The Ontological Transformation of the Object and Specific Gravity

In the first section, we exposed the dilemma created by reducing art to a mere "inter-human socialization" and communication network (Bourriaud's relational aesthetics), as well as the real conflicts covered up by this illusion of harmony. This shallow interpretation of relationality dissolved the existential (ontological) integrity of the artwork, converting it into a social service apparatus of late capitalism. Art can be rescued from this self-referential, circular practice by restoring its originality and, consequently, its unique position.

The Autonomous Object Resisting "Overmining"

To achieve the ontological restoration of the object in contemporary art, Graham Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), which makes a radical intervention on the philosophical stage, offers a perfect conceptual framework. OOO begins by asserting the irreducibility of objects to human consciousness and their existence in their own reality, independent of human consciousness. Bourriaud's relational aesthetics, by defining the artwork solely through the "social bonds" and "interactions" it establishes between people, sacrificed the object to a virtual void. In Harman's terminology, this approach amounts to "overmining" the object in art. Overmining is a top-down way of thinking that assigns secondary value to objects, thereby denying their independence in their own right, and reducing the object to its effects on the mind or the world, i.e., to its external relations.

When relational aesthetics codes the artwork as a mere vector of communication with the viewer, it erases the autonomous, indivisible nature of the object and its existence which cannot be reduced to a network of relations. Yet, according to the fundamental principle of OOO, holistic philosophies holding that the world is merely a system composed of the sum of relations must be rejected. According to Harman, "objects cannot touch each other directly" and "all objects are mutually 'withdrawn' from one another." The art object, even when not in use or when not engaged in an instantaneous interaction with a viewer in an exhibition space, withdraws into its own dark, sub-surface internal existence—its inaccessible position buried beneath the network of relations.

This withdrawal is not the neutralization of the art object, but on the contrary, proof of its ontological potency. The independent existence of the object must be accepted even without a knowing or experiencing human subject; the object is "an entity that has the capacity and act of relating to itself and other objects, completely independent of the subject, without necessarily being something that stands against the subject." Therefore, against Deleuzian or Bourriaud-style currents that confine art to mere contextual relationships and processes, OOO is "the antidote to defending architecture [and art] by its relationality—process, internal complexity, contextual relationships—rather than by its own qualities."

In conclusion, extracting the object in art from being a "mere socializing tool of relationality" means recognizing this ontological resistance it displays against "overmining." The art object is not comprised of its effects on the outer world, the social festivity it creates in the viewer, or the network of relations it belongs to. It is, first and foremost, an autonomous actor that cannot be explained by being reduced to its effects and components in the world, cannot be dominated, and is always withdrawn, yet carries the potential to crack the outer world precisely through this self-containment.

Relational aesthetics confining the object strictly to a social network established with the viewer is, in Harman's words, reducing it upward by "accepting that objects are nothing other than their effects." Yet, this anthropocentric (correlationist) approach disregards the artwork's own internal dynamics and its relationship with other objects. In a realist ontology, human consciousness is not the sole center of the universe or of meaning; the artwork and the viewer are equally autonomous entities situated on the same ontological plane ("flat ontology"). The art object is not a passive screen that exists merely for people to socialize around; on the contrary, it is an active force that produces its own internal resistance and forces the viewer's perception into its own rules (its own phase). Once this inviolable ontological dignity of the object is established, it becomes necessary to transition to the stage of how it is not left scattered but rather forms a "specific center of gravity" and a "dialectical moment" within the symbolic order.

Center of Gravity in the Symbolic Order

After securing and rescuing the ontological autonomy of the object from external relational networks (Bourriaud-style socialization), we proceed to the second critical step of our proposition: the phase of "the specific center of gravity created by the artwork in the symbolic order." In this new phase of art, instead of being a tool for smooth social communication, the object hangs suspended by creating an ontological fracture (transfiguration) in the given order. At this juncture, Arthur C. Danto's theses of the "end of art" and "the transfiguration of the commonplace" form the core foundation of our theoretical premise. According to Danto, the mimetic period of art history, which rested on the belief that a more perfect representation of reality would eventually be reached, and the narrative based on a certain progressive history, have ended. Art can no longer rely on such a historical narrative of progress to justify itself.

Danto calls this period of progressive modernism, which confined art to a historical mission and exclusionary rules, the "Age of Manifestos." In this era, each art movement wrote its own implicit or explicit manifesto, declaring its own style to be the sole truth in an effort to philosophically define the essence of art. Yet, according to Danto, the end of art occurred at that post-historical moment when it was understood that the premise that art must be produced under the guidance of a specific manifesto was philosophically untenable. When philosophy separated from style, the Age of Manifestos closed, and it was declared that anything could be an artwork.

