4.02 E
Dépense
Expenditure
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With the notion of expenditure, Georges Bataille develops the idea that human
activity is not wholly reducible to processes of production and conservation,
that so-called “nonproductive” expenditures also exist and are
even necessary. Bataille lists these expenditures : luxury, mourning, war,
cults, games, shows, the arts, perverse sexual activity, and architecture.
Ruthless expenditures, waste without compensation, but capable, according
to Bataille, of draining away a surplus of energy accumulated on Earth, exploding
the excess heat from the sun that is always on the increase due to the phenomenon
of photosynthesis. Heat / Expenditure is an architecture of expenditure :
a nonproductive but perhaps preventive art ; an architecture without object,
without media other than energy itself, a simple emission of heat, a boundless
and continuous dissipation, that each person can apprehend physically and
immediately, or not. The action is therefore limited to the mere consumption
of energy. Rather than using energy to act on a medium in order to produce
a mediative form, this architecture is limited to an emission of heat that
can be felt and absorbed physiologically by each individual.
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Dépense
Design
Neuchâtel Archeological Park and Museum, Hauterive, Switzerland, September
1998
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Installation, Electronic Cultures Access Festival, Pau, France, November 21
to December 2, 2001
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Décosterd & Rahm, associés