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Aesthetics Drama and Strategy Creation1 2

Michel Filippi - michel.filippi@ec-lyon.frResearch Associate – Academos, Archives H. Poincaré

Faculty of Philosophy – Université Nancy 2

Franck Tannery - Franck.Tannery@univ-lyon2.fr

ProfessorCoactis (EA 41 61) – Université Lyon 2 – Université de Lyon14/16 av Berthelot – 69363 Lyon cedex 07 – 04 72 71 65 01

Abstract

The creation of strategy passes through the institution of a political scene where criteria,

principles and values are affirmed for action. However, strategy is not only an affair of reason

but also of passion, sensibilities and sensations that call for the constitution of an aesthetic

scene. In addition to the study of the dynamics of this aesthetic scene, the effort put into

modelization also delimits the possible levers in the conception of this scene based on the

analyses in the domain of art, metropolitan strategies and innovation. In terms of theory, the

work relies principally on the propositions of the pragmatist J. Dewey who, in his work, Art

as Experience, invites us to fully take measure of the aesthetic and sensorial phenomena to

understand human and social action.

1 Note to the reader:This text willingly adopts the formalism of the essay. It is a conceptual text that explores a strategic question thatis currently being pursued by the Planning and Strategy Unit of Greater Lyon as well as the ExecutiveManagement of Greater Lyon (see annex). This form enables us to bring to light the theoretical bases usingfootnotes. The form of presentation is close to practices of other social sciences. Thus the authors implicitlyinvite the field of strategy to not close itself off in one disciplinary formula, which would risk being a sign ofscientism.2 The research developed in this text has been supported by the Planning and Strategy Unit of Greater Lyon. Wewould like to thank them here for their help.

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The text comes back to this generic question of the sensorial and experiential world in order

to clarify its boundaries and importance for strategy. It will then be possible to identify how

aesthetic criteria and qualitative judgment inscribes each period of time, each situation within

a certain “fold” and within a certain approach to the world. This inscription defines the

routine from which the strategy creation tries to extract itself, and can be considered as an

attempt to create another sensorial imaginary world. The third step presents the possible

levers for this kind of creation. Once the creation of a new imaginary world is accomplished

the issue of its deployment remains. To achieve this purpose, the fourth section presents the

necessity of the system to fully connect the new or different sensorial and qualitative signs.

From there, the fifth section shows that the deployment of a sensorial imaginary world occurs

through the propagation of practices belonging to this new Aesthetic Scene. The text finishes

with a return to the Political Scene in order to analyze the interconnection between the two

scenes for strategy creation and to explore the possible consequences that may occur when

political actions attain an autonomous usage of the aesthetic one.

Keywords: Political – Aesthetic – Innovation – Design – Conception

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It can happen while walking through the streets of such towns as Barcelona, Vienna, Naples

or Lyon – as if there is a certain magic contained in these places that provokes an

instantaneous and personal transformation. One can easily experience the feeling of being

someone completely different yet, at the same time, remain oneself. These towns are made up

of the same objects, same function as other towns, yet they make us feel different and make us

react differently than we normally would. It is not a question of language, and not necessarily

a question of taste. This reaction is not due to the presence of particular monuments, or

exceptional scenery. You might say it is a question of love.

Our experiences in these towns are analogous to what a person feels when it’s “love at first

sight” – an experience where the world feels changed, and we become someone else. We feel

the attraction, we are in love. We are drawn to this town and this attraction transforms us.

Each of these towns activates, in the pedestrian, a sensitivity that gives birth to an emotion.

This emotion is the signal that some type of transformation is occurring. Of course, there is no

guarantee that these towns will create this commotion in all of us. It is a result of mechanisms

that have been built, and that will intervene, in each individual in a manner that is only, and

exclusively, experiential. These are mechanisms that activate in certain of us sensorial or

qualitative states, whether or not we are aware of them and we can connect them into a unique

whole.

Something similar happens when entering the Vatican. The entrance, the approach, was

conceived in such a way as to be very tiring, a veritable trial to enter there, unpleasant and

filled with anxiety. It has nothing to do with the actual measured distance, nor with the height

of the buildings facing you. We are drawn to it. The actual geometry of the surrounding space

contributes to this sensation. There is an indisputable sense of separation, the immeasurable

distance between the sacred and the profane. This distance is felt as reality by the person who

is prey to this feeling of heaviness, of weight, of fatigue. The more you approach the entrance,

the farther away it seems and the more the Vatican above appears to belong to the heavens.

There was the same effect of weight, heaviness, the infinite distance in the feeling that

invaded visitors upon their approach to the throne of the Emperor of Byzantine3.

3 Mussolini had his office build along similar lines.

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Certain common objects can provoke such abrupt sensory changes. Take the case of an

ordinary MP3. Nothing special, it simply allows you to listen to music. Now change to the

iPod by Apple. Even with identical functions, another dimension is still felt in the same

activity. You have the iPod, you feel proud to be operating in another world whose keys are at

your fingertips and, suddenly, knowledge of that world becomes immediate. If the iPod is

nothing more than electronic memory dressed up, then Apple would only be proposing more

and more sophisticated technology for its technical users. As one among many, would the

iPod, even offering the same or maybe better services, be different than the Korean MPMan

or the Rio PMP300 that preceded it? Strictly speaking, there would not be a new sensibility, a

new emotion. The iPod with iTunes and Podcasting opened up on another way of navigating

with human beings to definitively create a world in itself, toppling the existing one. So, while

Apple was creating worlds with the iPod and its computers, the manufacturer of the Rio,

remained only one technical manufacturer among others, such as the maker of the MPMan.

All these worlds and these scenes are constructed, and function, in one unique way. There is a

bringing together of bodies – the human body, and the body of an object to form a particular

world and a scene that functions. This movement is only possible due to the mobilization of

certain states, both internal and external, of sensibilities4, generating emotion and the

construction of sensation. The framework of the scene is built, linking the different bodies

into one particular world. A specific event has been created that reflects on the current,

functional identity of each body in order to increase it until it substitutes with its own

meaning. And so an Aesthetic Scene is created and developed. This Scene is complementary

to another, the Political Scene5 that also defines a form of identity and framework, less so for

the sensorial, experiential subject than for the social subject.

The aesthetic world has always been linked to the political world. Adjectives, such as upper

and lower, are used to define a social hierarchy, defining the social relationship as well as the

physical placement and the connections made, in a space that is felt, refelt and finally

perceived. Aesthetic presentations are also symbols of power (painting, photos, etc.) We can

4 According to Russell’s line of thinking, experiential qualities belong to ordinary objects but we are notconscious of the difference of these experiential data. The construction of the Aesthetic Scene makes these“sensibilia” appear as emotion before they become sense data, or sensations whose origin is located in physical,present objects (cf. Russell B., History of my Philosophic Ideas, p. 131).5 Certain authors such as B. Deloche, have understood and presented this link: “Only politics has understood thatonly the mastering of sensory perceptions can assure ‘the way to an absolute empire over man’, which explainstheir paradoxical relationship with artists: adulation or prison!”, Extract from a conference given on September1, 1995 by Bernard Deloche before l'UNESCO’s International Summer School of Museology (ISSOM) atl'Université Masaryk of Brno (Czech Republic)

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include political or economic symbols and myths in this approach (Barcelona and Vienna, the

T Ford, the Boeing 747, Churchill and Mandela). All of these examples have become the

aesthetic symbols they are because they carry a built-in emotional, physical, qualitative and

experiential charge that we are drawn to and that transform us.

The strategic enterprise aiming to create a collective action must, in this sense, operate on

these two complementary scenes that are analytically distinguishable yet inseparable: the

Political Scene where principles for action and directions for the future are developed, and the

Aesthetic Scene where the conditions for learning and for developing a relationship to the

world are created on sensorial, qualitative and experiential levels. These two scenes elicit and

enact the values respectively of Goodness and Beauty.

