Is it time to ditch the term 'outsider art' for Art Brut?

Art Brut, meaning raw art, is labelled as "outsider art" by an editorial company, Vista Studio, in 1972 when first published in the UK (1972). This creates an exclusive label and binary opposition based on Howard's labelling theory (Howards, 1963). To be more specific, Howard analyzed this label in a complex but direct way: insiders create rules to label outsiders (Howards, 1963). Furthermore, based on another reference from Celik (2024), risks from digital culture in modern discourse exacerbate divisions through commodification and continued labelling. The word 'outsider' in "outsider art" (1972) defines and labels people mechanically and causes othering issues.

In this project, I will make a short film inspired by Abbas Kiarostami to visualise a reflective solitude ambience to question the labelling process, and another publication of questioning this label.

Introduction

Art Brut is the art definition from Jean Dubuffet (1949) referring to art being created "based solely on own impulses" (Dubuffet, 1949). However, editorial company Vista Studio translated it as "Outsider Art" (1972) when introducing this concept to the UK. However, why using outsider as a word to define Art Brut while this word causes people onto exclusive and oppositional feeling? I am not the only one who is questioning this word. Organisations such The Gallery of Everything (personal communication, 2024) are working on challenging this challenging label while Barbican is avoiding using it altogether. Artists, such as Cory Arcangel are using digital skills to ignore this label while working without a label exploring what working without labels might be like.

This project aims to question the word 'outsider' while introducing Art Brut. My intention is not interference. I will make my step on questioning the labelling translation itself, practicing through Art Brut intensions through developing motivation of my expressions. For the practical works, here are the three outcomes to achieve my aim:

• Make a short film to visualise the labelling process. The short film will document scenes from Dungeness and Rainham, creating an engaging ambience to communicate ideas of exclusivity and labelling.
• Design a publication. The publication will vectorise scenes from the short film, questioning each with captions such as 'Who tags outsiders?'.
• A workshop, using p5.js to encourage audiences to play with quotes. The workshop aims to raise awareness of labelling issues, asking participants to question how they might avoid labelling others stereotypically?

Contextual Review

Literature

1. Dubuffet, J. (1949). L'art brut préféré aux arts culturels

"Here we are witnessing an artistic operation that is completely pure, raw, reinvented in all its phases by its author, based solely on his own impulses."_ (Dubuffet, 1949)

Dubuffet is the artist who gave the definition of Art Brut. He described Art Brut artists as creating art through their own impulses, being 'untouched' by artistic traditions, emphasising their art purity (Dubuffet, 1949). I respect this concept of making art with unintentional motivations which will developing with more interesting possibilities and native motivations. The translation "outsider art" (1972) by editorial company vista studio in 1972 differentiated the original emphasis. Why should we define people through boundaries and label them through controversial words? Why should we follow this othering word "outsider" just because they are making arts without being educated with art? Who defines the boundary? Based on Becker's labelling theory, there are issues under this othering sociological challenge.

2. Becker, H.S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance

Howard Becker describes the labelling of outsiders as not because of the behaviour, but because of social rules. Insiders use the rule to label outsiders to gain welfare. (Becker, 1963, p.3-25)

Using Becker's idea, we can understand that "outsider art" (1972) is excluded because it breaks the "rules" of "insider art". Some "insiders" are using the controversial label "outsider" to take "welfare" and build exclusive bias to society by using uneven power (Becker, 1963). This welfare comes from using the controversial word "outsider" to build wealth, through labelling people. So, it is needed to revisit more about who is getting the wealth from labelling people who are doing self-initiated arts. Further research onto Outsider Arts within Digital culture gives me further conceptual developments.

3. Celik, I.E. (2024) 'Rethinking Outsider Art in the digital age: an overview of Cara Macwlliam's artistic practice'

In this paper, Celik questioned the risks of new forms of exclusion created by using the word "Outsiders" within digital contexts (Celik, 2024).

From here, I started to understand deeper about the "Whose Rules" structure created by Becker (Becker, 1963) -- if the rules, wealth, and uneven rights of creating keep labelling and using "Outsiders" as label for commodity, the divergence would still exist. Now, the phrase "Outsider Art" (1972) has been put in a modern and forward-looking context under in-and-out capitalism. This is also the reason Celik's case study, Cara MacWilliam, claimed herself being an 'Outsider Artist' in a capitalist context.

4. Barthes, R. (1964). Elements of semiology

In the chapter The Romans in Film, Barthes criticised how the film Julius Caesar (Shakespeare, 1953) used semiotics to communicate. He introduced using shared knowledge and "rooted" visual languages to communicate as positive methods. This means shared emotions, instead of using conceptual knowledge straightforwardly (Barthes, 1964). Ethically this is necessary for me to consider during the production of my film. How will I avoid re-labelling, re-building bias on bias, like Becker and Celik stated? The film should make use of visual languages that explore shared emotions, but that do not re-create bias.

