Elizabeth Grosz: Chaos, Territory, Art

• On first reading this seems to me to be an argument between the value of art for society and the value of art to the individual - how are these two values separated?

My own interest in art making, which is an ongoing study into my own place in a world of individuals, is not to approach an understanding of different “types” of people, but to uncover commonalties between and across humanity in general, which relate to our role as human beings, not racial or territorial groups. Art has the specific quality in that it attaches to these commonalities by its inherent sensual and intellectual effects, regardless of its political interpretations. The production of sensation is enough to bring about change - and change that comes from a much more humane and adaptable space than any one discourse or politic. - Helen

• Elizabeth Grosz, in “Chaos, Territory, Art”, speaks of Arts role in dealing with our immersion in the excess of the world, creating sensations in an effort to apprehend Chaos. (Chaos not as disorder but as a multitude of orders). She argues that the territories Art sets up by way of the frame are not fixed at any position but continually play between chaos and order, traversing any boundaries and producing new sensations…