With the impact of internet and digital information technologies, anonymity came to the fore in recent years as a much debated topic, mostly in connection to privacy and identity politics. The proposed research will focus on the possibilities of withdrawal and negative participation in artistic practices as a way to define a new subjectivity and how anonymity is constructed and used through the inclusion of text and language in artistic production. Considering the histories of change in understanding anonymity and negativity in art, the research will respond to the following question: “Can the notion of anonymity and its material relationship to text, act as a stop in the planetary flow of information, and provide a strategy and methodology for withdrawal and negative participation in artistic practices and for the role of the artist today?”
In a culture of self design, identification, inclusion, and attention economy, resolved forms of withdrawal and negative participation in artistic practices are rarely observed or investigated today. At a time of belief in information and communication, a return to a zero point in defining the subject seems impossible. Instead, pressure to identify oneself, to produce and communicate information, with/out consent, has become unavoidable through digital information technologies. The use of text, although common in artworks, still in many cases functions as content, a medium for providing information on or communication about a subject. For art practices that come from outside the Western context, identity politics through the production and presentation of artworks are more intensely practiced, leaving no space for alternative strategies and to initiate a wider perspective for the perception and discussion of the work.
The proposed research will investigate the strategies of withdrawal and negative participation in historical and contemporary artistic practices and how the recent changes in the understanding of anonymity through digital information technologies can contribute to these strategies. Text, and more widely language, will be the common element and the material that play an integral part in the construction, analysis and practice of these topics. The research will be conducted on the historical and contemporary understandings of anonymity and negativity in art, starting with modernity, covering the fields of art and social theory, philosophy, ethics and technology. This will act as the base for uncovering the potential for strategies in artistic production and enlarging the domain of contemporary subjectivity.