A thorough-going review of Bourriaud’s “Relational Aesthetics” can be found at new media : ryan peter andre tobin:
Bourriaud focuses on the role of modernity in shaping the way we relate to society in contemporary times. While modernity had a teleological view of a utopian life, engineered through the great technological advances of the industrial revolution, contemporary society has abandoned this pursuit for a more realistic path. It’s understood now that we have inherited the history of our ancestors and instead of reengineering the world we live in, we attempt to improve our situation while slowly ameliorating our current social structures. Modern art attempted to present us with the world of the future, the ideological world of modernity, in a revolutionary movement. The art of today investigates the world as it is, and focusing on societies state of constant change. (new media: ryan peter andre tobin)