The strategic field has, for the most part, focused on the Political Scene. The Aesthetic Scene

has not been recognized as a separate entity and remains largely confined to the domains of

art and design which are, themselves, included within the Political Scene. There is no

justification for this limitation. The beauty of the Political Scene is not the beautiful of the

Aesthetic Scene. That beauty precedes beautiful is only a social habit that changes according

to fashion.

The creation of an innovation be it product, social act, service, the creation of a new

organizational form6 or even the installation of a metropolitan dynamic, requires that the

dispersed or unknown qualitative conditions are instituted and then kept together. It is because

they are able to reveal themselves to each other and the fact that they remain together,

establishing their boundaries, that there is a Scene (otherwise we would find ourselves dealing

with merely a question of personal taste or a physiological reaction). The manner of being

together constitutes a point of view in the sense that Russell speaks of. Thus the conditions

required for action are established. To respond to this ontological aspect of strategy that is

creation, requires both thought and action of the Aesthetic Scene.

The following text proposes a conceptual framework revealing the conditions necessary for an

Aesthetic Scene. The framework may be applied to similar issues within different situations

(metropolis, new product conceptions, art creation). The thesis developed here is that the

sensorial and aesthetic is not solely reserved for the artistic domain but that all strategic

6 This fact has become recognized for the analysis of organizational dynamics thanks to A. Strati. See notably,Strati A., (1996), “Organizations Viewed through the Lens of Aesthetics”, Organization, Vol. 3, N° 2, p. 209-218 or Eweanstein B., Whyte J., (2007), “Beyond Words: Aesthetic Knowledge and Knowing in Organizations”,Organization Studies, Vol. 28, N° 5, p.689-708 and above all, Strati A, (2004), Aesthetics and Organization,Laval University Press

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creation, all innovation requires this approach in order to guarantee success. A cumulative

effect, a densification of perception around this new way of qualitative thinking, translates

very concretely into economical, technical or geographical polarizations around new activities

and new imaginary forms.

We attempt to model the dynamics involved in the construction of the sensorial world and the

Aesthetic Scene in six phases. The first point consists of coming back to the generic question

of the sensorial and experiential world to clarify its boundaries and importance for strategy. It

will be then possible to identify how aesthetic criteria and qualitative judgment effects each

period of time, each situation within a certain “fold” and within a certain approach to the

world. This defines the routine from which strategy creation tries to extract itself, and can be

considered as an attempt to create another sensorial imaginary world. The third step presents

the possible levers for this kind of creation. Once the creation of a new imaginary world is

accomplished the issue of its deployment remains. To achieve this purpose, the fourth section

discusses the need to fully connect the system of new or different sensorial and qualitative

signs. From there, the fifth section shows that the deployment of a sensorial imaginary world

occurs through the propagation of practices belonging to the new Aesthetic Scene. The text

finishes with a return to the Political Scene in order to analyze the interconnection between

the two scenes for strategy creation and to explore the possible consequences that may occur

when political actions attain an autonomous usage of the Aesthetic.

1. The return to the sensory

The construction of the Aesthetic Scene depends of the relationship among three autonomous

worlds: that of representation, of those represented and of meaning7. Meaning emerges from

the interpretation of signs, from signals, and presentations of sensorial triggers. In those who

see it as more that just a simple reference, the presentation of sensorial release mechanisms

that will provoke perception and create a sign of a possible (sensory) state of the world.

Construction of a general signification then occurs (or not) because other signals will, in the

same instant, make themselves known and will link with other signals in an aligned manner,

thus rendering present, here and now, a possible state of the world. This is the general

mechanism involved in the construction of an Aesthetic Scene. It is not founded on a sole

7 At least if we follow, as we propose to do here, the theoretical framework of semiotics (science of signs) of thephilosopher C. S. Peirce, Fundamental texts on Semiotics, (translated from English by Berthe Fouchier-Axelsen,Clara Foz, 1987 Méridiens Klincksieck).

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neurophysiologic stimulus receptor that is really only the satisfaction of the expectations of

our organs of perception. It is founded in the interpretation and the translation of the sensory

into something else that will direct attention and engender a particular experience, a world in

itself that can overtake the sensory mode.

The necessity to activate an Aesthetic Scene for all strategy creation comes from the fact that

all knowledge and consciousness of the world originates in an immediate and qualitative

experience of the world8. Of course, strategy defines intention and political vision.

Simultaneously, strategy must present a particular form so that intention can still leave a place

for sensation and emotion. Even strategy formulation must attract the sensations of the actors

in order to obtain their commitment and transform theses actors into affective vectors of an

Aesthetic Scene. Without theses processes, there is a risk that the actors won’t understand,

apprehend or correctly interpret the strategy. The strategy will not make sense to them; will

not “talk’ to them. Recognizing the existence and the place of the Aesthetic Scene is crucial

for the processes of sense giving and sensemaking.

However, in strategy, the planners are dedicated above all to the Political Scene with its

enactment of principles of action, of values and norms of what is true and good. Yet the

human being, in its integrity, combines both, closely interwoven, Scenes – the Aesthetic and

the Political. To recognize the mind’s bodily inscription or that the creativity of the human

reaction is not in contradiction with the perception and sensibility to the world through the

body, is no longer sufficient9. Henceforth, one must go beyond strategy to be open to the

dynamics of the experiential world.

Elias Canetti in “Crowds and Power” masterfully describes this phenomenon: how an

individual carried away by the crowds is a body with this mass, becomes this mass and, at the

same time, is an actor of political power in this mass. He also shows how politics uses this

sensory experience for its own ends. Surreptitiously, it appears (unless if you are aiming for a

8 As R. Shusterman noted in his introduction to J.Dewey’s book Art as Experience, there is a common groundbetween J. Dewey and C. S. Peirce (translated from English and coordinated by J. P. Cometti, 2005, Publicationsof the University de Pau – Editions Farrago, p. 7). The interest of Dewey’s work for the analysis oforganizational dynamics is judiciously commented on M.Cohen, (2007) “Reading Dewey: Reflexions on theStudy of Routine”, Organization Studies, vol. 28, N°59 This is not the forum to reopen the vast debate surrounding action theory in the light of recent work in thecognitive sciences. We will limit ourselves here to point out the apparent convergence of these analyses thatlimit the separation between “the subjective constitution of the agent and the body where he reigns and that ofthe objective world where he exercises his action”, in J. L. Petit, “General Introduction”, p. 7, de J. L. Petit, TheNeurosciences and Action Theory, Vrin, 1997. These propositions join with the latest analyses of F. Varela, E.Thompson et E. Rosch, The Mind’s Bodily Inscription, 1999, Seuil ou H. Joas, The creativity of the Act, originaled. 1992, translated from the German by Pierre Rusch, 1999 Editions du Cerf.

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pure and simple “amputation” of its force, its potential and its attraction) that all creation, all

collective movement and social action have a profound resonance with the experiential mode

of inscription of the individual in the world. Thinking in Aesthetic terms allows us to

rediscover the subject’s political and strategic creation and his individualism within the

collective.

The collusion between the Gregorian chants and the physical practices of the monks who

interpret them appears to be an exemplary case of the intrication of the scenes. The scene of

the gregorian body is intermingled with the natural physicality of the monk, an intermingling

that is further concretized by the individual training program and a program of hygienics, in

the old sense of the term, that together become an ensemble of moral precepts. The daily

gestures become artificial and there is a “refusal” by the monk of his natural body. His step

sliding along the floor as he walks produces a sense of interiorization, a sensation for the

monk himself as well as for others. This refusal does not translate as an absence of body but

rather a refusal of its nature to be replaced by the good gesture, the “Beau Geste”. At the same

time, the monk is accomplishing his prayers using the Gregorian chant which is a mastering

of voice and of diction. This self-interiorization separates the profane from the divine, linking

individuals to God while separating them from others. These are two formal expressions of

the same Aesthetic that hold together. One cannot exist without the other. One has no

meaning without the other. Separated, they are only a mannered method to move, to place

one’s body, to sing beautifully (which is actually what the Gregorian chant is today). These

forms, this Aesthetic, continue by, and in, the political power of these monks, their refusal, a

priori, of this politic and the major use they make of the ordo romanus.

