ABSTRACT

Art and media theory is significantly different in form to those types of theory found in the natural sciences, or indeed in those social sciences, which search for objective and binding universal laws governing human behaviour. Students, are expected to “critically contextualise” their practice work in relation to not only cognate artwork but in reference to bodies of theory. Art and media academies host departments of contextual, critical or visual cultural studies, tasked with teaching such theory and with supporting students in making sense of their work. From a political perspective, the new mutation of critical theory also represented the fragmentation and weakening of both the traditional social democratic left and its communist alternatives, and the emergence of a new form of politics. The art system is comprised of the production of the artwork; its exhibition in a gallery and exchange in a market; and its reception by various audiences, together with the accompanying artistic discourses which facilitate these relations.