ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 outlines the aesthetic procedure with the help of Jacques Ranciére’s analysis of the aesthetic regime of art and his distinction between the politics of aesthetics and the aesthetics of politics. Having dispensed both with the ethical prescriptions of its practice and the immanent regulation of its representations, art in the aesthetic regime no longer has any criteria separating it from non-art. Instead, the dividing line between art and non-art is perpetually negotiated, contested and redrawn, as art ventures to transform itself into life and the other way around. This accounts for the problematic and often paradoxical status of political art, which maintains its identity as long as it is not merely political but primarily artistic but derives its artistic credentials from being more than merely artistic but also political.
