Bruce Barber - Communicative Action and Littoral Art

Communicative Action and Littoral Art

According to Barber, communicative action is very different from direct action or intervention, although it may seem to employ some of the characteristics of both. Jürgen Habermas, who has arguably done more than anyone else to theorize various forms of political action within the public sphere, distinguishes between strategic, instrumental and communicative actions. The distinction, he argues, between actions that are oriented toward success and those toward understanding is crucial. In strategic actions one actor seeks to influence the behavior of another by means of the threat of sanctions or the prospect of gratification in order to cause the interaction to continue as the first actor desires. Whereas in a communicative action one actor seeks rationally to motivate another by relying on the illocutionary binding/bonding effect of the offer contained in the speech act (J.L. Austin). Donative and Littoral art practices work in a way that challennges the strategies of the postmodern era: taking, quoting, and appropriating.

In a number of essays on "littoral art," Barber has emphasized donative art practices as examples of communicative action. Donative art actions insist that giving can be used strategically to further a number of identifiable lifeworld and humanitarian goals, as well as provide some critical intervention into the ideological fabric of our culture. While donative practices may activate a cycle of reciprocity, gifts may remain unreciprocated. Each cultural intervention, exemplary or not, engages a "logic of practice" (Pierre Bourdieu) that encourages an infinite variety of exchanges or gifts, challenges, ripostes, reciprocations, and repressions. The logic of practice privileges agency in its unpredictability and provides, according to Habermas, an alternative to money and power as a basis for societal integration. Among the artists engaged in donative art practices and who are mentioned in Barber's writings are: Istvan Kantor, David Mealing, Yin Xiaofeng, REPOhistory, Kelly Lycan & Free Food, Bloom 98, WochenKlausur, Ala Plastica, Peter Dunn & Lorraine Leeson, Art Link, Hirsch Farm Project.