We can us an example from another field – the computer, one of the major daily objects of

these last few decades and more specifically the microcomputer in the Microsoft era. As with

the Gregorian chant and the physicality of the monk, Microsoft created an Aesthetic Scene

with activities and products that enabled Microsoft to grow to the point where it became a

political power using such political tools as the imposition of norms, social actions and peer

relationships with political leaders. Not only has Microsoft developed a new way of using the

computer, but, more broadly, there was a creation of another way of grasping the qualitative

world of the machine, the world of electrons (Windows) and another way of relating to others

(Messenger) that led to a generation that is a world in itself where the general do-it-yourself,

and continual adjustment reigns. Simultaneously, Apple built a competitive Aesthetic Scene

constructed with the same objects but with other sensations, based on the mobilization of

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other “qualia”. At the same moment, the aesthetic and political scenes of IBM, DEC (or

DIGITAL) were being distinguished as well as led to ruin. IBM will be reborn, but not DEC.

Another Aesthetic Scene, Linux, will be born.

During the creation of the world of a strategy, these examples indicate to what extent no one

word can be used to describe these these scenes that are under construction, before they have

been completely created. Afterwards, of course one speaks easily of micro-computing,

intuitive environments, free software…but before? Before it was the inexpressible that

dominated. The experiential, the sensorial is not in the domain of words, it is only emotion

that may be the object of a discourse and the resultant meaning that may enable the

organization of the discourse.

At first, for orientation and experience, only sensibility, emotion and a use of sensation could

guide a human being. It is the same whether it is about the arrival in a new place, a new town,

or a new product utilization. Before a new product, all senses are on alert in the hope to help

orient the user. As this new world takes form before his eyes, to find confidence the

individual will mobilize and use his sensations as a sort of piloting instrument, yet it is the

sensorial that will eventually enable the emergence of meaning. The strategist is very much

aware of this period of instability where, above all, he speaks of sensations felt and on his

strategic questions, as long as his strategic political project is not clearly formulated. The

individual evolves effectively in his new situation or more generally, in the world, with this

packet of emotion, sensibility and sensation. It is important to introduce this natural and

physical aspect that will remind us that the body moves within the social and cultural world.

In turn, this constructs other emotions, experiences and affect via the collective and personal

imaginations of Beauty.

From a strategic point of view, the Aesthetic Scene then returns to conceive of this particular

space that holds together human nature, individual and collective energy, physical reality and

something that could be describes as a cultural fact, a certain knowledge of the production of

a work, a social place, a cultural manner of intervening in the world and of constructing

ideas10. These works could be artistic, which has long been the domain of the Aesthetic.

However, the revolutions introduced in the 20th Century by artists such as Marcel Duchamp,

Andy Warhol or Joseph Beuys showed that depending on context, a thing could be a work of

10 Such a space can then be considered as one of the main human issue whose knowledge relies ontechnoscientific research and development, to use the expression proposed by G. Hottois, Philosophy of Science,Philosphy of Technique, Odile Jacob, 2004

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art or nothing more than what it is. Hereafter, one may consider that the production of a work

of art is not limited to the domain of Beaux-Arts and can be equally found in the production

of a town, a software program or a lamp as well as in the production of bread each the

morning11.

To not think in terms of the Aesthetic Scene, the metropolis, the town or the social, political

or economic production, in general, will make these places, object and things an amorphic

domain where all is equivalent. This equivalence not being the case, it is our experience that

tells us they are.

The strategic concern of a town or enterprise is to be able to exist as an Aesthetic Scene. It is a

major strategic challenge, for otherwise the town, city, enterprise or products will not exist. In

other words, they will not be able to be identified as such. There is no attraction, no desire, no

need to be there, to be part of it and to contribute to it. The town, for example, remains an

anonymous, no-name suburb. There are so many towns of 100 thousand people like that in the

United States, or even of millions in China, that don’t really exist in the sense that nothing in

particular can be said about them – they are just a place where people live – in the middle of

nowhere. This is not to say that the fact that a product, a town, a suburb “exists” creates an

Aesthetic Scene. It is necessary that the person, in all his social and cultural dimensions, with

all his sensibilities, can, just by being there, have his point of view changed12 and perceive

himself differently than usual. The being of the person, experiencing the body of this unique

town through his own body, feels and receives an identity that goes beyond his social

existence. The existence of the Aesthetic Scene takes into consideration the “point of view” of

those living that social situation and who are part of that social body. There is a difference

between an interior and an exterior. Those who live within this town-scene will not have the

same emotions; will not develop the same sensations as those who exist outside the scene yet

within the town. These actual sensations will differ, depending on those that built the

Aesthetic Scene.

The Aesthetic Scene, an important phenomenon for strategic creation, invites us to describe

and to think of all one space, sort of as a rock of reality upon which the subject-actor sculpts.

11 Because, as Dewey saw it, in his Chapter 3 entitled “Living an Experience”, in his work The Experience ofArt, op.cit, there is constantly a qualitative experience, by interaction, between the living being and hisenvironment. This expereince is a form that individualizes. “All activity producing form contains an aestheticdimension”, or even, “all practical activity, to the extent that it is integrated and progesses by it desire ofaccomplishment contains an aesthetic dimension” (p.64).12 cf. Russell supra

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We have said that currently strategy not only doesn’t link the Aesthetic Scene with the

Political Scene but basically ignores it. Ignoring this scene does not imply that it doesn’t exist

within the Political Scene. From the beginning of time, the aesthetical world is linked with the

political world. Adjectives, such as upper and lower, are used to define a social hierarchy,

defining social relationships as well as physical placement. In addition, aesthetic presentations

are symbols of power (paintings, photos, etc.) and we can also include political or economic

symbols and myths in this approach (Barcelona and Vienna, the Ford T and the Boeing 747,

Churchill and Mandela). All these examples have become the aesthetic symbols they are

because they carry a built-in emotional, physical, qualitative and experiential charge. The

strategic enterprise targets the creation of a collective action that must, in this way, operate on

two complementary scenes, analytically distinguishable, yet inseparable: the Political Scene

where principles of action are formed with orientation for the future, and the Aesthetic Scene

where conditions for learning and the relationship to the world are formed on qualitative and

sensorial levels. These two scenes chose and decree the values, respectively of Goodness and

Beauty.

While the strategic field has widely focused on the Political Scene, the Aesthetic Scene has

not been recognized as a separate entity and remains largely confined to the domains of

design and beauty which are, themselves, included within the Political Scene. There is no

justification for this limitation. The creation of an innovation be it a product, social act or

service, the creation of a new organizational form13 or even the installation of a metropolitan

dynamic requires that they are implemented and that the dispersed or unknown qualitative

conditions are kept together. It is because they are able to reveal themselves to each other and

that they remain together, establishing their boundaries, that there is a Scene (otherwise we

would find ourselves dealing with just a question of personal taste or a physiological

reaction). The “ensemble” will constitute a point of view in the sense that Russell speaks of,

and it will select those qualitative conditions that will be required for action. To respond to

13 This fact has become recognized for the analysis of organizational dynamics thanks to A. Strati. See notably,Strati A., (1996), “Organizations Viewed through the Lens of Aesthetics”, Organization, Vol. 3, N° 2, p. 209-218 or Eweanstein B., Whyte J., (2007), “Beyond Words: Aesthetic Knowledge and Knowing in Organizations”,Organization Studies, Vol. 28, N° 5, p.689-708 and above all, Strati A, (2004), Aesthetics and Organization,Laval University Press

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this ontological aspect of strategy that is creation, requires thought from the Aesthetic Scene

and action for the Aesthetic Scene to the exclusion of others.

