A Cognitive Map of the Relationship Between Late Capitalism and Postmodern Design Aesthetics Applied to the Validation of the Concept in Contemporary Art

A practice-based research in the field of visual art, which addresses the aesthetic validation of the conceptual component in contemporary art. It treats the underlying research protocol of artistic practice as an artefact that is subject to an aesthetic judgement through the twin imperative of self-reflexivity and medium-specificity. This is done by creating a cognitive map of the relationship between late capitalist organisational structures and postmodern design aesthetics. The objective of this approach is to articulate and expand an artistic vocabulary for new instalments in a series of works called the Matrix Series (2019-). This work deals thematically and formally with the organisational structures of late capitalist economy. The central concept is the idea of a matrix, as the condition from within which no “outside” is conceivable. The matrix is the starting point for exploring the idea of an artwork defined by its ability to speak of itself solely from within its own formal constraints (medium-specificity) while also commenting on its material constraints (self-reflexivity).