ABSTRACT
Gestic dramaturgy freed the events depicted on stage from attribution to any particular individual, replacing the ontology of character with an abstract diagram or "network" of action. Artworks "must develop ways to build networks into their form by, for example, reframing, capturing, reiterating, and documenting existing content—all aesthetic procedures that explicitly presume a network as their 'ground'." David Joselit helpfully suggests that the power of assemblages by artists such as Rachel Harrison "lies in its staging of a performative mode of looking through which the single image and the network are visible at once." Joselit explores what happens when digital reproduction and media technologies take hold of art, causing the unit of aesthetic analysis to shift from individual works to virtually unlimited masses of images. Referring to assemblages by Harrison, Joselit discusses how artists may manipulate the situational nature of content.