2. The current “fold”

Day after day, places that we frequent, an object that we use, a particular landscape that is

always the same, belong to worlds that are losing their contours, little by little. They become

banal, common, undifferentiated. Day after day the same thing appears, the same gesture is

needed and the same definition is unavoidable. The emotion that first accompanied them

diminishes, not because the world has changed, but because it has become known, too known,

permanently recognizable without provoking the least difference or the least disruption. A

disruption, without which, a new type of knowledge is not possible. It is one of the well-

known difficulties for products that everyone has or uses. Once the novelty or fashion has

worn off, the exceptional aspect fades away14. If we possess a luxury car nothing changes:

over time it remains the same, it is always there. The only solution would be to introduce a

change, creating a novelty, by disrupting the perceptive, sensory and experiential fields. This

impasse has been, up until now, one of the principle forces driving innovation.

This also concerns cities depending on modalities partly different. Without falling for the

illusion of homogenous globality, from corporate and market internationalization emerge an

almost omnipresence of the same commercial chains, the same objects and the same products.

This presence relies on the same architecture. The will to multiply urban projects in a

framework of a competitive territorial race is seen by the number of constructions very close

in “inspiration” of the same international architects. Today, this race is run on all fronts:

buildings, museums, biennials, conference centers, events, stadiums etc. Given the general

desire to impress with something spectacular, the metropolis becomes less and less specific.

The “spectacular” diminishes quickly and the efforts turn into an ephemeral façade which

constantly requires to be reworked, renewed. The town, the metropolis, is thus prey to

aesthetic exhaustion15.

This endless race against the clock of undifferentiation, against the slow but deadly erosion of

qualitative and sensorial perceptions, is exacerbated by the growing efforts of political and

14 “… all artistic modes … tend to justify themselves by a state of fact, or that which is taken as such. There is anaturalism of fashion values that translates as adoration of that which already exists” Bonnot R., Sur les modes etles styles, 1952, L’Année sociologique, p. 11.15 This exhaustion is clearly emphasized by Dewey (2005): “there are two sorts of worlds possible within whichan aesthetic experience cannot be produced. In a world where all is in flux, change will not be a cumulativeprocess and will not strive towards an end. There will neither stability nor rest” , p. 36.

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public discourse to fill the media with the vain hope of emphasizing the singularity of the

project of the moment, the action of the day16. The more they want to capture the public’s

attention by pronouncing statements to expose a specific trait, a rare trait, the more these traits

rapidly appear the same17. Communication and storytelling on consumption and use also have

an effect on discourses and the towns themselves. They become brochures distributed to all

and everyone who passes. These brochures, one among many that parade indifferently –

create small bonfires instead of fireworks.

The risk is nothing less that the slow, almost insidious reduction of the sense of the world and

its objects, places, moments, ideas and knowledge. The world is like it is and remains as such.

The only thing that counts is its maintenance and presence. The actors within it are no longer

considered as events, but rather are seen as a daily flood of movement and interchangeable

habits. Reality does no more than follow the fold, the dominate trend, as if it found the hook

upon which its survival could be slowly but consistently assured. Mental and experiential

activity towards the world according to the mode (signal, sign, significance) no longer

operates. Action could perhaps create a signal but it would not create sign. It would only point

out what was already there. It would be ruined in the current perceptions and no longer would

beable to construct meaning – only definitions exist.

The fact of being in a milieu of signals not leading to signs that may have a particular or new

character, blocks all construction towards a different future. No opening towards a new

perception is possible. The person finds himself simply embarking in a current imaginary

world that has become banal – its boundaries clearly defined and set out. That obstacle is to

the detriment of an emergence of a new interesting world, a world to know, a world in which

one must be present and self-aware. An insistent and current present is created.

This anchoring in the current imagination, to the sense and meanings that are taken as a given,

inscribes an action in each of us that the Greeks called an “apeiron”: a space without limit. In

this “no limit” area, orientation is not possible. There is no possibility to orient oneself

towards the unknown. “No limit” behaves as if within all is of equal value. There is no need

for exit. It holds no other experience. Everyone that meets there is in a relationship of value 16 To respond to this vulnerabilty that European metropolises face, Greater Lyon has launched a campaign for theintegration of images and actions under one single discourse and image: “Only Lyon”. New forms of collectiveactivity linked to current role of media is analyzed by M. Gauchet in “Counterpower, metapower, antipower”, LeDébat, January/February, 2006, N° 138. On the importance of communication of strategy in order to structurerelationships among the strategic stakeholders V. Chanal, F. Tannery, “The rhetoric of strategy: how domanagers create an order for action?”, Finance Contrôle Stratégie, 2007, vol 10, N°217 The topical generalization about storytelling that may lead to a possible loss of sense or contact with realityhas been particularly well explained by C. Salmon, Storytelling, La Découverte, 2007

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that has been clearly stabilized and, possibly definitively, established. This present, what is

already there, can continue without disruption. It only has to carry on, without end, on its own

path towards the “insistent present”; its history from before being relegating to “yesterday”,

towards what is called “tomorrow”, simply because this present seems to change, manifesting

as a time without space18.

There are also, for example, contemporary cars, planes, train stations and trains that, at their

most profound do nothing more than pursue our grandparents’ (and great-grandparents)

dreams of cars, planes, stations and trains, without the inclusion of another way of perceiving,

and/or constructing mobility. Slowly, but surely, all cars begin to resemble each other, each

following the same design down to the slightest angle. All the rest, the trains, planes and train

stations, resemble each other, except for the rare accident. And yet, we say that these cars are

new, that these planes never existed before, that these train stations and trains are truly

creations.

These efforts follow a dynamic that was written yesterday, a former Aesthetic Scene, without

changing the current action strategy. The more the discourse changes, the more the actors

pursue their way of being and reacting according to the old, established world. They bend in

every way and invent all sorts of novelty so that the old scene can be maintained in an

insistent present. The disruption of balance is only an illusion.

This propensity to be continually enrolled in the present fold is strangely accompanied by a

consistent desire to try to come out of this fold. However, the accepted rules of the moment,

the criteria of judgment on Beauty and the recognized, even demanded, identity only

reinforces the fold – no matter what efforts are made to word it differently.

Of course a change, an opening, still remains possible and even likely. It will necessitate a

particular type of detour, a sort of mock exit from oneself, to avoid staying in one’s stability,

in one’s closed world, in his monad. It will require feeling the instability of this world, of the

current fold that contains an indescribable reality. It must go towards what is needed to create

a new scene. Even if, in the same movement, there is the perception of this indescribable

reality, there must be an effort to go towards a new meaning. Given this, with the sensation of

instability of this indescribable, one has to work on its definition, on its semantics.

18 This overlappiong of simultaneous time, couple and uncoupled, with its consequences on sensations and thesensorial world is presented in Weyl H., Space, Time, Matter, original ed. 1952, reedition Dover Publications,Inc.

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This is what M. Duchamp accomplished in creating a new designation (“readymade”) to make

the change happen and to be able to recognize this world. He did it by artificializing the work

of the artist and by refusing the prevailing wisdom for a methodology of exit from the current

fold, in fact, from all folds. It is a collective work using a semantic pool, images, words, that

will allow an opening to a new imaginary world, allowing us to have a new regard on this

particular part of reality that until now had been hidden by the current fold.

