Art is an experience-inducing medium. Avant-garde art does not appeal to any traditional aesthetic experience but aims for a shared living experience of art. This experience differentiates from the former, typically more about personal, perhaps even solitary contemplation of beauty/ugliness or formal art elements. It can potentially be linked to Bourriaud’s shard⁄relational aesthetics, where assisted and shared experience may be key components. Relational aesthetics is not experienced in isolation but with others, readable others, and it is often facilitated by the artist or the artwork itself. The artist becomes the reader, and the reader potentially becomes an artist. Experience in amassing other reading experiences induces knowledge of the end, sensuality, tension, irony, and an ephemeral chance of touching reality.
I refer to John Dewey, Robert B. Talisse & Scott F. Aikin, 2011. bib⁄The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy. Princeton University.:
Experience in its vital form is experimental, an effort to change the given. It is characterized by projection, by reaching forward into the unknown. The connection with the future is its salient trait.
Experimental and lived experience indicates a willingness to explore and go beyond the familiar. It involves actively changing current affairs rather than passively accepting things as they are. This experimental nature of experience suggests a proactive approach to life, seeking new possibilities and pushing boundaries. Thus inducing new meanings to things.
Projection is another key characteristic of vital experience. It involves envisioning and imagining future outcomes, possibilities, or potentials. This forward-reaching aspect of experience acknowledges the importance of looking beyond the present moment and considering the consequences of our actions. By projecting into the unknown, we anticipate potential outcomes. Future archives or UbuWeb are available and waiting. (see: shard⁄Existentialism)