The Artist As Social Worker Vs. The Artist as Social Wanker Or Five Acts of How
Citation
Schrag, A. (2016) The Artist As Social Worker Vs. The Artist as Social Wanker Or Five Acts of How. In: Quaresma, J., Longley, A., Dias, F. & Mendes, J. (eds.) Research in arts and absurd: informal methods and institutionalization of the conflict. Lisbon: Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema, pp. 108-123.
Abstract
Exploring the absurdity of practice-based research, this essay is framed using the lens of Samuel Beckett's notion of existentialism as a productive way of thinking through the problematic notions artists working and practising in the public realm. It incorporates Mouffe’s concept of agonism and traces some conceptual frameworks that have posited art as an ameliorative force within the public realm, discusses the complications of ‘intention’ embedded in language, as well as draws attention to the difference between these terms that are often interchangeably.