3. The creation of an aesthetic imaginary world, a new sensibility

How can the new be born from the old? How is it possible to create an aesthetic imaginary

world with a new dominant form of sensibility? Before proposing a possible direction for

answering these questions, we will first show how, in fact, historically, this has already been

accomplished with Roman and Gothic Art19. We should also remember that this had been

actually a question of management for christianity.

Roman monasteries were, and are, architectural wonders. That doesn’t mean that what one

calls Gothic was not yet possible in this period. The broken arch, ogival, one of the

characteristics of Gothic Art (terminology only from the 19th century) already existed during

the period of Roman art20. However, well known as it was, it was not, or rarely, used in

Europe. The immense windows used to let light in did exist in Roman art – you can see that

by looking at the diameter of the rosace in the church of the Cluny Abbey. Of course, its

massiveness is compared to the lace stonework of the gothic rosace. Finally, flying buttresses

are not specifically a gothic creation and yet none of that architecture was used in the 9th, 10th

and 11th centuries as architects would use it much later. One could argue that the necessary

technology for a gothic cathedral was not available during roman times, but that is not the

question21. In the Roman period it was simply inconceivable that the vessel of the church or

19 We have borrowed certain ideas and concepts from the Aesthetic psychology of W. Worringer, A. Riegl andT. Lipps, to contruct our concept of the Aesthetic Scene and describe its functioning. These ideas include the willof form, the bipolarization of human finality in this will, the promblematization of space as a condition of formand the rejection of imitation of nature as the objective of this finality One can find the necessary references inthe work of W. Worringer, “Abstraction and Einfühlung”. In addition, the cross-analysis of roman and gothic artrelied on the work of W. Worringer, Gothic Art, original ed. 1927, translation by D. Decourdemanche, 1941Paris, Gallimard20 “…ogival art, of which certain specimans appear in the 11th century, does not owe its expansion to the fact ofbeing a new technique, but to have brought, at a precise moment in the spiritual development of Christiansociety, the forms that permitted the expression and satisfaction of the current aspirations.” Bonnot, R., op. cité,p. 1921 “One would not believe….that a style as magnificent and full of apparent vitality could disappear because arenewal of a technique already familiar would offer its conveniences. It is not enough to inventory and date thefirst edifice where the “gothic” flora succeeded the roman decor. For however remarkable it may be, thesimultaneous change of décor and technique must draw our attention the the state of mind that made itsappearance in the new art that casts its ribbed vault toward the heaven.”. Bonnot R., op. cité, p. 19.

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the cathedral be bathed in light. Light is a sign of the human relationship to God. This rapport

can only be the individual to a God that is very intimate yet also very distant (it is the far end

of the light that manifests God’s presence in the church). The light had to be very precisely

targeted, showing the body of Christ as an individual who is also haloed with this light,

becoming a subject who is both autonomous as well as intimately linked with a God.

What we call Gothic is simply another relationship to a divinity, a collective relationship with

the divine. Gothic cathedrals proclaim this relationship, prepare it, manifest it, and make it felt

as a sensation, an emotion and thus a new knowledge that has its bodily inscription. The

Gothic cathedral aims to make the group feel an omnipresent god, immediately present with

no sense of distance, making each man equal. Behind these constructions is a theological

evolution, a political revolution in the relationships of the Church and the papacy with the

different reigning sovereigns. The Gothic individual is a subject with a new significance, part

of the collective submission, a subject without autonomy. The Roman individual has the

direct rapport of the fidel to the sovereign, of man to God. Each depends on the other in all

autonomy. This direct rapport will disappear with the Gothic era. The dependence is one way.

There is no longer autonomy, only political subjects. In this perspective, the era of Louis XIV

in France is perhaps the height of this Political Scene.

We have gone from one type of government to another, from one God to another. This

passage, of course, took place by the rule, by the continuous change of what exists, by

personal political reflection that was both objectified and debated. Yet, the thesis defended

and analyzed here describes that this passage also took place, as much by the mobilization of

sensibility, by a new emotion and with the intermingling of the old sensations with the new to

create a new Aesthetic Scene that took the being differently in order to make known, and to

bring forward, a different political world. The Counter-Reformation understood the problem

and would engender Baroque Art as a political instrument to reconvince the populace with the

power of a sensation and an emotion never before felt22. The Baroque Aesthetic Scene

ushered in a new world. Heaven would be based neither on the pillars of faith as in Roman

time nor on the Community as in Gothic times. Nothing seemed to hold it together and yet

there is enlightenment and illumination, reflecting towards Man the light that they themselves

brought into being.

22 This ouverture in the Baroque as another time is closed is conceptualized by G. Deleuze dans The Fold:Leibniz and the Baroque,1988, Les Editions de Minuit.

15

This example, extensively developed, shows that the concept of a future sensation could

assure an opening towards a new imaginary world23. Still, on the contrary, the maintenance of

a known perception will become an obstacle. In a particular world, at a given moment, there is

always a certain sensation that appears unacceptable, an emotion that is reprimanded. We thus

find ourselves caught in a particular fold. It is important to find the way to create

discontinuity, and it is the analyses of such a discontinuity that will help us to grasp the means

towards disengagement24.

At first, each is inscribed in a current Aesthetic Scene that is linked to a particular Political

Scene, expressing social rules of perception before an opening towards another world of

perception appears, before the possibility of another Aesthetic Scene that will eventually

create a new sensory world. This creation comes from the current world. The current world is

constantly reconsolidating those elements that make it up. It is a sort of completely non-rigid

fort that is, at each second, forced to reconstruct its walls. At any given second the ensemble

is not holding together. This world produces waste, meaning those elements that this world no

longer identifies as part of itself. The waste will overtake and eventually absorb its world. In

any given moment, the world will try to use this waste to insure its maintenance, its

reconstruction. It is then that the waste provokes unrest, movement, other borders, a Beautiful

that will take over as the new beauty of a new world. This phenomenon of waste brings it to

understand that there is a reality upon which the current is built. It is through the return of the

waste and the production of the fold of the dominant sensibility of the moment, that there is

an exit. There was an invention and the construction of a new world. The waste itself is the

means by which we can grasp an unrecognizable reality due to the familiarity that it retains

for awhile before becoming unrecognizable. Paradoxically, it confers familiarity to the

unfamiliar.

In the passage from Roman to Gothic the waste was centered around light and the place of the

subject in this world. Paradoxically, the Roman waste was the place of the divine, the 23 We can find there certain analyses of Foucault on the technologes of power and the mechanisms ofgovernment even if he did not give them an aesthetic dimension. All form of rationalization of collective actioncarries within it an experiential world. A. Hatchuel et al, Government, organization and management, theheritage of Michel Foucault, University of Laval Press, 2005. We are also close to certain analyses of E.Goffman who particularly insisted on the link between the framing of action and its experiential staging, ThePresentation of Self in Everyday Life, translated from English, 1973, Les Editions de Minuit24 In addition to the analyses presented here, it was also possible to include the analyses developed by ErwinPanofsky on the evolution of representation manifested by western painting. In particular, he underlines that theappearance of depth in space in the painting of the 15th – 16th centuries, often attributed this to the mastery ofEuclidien geometry, but in fact, it was more concerned with its usage to technically demonstrate the aspect ofnear, far and farther and their reciprocal relationships. Perspective as symbolic form, translated under thedirection Guy Ballangé, 1975 Les Editions de Minuit

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sovereign and the vacuum that was created by their absence in the community. The Gothics

took these areas of waste and introduced them in building their cathedrals. They became the

houses of God, they are filled with space and light and flying buttresses presenting a divinity

that encompasses the collective whole and supports it.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the art revolution surrounding Marcel Duchamp is also a

story of waste. Just at that moment when he is closest to academicism (with his brothers), M.