Visual References

1. Arcangel, C., Super Mario Clouds (2012)

Figure 1: Super Mario Clouds, Cory Arcangel, 2012

Cory Arcangel used his digital skills to delete elements in the game Mario but keep the slow-moving clouds. This work has also been exhibited in-person and online in galleries such as Whitney Museum of American Art and Lisson Gallery. This creative perspective of viewing an element in a game differently inspired my question to both Arcangel's role and aesthetics.

Arcangel used digital tools to be an artist untouched by traditional classical art background, but without being labelled as an 'outsider artist'. He challenged this label through the method of his identity although his work is quite open to show specific contexts while the gallery also explained his work in multiple directions.

This piece has a slowness and emptiness, with only the clouds moving. This creates a feeling that could be interpreted through Naturalism and poetic realism, which can also represent the self-initiated motivation of Art Brut (Dubuffet, 1949). This reminds me of a film maker, Abbas Kiarostami, who also used poetic realism and Naturalism as visual language to take openness to the audience as a new and innovative way, for example 24 frames (2017). I am also going to use this as atmosphere to create openness and symbiosis with audience.

2. Kiarostami, A., 24 frames (2017)

Figure 2: 24 Frames, Abbas Kiarostami, [screenshot, 00:28:10], 2017

In 24 Frames (2017), Kiarostami visualised the relationship between individuals and the environment. Each scene is without dialogue or explanation, encouraging the audience to engage and reflect. By revisiting Barthes's semiotics theory (1964), it is great that Kiarostami refused to use semiotics onto subjects in subjective perspective. To connect each of his separate scenes of stories, he also refused describing them. He used only a word of "Frame" (Kiarostami, 2017) to let the audience imagine more than defining any animals, scenes, stories, or designs. I understood his method of design as an open-access one for me to question the controversy label, 'outsider'. This will make my practice less stereotype and giving the audience with more imagination.

Figure 3: 24 Frames, Abbas Kiarostami, [screenshot, 01:42:41], 2017

3. Chang, J & Chovbe., X (2018)

Figure 4: Jyun Chang & Chovbe, X, (2018) [screenshot, 01:02]

Figure 5: Jyun Chang & Chovbe, X, (2018) [screenshot, 01:06]

Jyun Chang and Chovbe used generative geometric animation to visualise inner world of schizophrenia (Chovbe, 2018) and developed into a pure digital Art Brut style music video but avoided explaining and labelling it as being "outsider art" (1972).

It was creative and engaging to use digital generators to experimentally develop complex abstract movements of digital Art Brut (Celik, 2024) in music video as normal commercialisation tool. However, although Chovbe used music video as a media, he kept the pure motivation of Art Brut (Dubuffet, 1949), which is a positive example under Celik's critiques of digital culture challenges (Celik, 2024). Chovbe and Chang used pure digital Art Brut to publish as MV to challenge how to compromise commercial and Art Brut motivation purity that Dubuffet suggested (Dubuffet, 1949).

4. Beckett, S., Waiting for Godot (1988)

Figure 6: Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1988) [screenshot, 00:01:46]

Waiting for Godot (1988) is an absurdist drama that explores uselessness, emptiness, and action. Through absurdist dialogue, the drama encourages the audience to question. Who is waiting? Why are they waiting?

During the interview, Beckett refused to explain to the audience although some audience members were confused while watching (1988). Beckett described his choice of "symbiosis" (Beckett, 1988) while wanting the audience to reflect on those things that exist without making sense.

Visually, the minimal stage design with only two people and a tree also gives the audience more space to engage and reflect in the minimal ambience. This is a work that provided a philosophical structure as a tool for me to communicate through questioning something that's been created as a controversial label, like "outsider art" (1972). I was interested in how Beckett questioned absurdity. For example, in the dialogs of Waiting for Godot, actors do not know who Godot is (Beckett, 1988).

Project Evaluation

Short film

First, I made a short film that explores labelling processes through documenting the solitude happening at Dungeness and Rainham, two art villages with Art Brut context, for audience to reflect on the labelling issue. Here is the link to my film: https://youtu.be/RWUJhy3RsSc

Figure 7: 365 seconds, Shangda Li, 2024

As a graphic design student, an "insider" in the industry, Arcangel's work Super Mario Clouds (Arcangel, 2012) gave me more challengeable thinking to make Art Brut works for the so-called "outsiders". Will I be considered as the operator of labelling while producing documentary film with my insider knowledge? This leads me to think about a more reflective way of communication from contextual visualisation through structural visualisation, which can be more meaningful for this challenging context.

