Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“Centrality can be systematically dismantled in the work, in which case the subject of the work is exposing the now discredited means of representing centrality. New figures can be placed at the center, in an attempt to renovate exhausted forms. The boundary between art and audience can itself be placed at the center, in works of art that can only be completed by the reader, or listener. The center here, we could say, is the art “recipient” produced or called forth by attention and devotion to the work itself, a devotion that must be given on faith. What we can trace through all of these aesthetic possibilities is a relation to the secular world, all of the energies of which are devoted to discovering ways in which the central figures at all levels can be deemed “non-tyrannical.” What kind of unqualified devotion will either evade or redeem the resentment toward the usurper? The secular world is comprised of the vast archipelago of disciplines, springing originally from philosophy but also politics and the circulation of money. All of these disciplines are in service to power, including the more narrowly scientific and technological, and their respective objects of study are the myriad forms of super-sovereignty that might remove, at least temporarily, the stain of tyranny from social institutions. Means of discipline aimed at organizing our attention in certain ways toward certain kinds of objects are presented as legitimate by the disciplines because they are dictated by some anthropomorphic model that renders that means of discipline in accordance with nature, the authority which can’t be superseded.”

— Adam Katz, The Aesthetics of the Center · 2020 · Anthropomorphics