Duchamp understood perfectly that the art situation was stuck within this particular

framework of creation. His painting was in the cubist school. Yet, what else could he do once

he painted Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 other than increase the steps in the staircase,

increase the nudes coming down the staircase, or not have them come down at all. He will use

the moment’s dominant academic framework, the Salons, to show what the Salons will reject

by submitting a work that would effectively be rejected. By this refusal, Duchamp becomes

himself The Waste, and finds himself in a propitious situation to create a major movement. He

was able to arrive at that point because he had grasped the limits of academicism. The

rejection, this waste, will be designated as a Work of Art par excellence. The world of

readymade is born and it will generate the world of aesthetic Performance.

The invention of Social Security is one of the cases of social history that most clearly

demonstrates society’s effort to respond to a situation that it, itself, had created. It was a

situation in which the existing world was, and is, producing waste and misery. This misery

became overabundant until it was necessary to go back and invent a new response. Until then,

the poor and sick were reintegrated into society by diverse social works and political battle as

society needed these poor to fight wars and help in the production of riches. How can wars be

fought with sick men, with a reduced population of men? How can they be reintroduced in the

social corps? By the vote? No, by erasing illness and poverty. The society that addresses that

issue believes it will survive. Yet, trying to erase illness and poverty becomes a revolutionary

act and the aesthetic of the political Scene is transformed. This aesthetic, this deteriorating

Scene, becomes the place for generalized complaint of the victimization of each individual.

Politics unites its troops under the banner of suffering. Not the suffering of Christ or the

Messiah but the suffering in each of us.

In this example we can find one of the two levers for the creation of a new world. This new

world will probably understand that reality is always deeper and truer than the current state of

our perception, that this richness had not been grasped and what is not grasped can, in part, be

considered as waste because it is put aside. For example, the reality of a metropolis with its

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multiple forms exceeds the present situation of any one particular city. The current usage of

information and communication technologies, represented by Internet as an example, appears

clearly less than their potential. Day after day, innovations or new framing in utilization can

emerge and take form. One cannot hope to create a new imaginary way of thinking or acting,

without making a concerted effort to go back to the real as a source. In other words, creation

ex nihilo operates by a radical transformation of reality by organizing new ways of living with

the waste of our present 25.

This activity surrounding the return to reality, of evaluation and the sensation of waste, will

only be fully operational on the condition that a simultaneous effort is led to name and define

the sensations felt. We cannot go back to this waste without a linguistic creation as a necessity

for designating this waste, or it will remain invisible and indescribable. Far from being

autonomous, the designation activity helps in the effort of going back to the real and helps us

take possession of it. Designation only operates because it assures the definition of issues,

using words and images. Therefore, we have an activity composed of a double movement for

going back to the reality, and to waste, in order to better extract new ways of thinking and

acting (evaluation – designation). If it doesn’t appear to operate most of the time, it is because

the work on language remains insufficient to conceive the problems as it continues to remain

anchored in the current reality.

There again, Marcel Duchamp outlines the path. His major shift will bring us to use other

words to designate what he attempted to produce; he proposed the expression "readymade".

We have a double movement of creation for a new aesthetic and political imaginary world –

at the same time an evaluation of the exhaustion of main academic forms and a major effort to

define other forms of practice. He was not alone in this creation of a new language. Alone, he

probably wouldn’t have been recognized. His gesture was heard because at the same moment

other groups, such as Dada, among others, were created to renew, amplify and institutionalize

an adequate language26. This new designation institutes a radical opening towards a new

experiential world, which will continue on the condition that new sensations effectively and

clearly take form.

4. Densification and concentration of sensation 25 This creation, ex nihilo, brings C. Castoriadis to consider that art is a constitution of the cosmos that givesfrom and sense to the “l’a-sensé”, that makes a window on chaos appear, Window on chaos, Seuil, La couleurdes idées, 2007, p.152 et s.26 This collective dynamic reminds us that the absence of a private language and that rules (new or old) have nosense if that are not common, as was extensively demonstrated by J. D. Reynaud in The rules of the Game –Collective Action and Social Regulation, A. Colin, 1989.

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There are new designations of worlds that actually exist no longer than it takes to say their

name. The goal is, of course, to avoid this comet-like situation. Duration remains, at least

politically and strategically, a strong and indispensable value. The experiential from another

world cannot limit itself to one instantaneous flare-up. This being the case, it would only be a

fleeting effect of fashion. To take form and develop, a new singular sensation needs other

motives, other motors.

The overture of a new experiential imagination will, at first, be submitted to the existing rules.

It is indispensable to consider that the space where this sensorial experience will fall, whether

we want it to or not, will determine the experience’s reception. It will form an ensemble of

physical and affective memories within which each will tend to situate himself and the world.

As one example among others, the overtures initially created by Cézanne were placed outside

the strict framework of the reigning academicism. The group of rules determines what is, and

what an aesthetic production is not; what is an acceptable, reasonable or impossible aesthetic.

A little later, Cézanne will become the academic reference for Picasso and Braque27.

In these conditions, the true innovative concept requires from the conceptor a major effort to

remain outside the existing rules as long as possible, in order to maintain, again as long as

possible, the radical sensation of the new overture. The other option is to do everything

possible to circulate in various spaces thus avoiding to be closed off in only one world.

Pharmaceutical research and development understands this practice and leaves the number of

therapeutic classes open for any new product launch. Usage will then be oriented towards the

most promising class. In fact, it is important to stay as close as possible to the creation and

designation phase for the new aesthetic qualitative world.

So, the challenge is to hold on as long as possible, needing the time to develop another

sensation, an overture towards another intervention on the world and an accumulation that is

anchored and established. One movement won’t be enough. Isolated, it will remain unknown.

Picasso was not the only one to approach cubism. Above all, he wasn’t the only “Picasso”.

“Van Gogh” wasn’t the only Van Gogh. These were the myths that were written so that their

world could continue. The companions in Picasso’s adventure were Georges Braque and Juan

Gris as well as others throughout the world, already present elsewhere in the past. That is why

27 “Cezanne is rightly thought of as the ‘father of modern art’, and of modern painting in particular, and quitediverse movements and trends derive from him”. Gerhardus M & G, Cubism and Futurism, p. 39

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the painter also recognized them in African art28. They were indispensible so that the

simultaneous perceptions of the facets of this world would become seen as acquired and

institutionalized. Each of us could be in front, behind, inside, outside, next to, above…the

guitar, the armoire. Everyone could see the hidden side of the other. And since, during, before

and after, phenomology was developed, the psychology of perception and Gestalt psychology;

each one nourishing the pictorial and the sculptural, each feeding the other. Even literature

became cubist opening toward the “Nouveau Roman”.

At first, there was a simple designation of the experiential, and the objects or perceptions

remained independent of each other. However, the difference in the phases of sensation

creates a surreal feeling that in itself creates a radical signification, provoking a physical

disturbance of another possible sensation, of another form of experience29. Another

signification becomes clear from the manifestation of signals emitted by the sensibility, by the

new way of labeling the world (impressionist, surrealist, cubist, expressionist…). It is the

same for the physical or chemical world created and constructed following the designation of

theoretical effects30.