By re-visiting Becker's labelling theory (Becker, 1963), this challenge can be solved through contextual visualisation into the labelling structure from "insiders" towards "outsiders" rather than explaining too much or expressing the whole context. This will lead to overthinking or can be misleading for the audience. Meanwhile, Arcangel's work Super Mario Clouds (Arcangel, 2012) has also given me a pace of my works: slowness, healing, without labelling or directly explaining ideas.

During discussions about my work with tutors and friends, I realised that some misunderstandings from the audience happened due to over-explanation. So, how can I visualise the world of Art Brut without explaining or expressing the context too much to avoid the inherent challenge of misunderstandings? Based on 24 frames (2017), Kiarostami rejected designing semiotics, and documented scenes with poetic realism for visualisation. As Becker expressed (Becker, 1963), I need to avoid over-leading the audience but keep them to reflect.

I video-documented the landscape of Dungeness and Rainham by placing a camera in a tripod in the same place. This made the film more open while it relates back to Dubuffet's original intention of Art Brut (Dubuffet, 1949): naturally happened and, more importantly, self-initiated motivation, formally and conceptually. This method avoided commercially marketing "outsider" label which Celik criticised (Celik, 2024). This also addressed the conceptual and methodological challenges about identity and misunderstanding.

But how to avoid re-labelling from the subjective aspect and cause misunderstanding from the audience's perspective? Now, both Barthes's questioning of misuse of semiotics (Barthes, 1964) and Becker's labelling theory (Backer, 1963) can be used. I designed an abstract flag to represent the insiders who labels people. Each character in the landscape moved from the left side of screen to right side of screen - from solitude to a community to represent the labelling process and how the community can break the label. Now the audience can watch the film from an objective perspective, which was how Kiarostami did for openness and respect in 24 frames (Kiarostami, 2017).

Figure 8: Scene without flag symbol, Shangda Li, 2024

Figure 9: Scene with flag symbol, Shangda Li, 2024

In the final scene, I used the inverse colour to communicate more challenges such as the existence of social labelling and calling the audience to reflect on this short film.

Figure 10: Final Scene, Shangda Li, 2024

I also used mosaic-flashing effect to represent the digital culture challenges. When the flag flashes, the character(s) on the landscape will be labelled with cold and machinery mosaic flashes. These flashes aim to respond to the challenges under the machinery labelling in the digital culture (Celik, 2024). The way I put the flag into each scene also kept them as natural as possible and maintained the silence and minimal aesthetics. This also corresponded to the scene design of Waiting for Godot (1988). Referencing Kiarostami's poetic realism aesthetics in 24 frames (Kiarostami, 2017) while challenging the label with openness and avoiding re-labelling, this has also been used for realising connecting each scene with the word "frame".

Figure 11: frame .1 transition, Shangda Li, 2024

As the designer, I have been totally objective while visualising the process of labelling rather than explaining too much to the audience or designing under stereotypes or even re-designing stereotypes. With reference to Bather's critiques of using semiotics (Bather, 1964), it was a sensible decision to leave audience with space of reflection and imagination. This is because I did not relabel semiotics while documenting. But is this "outsider" issue unresolvable? The answer is probably no. Therefore, I designed a publication for the audience to reflect more directly.

Publication

In the publication, I referenced Avant-Garde Structuralism visual style (1928) as the method for minimising visual elements of each scene of the film into vector. I mainly focused on creatively vectorising scenes of the short film and refining some phrases to prompt the audience to reflect on the 'outsider' label.

Figure 12: Publication, Shangda Li, 2024

By referencing Barthes's critiques (Barthes, 1964), in this publication, it was also correct for me to also avoid over-designing or creating new semiotics but kept vectorising and simplifying each scene into vector images. For the design, I followed the intention of avoiding being commercial but kept the purity of each sense just like Chovbe did for his experimental Avant-Garde Structuralism animation, X (2018).

However, how to let the audience understand my intention more than as reflective as the film was? By linking back to the structure studies of Waiting for Godot (1988), I created two different phrases to question 'outsider' label: 'Who said we need diving sea?' 'Who tags outsider?' structured in a '[]' to represent label. The first phrase is more creative and absurd while the second is a direct summary of Becker's (1963) and Celik's (2024) analysis and critiques to the labelling theory and the issue under current digital culture. The '[]' punctuation also has two meanings for the audience: it's a language in coding that represents random choice and represents a label for the audience that do not know coding.