The bankruptcy of the idea of "historical progress" and the exclusivity of manifestos correspond directly to the necessity, mentioned in the introduction of the thesis, of "breaking a self-contained circular praxis parallel (...) to the idea of historical progress." In this post-historical period following the end of art, the visual/formal difference between art and non-art (the everyday object) has vanished. In examples frequently cited by Danto, such as Andy Warhol's Brillo Box or Duchamp's Urinal, an ordinary object and an artwork are visually indistinguishable. How, then, is the question of "what transforms a representation into an artwork" to be answered? According to Danto, in this situation where we cannot claim that an ordinary apple is merely an apple, what makes the object art is the philosophical meaning and theoretical position it assumes within the symbolic order (the art world).

Once the art object is liberated from the tedious and uninspiring network of "relationality" (social interaction) formed by the purely structural and technical aspects of matter, it does not simply fall into "nothingness." On the contrary, stripping away its commonality (transfiguring), it acquires an entirely new status within the symbolic order. And it is this status that defines the object's specific center of gravity; through "the differences created by the object and the continuous accumulation of these differences within itself."

Thus, the art object is no longer merely a pleasantry for the world or a source of amusement for people. Instead, the artwork has attained self-awareness as a dialectical moment imposed on existence. In this respect, the concentrated weight of the object within the symbolic order does not invite the viewer to participate in a false consensus. On the contrary, it leaves the viewer alone with the dissensus and cracks of the existing order. Having acquired its own gravity, the object—having related and withdrawn into its own autonomous darkness—ceases to be an ordinary commodity, ultimately becoming the force that carries us to the next phase (that is, the dialectical image).

Rejection of Social Agency: A "Dialectical Image" as a Moment

Now, having stripped the art object of its external relational networks and positioned it as a "specific center of gravity" in the symbolic order, the rejection of the pragmatic mission of "agency" (social action) imposed on art by relational aesthetics becomes mandatory at this stage. Nicolas Bourriaud's approach of reducing art to a "space of exchange" as a "sociability factor and a creator of dialogue" has eliminated the internal dialectic and ontological significance of the object, leaving it dependent on the other. Viewing the artwork as a convivial tool of "social agency" that gathers viewers together is to tarnish its inherent destruction and negativity.

Our basis against this taming lies in Theodor W. Adorno's argument in his 1935 letter to Walter Benjamin. Criticizing Benjamin's study on 19th-century Paris and the arcades, Adorno rejects the idea that capitalist commodity fetishism and the dialectical image of objects are merely a subjective "dream" or a collective unconscious illusion. According to Adorno, the dream must be driven outward, and the immanence of consciousness must be understood purely as a "constellation of reality." Along these lines, Adorno makes this crucial observation: "Dialectical images are models, not social products, but objective constellations in which the 'social' situation represents itself. Consequently, no ideological or social 'agency' (action) can be expected from the dialectical image." Just as street movements cannot be considered agency because they cannot directly alter the political ground without a power vacuum, asymmetry, or a concrete cause in the status quo, no such agency—and in this sense, no teleological end—can be expected from an art object. However, this unexpected agency can be executed by an opposing force that draws a casus belli from this action. Precisely at this point, because of the action's ability to bend objective realities in its favor in the current state (status quo) and transform into a self-fulfilling prophecy, I would like to add a "necessarily unexpected" caveat to this quote.

This striking observation perfectly summarizes the position that the art object (the dialectical image) must occupy in the given order. The object is not a practical device meant to improve society, educate the masses, or, in Bourriaud's sense, integrate people with one another. It is an "objective constellation" in which the contradictions, alienation, and antagonisms of the given order fold back upon themselves, freezing and hanging suspended. As Adorno states in his aesthetic theory, art should not limit itself to copying empirical reality; it must be its essence and image in contrast to what exists, because art is "negative knowledge of the real world." The artwork gains the "aesthetic distance" to critique reality through the contradiction between the actual object, which has not reached harmony in the external world, and its own internal formal law.

Thus, the object "being merely a moment" in this phase means its withdrawal and suspension as a Hegelian/dialectical moment. Art must not dissolve into life to become a utilitarian way of living. As formulated in Jacques Rancière's politics of the "resistant form" read through Adorno's aesthetics, "the social function of art is to have no social function." The promise of equality and systemic disruption lies in the artwork's self-sufficiency, its indifference to any particular project (social agency), and its refusal to join the decor of the everyday world.

Therefore, rather than establishing a communication network that connects people through the specific gravity it gains in the symbolic order, the art object hangs suspended, interrupting current communication and the flow of the system. The object is no longer an "action" (agency), but a dialectical moment containing static yet immense tension that renders the cracks of the system visible. That "objective constellation" emphasized in Adorno's warning to Benjamin is that state of suspension where tension accumulates to accelerate the situation. Following this philosophical construction that secures the ontological dignity and symbolic weight of the object, purifying it from any utilitarian "social agency," we can now proceed to the stage of how this object can be transformed into a tool of destruction—a methodology of "classification" (sorting) that exposes the cracks of the system from within.