The strength of this disorientation and manifestation sets the scene for the beginning of

connections. New resources – sensory, experiential, qualitative – already present in the old

world, and ready to act and interact faced with the instability of perception. These connectors

will play a major function in polarizing the perceptive field surrounding the new imaginary

experience, around the new sensation to better give it a social form and presence. From this

different sensibility, this other manner to feel our presence in the world, a sort of pool of

attraction is created. These connectors invite other associations and provoke improbable

liaisons. This was the case with, for example, Futurism during the first half of the 20th

Century. Close to Cubism in its way to invite us to simultaneously perceive the multiple

facets of the world, Futurism played on fragmentation in another register, that of speed and

28 For this particular case, the approach of worlds and the experiential connectors is presented by R. Goldwater,Primativism in Modern Art, PUF, 198829 “… we reunite all events that appear to be in one physical place. I call ‘perspective’ the ensemble of theseevents in a physical place. The sum of my perceptions at any given moment constitute a perspective…with thisnew method, a pile only contains the appearance of sun associated with the appearance of each of the things thatare perceptibles in this place… A perspective, that when it is produced in the brain, will understand all themomentary perceptions of man of which the brain is concerned. From a physical point of view, they all are foundin one place, but in the interior of the perspective in question, there are spatial relationships of which what was aplace for the physical becomes a three dimensional complex”. Russell B., op. cité, pp. 134-135.30 It is the same, for example, for the Maxwell effect as is discussed by D. Lecourt in The philosophy of Science,PUF, Que sais-je ?, 2001, picking up notably from the work of I. Hacking that shows what and how certain newsciences are sciences of conception by their intervention on reality, specifically biology. I. Hacking,Representing and intervening, 1983, Cambridge University Press

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kinetics. It could therefore resonate with other practices such as architecture or design,

notably that of Alessi who came from this moment. There is practicably no design cubism or

architectural cubism. They didn’t know how to create a world that would spread to our daily

lives. The cubist Scene remained experimental.

These connectors play a more general role in stabilizing the aggregation of sensations and

perceptions31. They insure the diffusion of the new sensibility by a reduction of the spheres

and domains of application as we shall see below. For example, staying with the case of

Futurism, the sensibility proposition that was introduced provoked, at the time, a significant

modification in advertising and in the presentation of objects – finding a link in industrial

expertise. There is an accumulation of signs to reinforce the presence of the sensations. Each

connector, with the waste from the existing worlds constitutes a triplet (signal, sign,

signification) that will bind with other triplets that are being constructed to create an

experiential and aesthetic form in this new world. This reinforcement will engender and

generate a densification of the attraction surrounding the new, qualitative proposition and

further attract the actions of the moment around it. It is the creation of a new orientation for

action. A Scene exists.

The connectors pull together the signals to keep them tethered as a group. There is a moment

when there is no more separation between the domains of action and sensibility but on the

contrary, an aggregation of them. The different possible (re)presentations of the new

Aesthetic Scene grow closer, spreads, and contaminates as many objects as it can until it

becomes a new current fold. In the past, at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th,

particularly around 1920, Vienna was the origin of such a movement of agglomeration of the

experiential world. It represented agitation par excellence in the sciences, art, literature,

philosophy and politics. Vienna formed a matrix of a new world that would continue to bloom

during numerous decades. The condensation of all the connectors within created the new

imagination in this town that would open the way to the creation of a legend of attraction that

is still alive today. Vienna became fertile in art, the sciences, philosophy and politics

movements during which the empire would fall.

31 By this they construct an edogenous fixed point in the sense of complexity theory around which the system ofperception stabilizes; fixed point that J.P. Dupuy models in Introduction to the Social Sciences, the logics ofcollective phenomeno, Ellipses, 1992. 

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Once the establishment of the new experiential world is acquired by the densification of the

new aesthetic form, it remains to ensure its deployment so that this new imaginary world can

be appropriated by others, in their own domain of action. A new legend is built.

5. Restriction and extension of the sensory world

The constitution (in the sense of emergence) of the Aesthetic Scene is a massive explosion

constructing a new sense where, from now on, a meaning different from the one that existed

in the previous world, took shape. The expression “change of perspective” perfectly illustrates

this phenomenon. With the installation of the Euclidian perspective as the organizer of a point

of view according to the Italian Primitives and with the disappearance of gothic geometry

after the Flemish Primitives, the world view is no longer the same. It is not a question of

progress but of difference32. It is the same with different urban projects that regularly disrupt

cities. For those who are taken by its scene, the fortified town of the Middle Ages will not

have the same meaning as a town à la Vauban or à la Haussmann. The crowded town of the

Middle Ages is swept away by the large squares, the avenues of the Hausmanian city. The

close and the distant are no longer the same, no longer have the same function, do not

generate the same imagination and do not call up the same knowledge or practices.

The “difference of perspective” develops other experiences, brings other forms of expressions

and above all, contributes to the implementation of other driving forces. This new meaning

will trigger a movement continuing the destabilization of the previous state, creating new

energy for continuing action. The new sensibility builds another way of acting and being,

another way of grasping the world and of understanding it. In other words, there is a radical

renewing of the dynamics in the social and economic systems. We might even say we “begin

to live again”. We are ready for new experiences, good or bad.

This movement maintained by the circulation of ideas and social actions, constitutes one of

the principle motives of desire in each and every one of us33. Marketing directors are clearly

32 “All enigma presented by the differences among perceptions…are presented as such because we do not knowhow to distinguish the three places associated with a given perception…: 1st, the place of physical space wherethe “thing” is found; 2nd , the place in this space where I find myself; 3rd, the place that, in my perspective, myperception occupies in relation with other perceptions” Russell B, op. cité, p. 135.33 This situation of aspiration and circulation of energy and desires of each social system or each living being, toassure the maintainence of his state of activity for the longest possible time, has been modeled notably by themathematican and C. P. Bruter (Topology and Perception, t. I and II, 1974, 1976 Maloine-Doin editors, and Thearchitectures of Fire, 1982 Flammarion). This modelization is based on the development of the world on acomplexification of objects. These higher energy objects have the tendancy to absorb objects with a lowerenergy state in order to stablize themselves. The increase in energy of an object will thus develop from theinstability of the object and that the object will try to compensate by aquiring new energy to reestablish a base ofstability.

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familiar with this when they generate ruptures in perception as they resort to design for

creating effects that will orient the consumer. What is Fashion if not an organized rupture in

sensibility, however controlled.

The power of this qualitative signification appears very intense when seen from the point of

view of people’s movements, as they litterally drawn to, and into, a place where everyone else

is going, towards a product that everyone is buying. Such is the case with Saint Marc’s Place

in Venice or the Piazza Navona in Rome, quasi-eternal places that capture, move, hold and

finally expel. Only Venetians themselves could be blasé as well as Romans who do no more

than pass it on their way to market.

This constitution of the Aesthetic Scene as a qualitative, experiential space that organizes

action will be able to take all its force when diffusion is broadened and takes different forms.

The current economy of entertainment is a particularly good example of this phenomenon and

deserves to be illustrated using the case of the Cannes film festival.

At Cannes, there is an initial Scene of great imagination and haute culture that will begin to

draw in those things surrounding it. This world is diffused by overtures represented by

photographs, news and programs centered on certain exceptional personalities that focus

attention and desire. Locally, there is also the presence of stars and aspiring stars. This

inauguration is priceless. Who knows what it costs? Are we preoccupied with the fortune of

the stars and the film-makers that are present? The only thing that really interests us is what it

can bring in, “L’Or des Dieux” that showers down on the Stars and is reflected on those who

behold them. The cost in energy is immense, gigantic in the sense that what is produced is

priceless. As for the mechanism of the Aesthetic Scene, those who are interested find

themselves in the presence of the starlets who actually make this world accessible, who act as

experiential connectors because they are considered as ‘waste’. If there were only stars it

would be a closed world. These starlets, waste from the star scene, will trigger a secondary

scene, a high-end, luxury world where there is a high return of products due to their diffusion.

Here we know what it costs and we know the fortunes it brings. Consumption has a very high

return for the lowest possible cost. Each euro that is invested by certain film producers or by

L’Oreal for example, is sure to return a profit of tens of thousands of euros. “L’Or des Dieux”

has become money, that which creates fortunes not only for those who have been nominated.

Finally there is still a third scene of generalized extension of DVD’s and related products.

