Bruno Latour's Aestheticized Mythology of the Social

On the relationship of science, aesthetics and politics in Bruno Latour's writing

Abstract

Summary: For a couple of years there is a growing focus on ecological questions and collectivity in contemporary art. Bruno Latour is perceived as a key theoretical source of ideas within this discourse. The article asks if Bruno Latour's conception of the social can serve as a model for 'successful symbiosis' as the art world hopes it to be. The study examines the interactions between social scientific and aesthetics aspects in Latour's thinking. It perceives itself as a contribution to the continuation of the project of a Sociological Aesthetic started by Georg Simmel at the turn of the 20th century. The aim of the study is to make visible the aesthetic-scientific concepts embedded in Bruno Latour's sociology and to question the ethical-political implications that come with them. Latour's position is therefore reconstructed as 'constellation' (Haraway): it is contextualised with selected discourse positions from social theory and aesthetics in order to make certain aspects relationally visible.