–108.

Shklovsky, V. “Art as Technique” // Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays / ed. Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska, 2012. P. 3–24.

Изменяя привычное: синтез бахтинского диалогизма и остранения Шкловского через реляционную эстетику

Макс Гисберген, магистрант (Магистерская программа по литературоведению) Университета Амстердама