This world of commodity carries with it traces of other practices developed within the initial

scene. Above all, it organizes sense and sensations in the manner of this particular scene as

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the shown by the impact of reality shows on the imaginations and aspirations of the young.

Everyone is an artist, all the world is a star. Everyone makes his own film and screens it for

all those who are also making their own films – it is the world of MySpace or YouTube.

The strategy, then, is to create multiples of the scene, enough to assure a global stability of the

new Aesthetic Scene, maintaining as well as amplifying the new signification as much as

possible. However a general question presents itself based on a major vulnerability: the

exhaustion of the scene34. Once the perspective has been worked on in all its forms, it

becomes difficult to maintain an active sensibility, and it drifts off towards one experience,

the habitual sensation or even the intellect and finally towards indifference of the senses. This

exhaustion takes shape when the experiential imagination no longer allows the renewal of

ideas, the attraction of new creations, nor the mobilization of new desires.

Coming back for a moment to the artistic domain to take the example of the process of a work

of art, Duchamp, like Warhol, showed that the work of art is part of a series and just

populating this series is enough to exhaust it. An innovative work of art inaugurates a series

that is also a world. Until these two artists, a series was constructed over time by a variety of

constructors. Duchamp and Warhol established the serie and designated it. One (Duchamp)

ended the serie by making the end a performance. The other (Warhol) populated it and made

this his final work of the series. Thus they are and create, at the same time, the overture, the

series and its depletion. It isn’t possible to redo the urinal, repaint a Campbell’s soup can or to

(re)populate one of their series and to say that one has created a new world. Their series are

exhausted, because the series of all their series have been depleted.

Confronted with this vulnerability, there are two means to attempt to continue the aesthetic

adventure of the moment with strategy creation.

The first possibility, or at least the more well-known, is to intensify efforts at innovation. The

idea is to move back up the falling curve of action to relaunch and renew sensations. Two

examples illustrate this practice. In the areas of the plastic and visual arts, sculpture uses

sound to work on a different perception of space and is no longer just material; or it might be

the voice that is annexed becoming the material of the sculptor to revive his work and his

purpose.

34 Incidental remark: Vulnerability is one of the ontological dimensions of strategy, complementary to thecreation that this text focuses on. In effect, as A. C. Martinet notes in “Governance and Strategic Management:End of the story or Policy regeneration” A.C.Martinet coord. 2007, Management Sciences – Epistomology,Pragmatism and Ethics, Vuibert, the strategic risk and the absorbtion of uncertainty are the major preoccupationsof the strategist, the researcher or the practioner.

24

A second method is to work on creating multiples using combinations, crossing scenes,

techniques and domains. Pursuing and exploiting the expression of an aesthetic gesture in

domains not initially connected by this gest.

Finally, a hybrid is created as in contemporary dance or in scenography that increases its use

of video to open up complementary sensations to those of the body. One must continually dig

for, explore and experiment with other forms of action and other methods of sensibility. It is

also the case for the creation of service areas. After having worked on the aesthetic of the

environment and place, design continues to work on questions of musical and olfactory

sensibilities.

These two methods intervene in the diffusion of the scene by assuring the largest possible

circulation of the aesthetic and the experiential imaginary world. The excellence of

Hollywood cinema in general diffusion shows the efficiency of this practice. The more

diffusion is attained, the more there is a hold on the structure for a given time through space.

This situation is useful in reminding us to what point the maintenance and intensification of

the current Aesthetic Scene works on symbolic and political values. We will conclude on this

question.

6. Return to the Political Scene 

The development of the Aesthetic Scene operates in a combined manner with the Political

Scene. The aesthetic gesture alone is nothing much. It will quickly fall flat. It only takes its

form and size when it has clearly established the criteria for judging what Beauty is. These

criteria quickly become values. This declaration of the world by its values comes within the

realm of the Political. As we have seen in the introduction, the reciprocal is also true. The

Political can and must rely on the qualitative world of the aesthetic. These two registers

accompany and mutually reinforce.

The project of this conceptual article is to attempt to understand the ways and means in which

an Aesthetic Scene is constituted by the creation of a new imaginary world that is extracted

from the fold of the moment. Notably, this constitution occurs with the writing of another

world that designates other sensations while proposing another vision, a new framing, to

respond to the waste from the dominant and current experiential world. It becomes necessary

then to envision the political and practical consequences of such a creation, of such an attempt

to (re)write it.

25

Wishing to create a new imagination requires, on a political level, the acceptance of a form of

violence that is contained in the act itself of creation. Establishing an Aesthetic does not imply

only working on a natural reality but is above all a working of the reality of values. By this

work, there is an auto-constitution of a new world in itself will be limited and will define the

new frontiers. In consequence, we are beheading, assassinating one world for another. We

exclude, we take sides in favor of a certain mode of sensibility against another.

Some physical violence may appear. It can be simple yet immediate (cut off the head, make it

disappear), but above all, there is a symbolic violence. This type of violence is actually more

intense in the sense that its effects remain longer. It is a destruction of one part of humanity in

order to create another. There is no progress, just the imposition of other sensations.

In that lies a major challenge as it can be established that the real danger comes from attempts

to end this violence thus giving it a more positive image35. On the contrary, it must be

accepted, kept as violence and repeated. This example can be found in that of Freud who,

when he arrived in the United States, said “I have brought them the plague” thus wanting

psychoanalysis to absolutely remain as a symbolic violence. In consequence, all mechanisms

of the Aesthetic Scene must remain constantly visible and never mask itself in acts of glory.

Here, then, are new criteria regarding the conditions of aesthetic creation and the dynamics of

the creation of a social imagination that will enable the conception of other legends and other

experiential relations to the world.

Refusing the possibility of the sudden appearance of a certain violence is to fall back into the

trap of “non-choice”, into the fold of the moment. On the contrary, to assume this symbolic

violence is to authorize questioning on the world in which we find ourselves. We find

ourselves thus in a total radicality, worthy of the Enlightenment, that invites us to find other

ways to access the experiential and social reality. All is open to us.

Yet we mustn’t deceive ourselves. For the most part, the least risk limits this radicality. In that

case, political discourse on the City is “aesthetizing” discourse but not aesthetic discourse. On

the contrary, towns that have perfectly developed an aesthetic imaginary world rapidly

become the occasion for an Aesthetic Scene (or even many) and does not need an

“aesthetizing” discourse. They become legendary by their acceptance of radicality, of general

experimentation, of attempts to push the limits, of being a laboratory for change.

35 Proposition that we formulated specifically following the analyses of René Girard, Violence and the Sacred,Hachette, 1972

26

Annex

This text is based on research led by the Center for Development and Strategy for Greater

Lyon (DPSA). This center has been mandated by the Office of the President of Greater Lyon

to lead work on a metropolitan vision for 2020. The DPSA asked us to conduct a study on the

necessity to construct an Aesthetic Scene which would be complementary to a Political Scene

that they had implemented. To to this, the DPSA put numerous documents at our disposition:

work on the different emblems, on the metropolitan vision, on the signature « Only Lyon »

and the services current research and reflections. In addition, we had work sessions with the

Assistant Director of the DPSA. A final meeting was held with the principle actors that had

contributed to the elaboration of the metropolitan vision.

Concerning the theoretical approach, the research is primarily based on the principle

formulated by Martinet (1990) then Hatchuel (2005) according to which strategy and thus

management sciences, is a science of the conception of collective action requiring the

inclusion of other domains of knowledge appropriate to this project. In our case, this

orientation required the inclusion of works in psychology, art history, aesthetics and the

philosophy of science.

Finally, the inspiration for this form of presentation was found with Billeter (2002) the

sinologist when he followed Wittgenstein’s advice in saying “sooner or later, from

explanation, we must beable to present a simple description”.

27

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