&header=an art of gestures &subcaption1=how important is the social fabric of self realisation? &subcaption2=text_1.txt &author=paul steenberghe &text=As a system, the industry of artistic production is likely to be more schizophrenic than other industries. As valuation of artistic products and practices is extremely uncertain and can only be construed through subjective verbal constructs, its methods of self evaluation cannot but even be derivatory from these constructs. This second degree uncertainty leads to a continuous need for self investigation and appraisal. What is art and what is its worth, questions which are asked on generic and specific levels. To be able to give an answer at all though, quite a stringent framework needs to be developed, this is clear for instance in art's conscious adoption of the modernist need for continuous redefinition. %0D Beyond the norms of normality one cannot hide consciously, continuously. The need for continuously re-invented artistic purity in a pas de deux with the impossibility of objective evaluation through subjective constructs. Where Guattari saw in schizophrenia the possible positive effects of a deterritorialization allowing for new connections, the mild schizophrenia stipulated in this paragraph is more likely to point to the hyper artificial deterritorialization of ultra-capitalism. This would bring an analysis of the art industry in the realm of Baudrillard's hyperreality and implosion of the social. Is the artist working with a social-political agenda aware of the irony of his endeavours? No? Did he start believing in himself again after his honoust post-modern exploitation? Has he fallen in the media driven belief of the artist as self-fulfiller. %0D The artist at top of the ladder of Maslow. Taking up his responsibilities in this corrupt society. Or rather really idealistic? Discarding the horror of a Baudrillardian universe and becoming the Guattarian desiring machine, a positive productive superman in today's imploded reality? And this while acknowledging himself and the part and playing the part in which he enlisted himself. Naivety? Hope? The intent of the artist remains as unclear as Adam Smith's invisible hand. Some would agree with art as a process of "[..] a series of transformations from meaningless to meaningful heterogeneity." This definition of the economic process by Alderson is followed by his analysis that customer value is derived not from an object itself but rather from the experience-providing service that the object performs. This view, expressed in the fifties, has only met with widespread approval in the nineties by fellow marketers and economists.%0D The similarities between these views of economics and of the art history are startling. The object has died, but its funeral is taking ages. The artist has died, but has resurrected. Dealing with an art world which incorporates its critics as quickly as high capitalism absorbs its alternatives, the artists is left with little strategies. Co-opt or be co-opted. How to make art being aware of all the systemic and personal contradictions. %0D Only an art of gestures, an art which playfully hints at possibilities can try to take up issues which reach into the art world and beyond. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their self-interest," wrote Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations" in 1776. Playful as not to get caught in the real worlds outside of the studio. Playing off the possibilities offered by the quasi-naivety of the role assumed. Playing with the symbols of reality against the symbolism of art. %0D Playing with the concept of innocence we can accept guilt. In the new economic dream world giving surpassed asking as a commercial strategy. Giving as a metaphor for asking led to an unmitigated display of wanting. Can I give and remain innocent. As economics have become the sole yardstick for policy considerations, the economic needs even more attention. The basic elements of economy theory are being lost. The economy has surpassed the galactic order in terms of mystic quality. What makes up the value of an object, of a person? What is value added in a service economy, and in relation to individual efforts? How much money can be made through monetary transactions? How important is the social fabric of self realisation as an economic force? Why does the myth of rational economic man survive as companies feed themselves on all the irrational bodies populating their shops? &textloaded=OK