Workshop

I am going to create a workshop that uses p5.js as an open digital tool for my audience to come and work together, which will make my research more practical. For the workshop, I am planning to engage the audience to create phrases through the logic of Waiting for Godot's absurdism (1988) and using p5.js to create patterns with the phrases.

Figure 13: Workshop, Shangda Li, 2024

p5.js is a low-barrier and free tool, which can be used to generate critical dialogues by means of typewriter fonts. The purpose of the workshop is to communicate the solitude and exclusivity of being an outsider, to critically questioning the term "outsider art".

However, in this process, some considerations such as clarity and openness are quite important for people to come to the workshop. Ethically, how can I avoid pushing some people too much if they do not want to share their stories? How to consider and include people with different English skills, coding knowledge, experiences, writing preferences, and people with disabilities and dyslexia? Thus, the workshop will involve drawing and discussion, instead of writing.

These are considerations to avoid the risk of commercialising (Celik, 2024) and relabeling these groups of people (Becker, 1963) while attracting the audiences. I believe through these considerations and ethics; I can avoid labelling and be inclusive to question labelling issues.

Referencing Arcangel (2012) and Kiarostami's (2017) Naturalism and poetic realism as identity and visual language, Chovbe's (2018) Avant-Garde Structuralism as an attitude and a method and waiting for Godot's (1988) absurdism as a structure, to question this labelling issue., post-metaphorism may be the word to best capture my design methodology. This is a design method that I described my practice after reflection in this report.

Post-metaphor-ism has been used for the reflective communication of my short film, expression of the publication and the interaction within my interactive p5 website as a workshop practice.

However, is this a re-labelling from me as a designer which Becker criticised (Becker, 1963), and how to avoid being commercialised like Celik questioned and criticised (Celik, 2024)? These complexities might be even more challenging than this research project, while these existences are also what Dubuffet has faced while he summarises what Art Brut is (Dubuffet, 1949).

Conclusion

As a graphic design student, I felt challenges during this research project for the complexity. Currently in academic context, there is a position paper published in 2020 about re-naming towards the Ontologization of the outsider art domain (Roberto and Davis, 2020). This is important in conclusion as it represents future changes in Art and Design, and as a future prospect after my practical report.

During the whole project, I have moved from discovering an answer to reflecting on a question. But the situation is still not too negative while looking back to clear structure after researching from Dubuffet (1949) to Becker (1963) and Celik's (2024) contexts and research.

Now, as a graphic design student, while facing these complexities, what I could do is already challenging. This challenge happens while I am aiming to raise awareness and creating another structured reflection-based outcome. So, I would like to hope art practitioners and curators also start reflecting both the complexity and diversity:

Should anyone, from people to arts, be defined by a controversial label?

While artists and designers started working on the use of concepts, how to avoid looking mechanically from "inside" to "outside" (Becker, 1963)? While the context is about Art Brut, how should we avoid using labelling "outsider art" while more about avoiding commercialising but keep publicising positive use about people and communities (Celik, 2024)? These are what we art and design practitioners need to consider.

Bibliography

Barthes, R. (1964). Elements of semiology. New York, NY Hill, And Wang.

Becker, H.S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance. New York: Free Press.

Celik, I.E. (2024). Rethinking Outsider Art in the digital age: an overview of Cara Macwilliam's artistic practice. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, 33. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/s2045796024000702.

Compagnie De L'art Brut, Galérie René Drouin and Dubuffet, J. (1949). _L' art brut préféré aux arts culture_ls. Paris.

Kiarostami, A., (2019). Five Dedicated to Ozu. [online] IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409965/ [Accessed 1 Nov. 2024].

Roberto, J. and Davis, B. (2020). Towards the Ontologization of the Outsider Art Domain: Position Paper. Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Proceedings of the 16th Joint ACL-ISO Workshop on Interoperable Semantic Annotation, pp.94-101.

Shakespeare, W., and Mankiewicz, J.L. (1953). Julius Caesar. [online] IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045943/ [Accessed 17 Nov. 2024].

List of Illustrations

Figure 1: Arcangel, C., Super Mario Clouds (2012). [Digital Art]. Available at: https://www.lissongallery.com/news/cory-arcangel-work-online-via-stavanger-art-museum [Accessed: 15 Dec. 2024].

Figure 2, Figure 3: Kiarostami, A. 24 frames. (2017). [Film]. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6777170/ [Accessed: 7 Nov. 2024].

Figure 4, Figure 5: Chang, J & Chovbe., X (2018). [Music Video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWEK3TLwHXM [Accessed: 20 Dec. 2024].

Figure 6: Beckett, S., Waiting for Godot (1988) [Drama]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q77jgal4Gto [Accessed: 19 Dec. 2024].