THE COEFFICIENT OF ART
This exercise was developed with students in class, and it was adapted to the virtual environment due to the restrictions on physical encounters caused by the pandemic.
In his famous lecture 'The Creative Act', Marcel Duchamp defined the art coefficient as a subjective mechanism that produces art à l’état brut, so to say, in a sort of raw state. He affirms that artists go from intention to realization through a series of subjective reactions: the result is a discrepancy between the intention and the realisation of the work of art; a difference which the artist cannot totally control. In other words, the ‘art coefficient’ is like an arithmetical relation between the unexpressed but intended and the unintentionally expressed. The spectator is the other subject that completes the work of art: s/he brings its inner value to the external world. Under the lens of usership, Stephen Wright, in his book 'Toward a lexicon of Usership' points out a series of questions that read the coefficient of art from a different angle:
‘Could it be that art is no longer (or perhaps never was) a minority practice, but rather something practiced by a majority, appearing with varying coefficients in different contexts? What coefficient of art have we here? Or there? What is the coefficient of art of such and such a gesture, object or practice?’.
Therefore, if there is no separation between what is art and what is not, it is potentially everywhere.
How do we calculate the coefficient of art?
Is it possible to do so?
Is it rather the sum of everything that creates what we call art?
Starting with ourselves, we will then look at other case studies that are included in the Arte Útil archive that operates on a 1:1 scale.
If it is possible to do the exercise in person, use the room to visualise the coefficient of the cohort. Ask everyone to choose a spot in the space according to their coefficient where the centre of the room is 100% and the walls are 0%.
For the variation to be used online, please use the slideshow below.
👩🏽🏫 Slideshow available HERE
References
🎧Duchamp, M. (1957), The Creative Act [mp3]. New York: Aspen Magazine
👓 Wright, S. (2013) 'Coefficient of Art'. In: Towards a Lexicon of Usership. Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum.