Antonina's Filatova response to

leguideline

"I’m Antonina Filatova, art expert and lecturer. I studied art history and started my personal practice of lectures, workshops and guided tours. I focus on interactive methods and discussion as a way to explore contemporary art. I am fascinated by communities and internal processes that art can spark in people and see my role as a facilitator that helps to perceive, interpret and discuss art."

persistent algorithms

Manifesto by LeGuideline.​

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I. THE ERA OF EXITS

When Barthes proclaimed the death of the author, he liberated the work from the weight of its creator’s intent—freeing it to live many lives. In the author’s absence, the observer rose in its place, active, interpretive, and sovereign.

But the observer, too, is now fading.

We are entering the age of the death of the observer — or, more precisely, the dispersal, decentralization, and dilution of observation itself.

We live in a time of algorithmic feeds, infinite scroll, and AI-generated surfaces.

Meaning no longer moves in a line—from author → object → observer. It diffuses. It glitches. It loops.

The observer is no longer singular, reflective, or intentional. The observer is now a stream of clicks, data, engagements — a trace, not a presence. Meaning, in turn, is no longer received. It is registered, tracked, and aggregated.

The author is dead. The observer is dispersed. Who then holds the intent of the work?

II. PURPOSE IN SUSPENSION

Art has always fluctuated in its relationship to purpose. Some artists pursued clarity, others obscurity. Some sought truth, others beauty, protest, ritual, or irony. We cannot claim a singular era of purpose, nor its demise.

But today, the velocity of production and the sheer saturation of visual and textual material place new pressure on both creation and reception.

Artists are encouraged to create continuously — often measured by relevance, visibility, engagement. Viewers are saturated, moving fast, glancing briefly.

In such an environment, the clarity of purpose can become diffuse — not absent, but suspended. It waits to be reclaimed.

This is not a crisis of intent, but a shift in where, how, and by whom purpose is located.

And so, perhaps, a new figure emerges: Not the author. Not the observer. But the notary of meaning.

III. THE AFFIDAVIT

In 1970, John Baldessari cremated all his paintings from 1953 to 1966. He baked the ashes into cookies. And he signed an affidavit — a legal declaration of the act. He did not explain. He testified.

And that affidavit became the work. A trace of intent. A marker of transformation. A witness to disappearance.

To observe, now, must carry this same force:

“I, the observer, declare under the weight of my attention, that I have seen this work, felt its gravity, and considered its place in the world.”

Not to own. Not to fix. But to be present.
In this age of ambient glances, to observe is an ethical act.
The observer must sign the affidavit.

IV. TESTIFYING TO THE HARE

In 1965, Joseph Beuys knelt beside a dead hare and whispered to it about art. The hare could not respond.

But Beuys spoke nonetheless—ritual, irony, longing.

The audience watched. Silent. Implicated.

He was not explaining. He was attesting. Performing the impossibility of meaning, and doing it anyway.

We now live among the hares. In galleries, in feeds, in endless content streams.

We explain ourselves to those who do not hear, to observers that do not see.

We perform for algorithms. We gesture toward metrics. Our witnesses are ambient, automated, absent.

But maybe this is where the manifesto begins: 

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Not in reclaiming authorship,
not in reviving observation,
but in attesting.

The observer must sign the affidavit.
Not to understand, but to be present.
Not to interpret, but to witness.
Not to own meaning, but to notarize its possibility.

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V. THE FINAL SHIFT

We are no longer authorities.
We are no longer interpreters.
We are participants in the loop. We are carriers of sense, not meaning.
We are guardians of purpose, not its originators.

To look at art now is to declare:

I was here. I saw this. I gave it a name, however briefly.
Without that, the gallery is a crypt. Without that, the hare never hears.

So yes—perhaps the observer is not dead.
But to observe now is to perform an act of ethical insistence.

Would you sign the affidavit?
Would you explain your work to a dead hare, knowing it won’t respond?

TL;DR

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In a world where both artists and observers are displaced by algorithms and infinite scrolls, to observe with intention is no longer passive but an ethical, declarative act — a witnessing that gives meaning presence.

Observation is no longer passive—it is testimony, notarized by presence.

Response to Manifesto by Antonina Filatova.

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" I found your document really interesting to read. The point about attention and presence, and how their importance and roles are changing, really resonated with me.

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I think the overload of information, shortened attention spans, and all the other effects of people being chronically online today are a crucial phenomenon that inevitably transforms both the creation and the perception of art.

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I like your thesis that today, engaging with a work of art requires an extra effort—an additional step—to focus attention and make the choice to be present.

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Here are some questions I’d like to reflect on further:

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If being present now demands more effort from the viewer, what happens to the interpretation of the artwork? Is being present enough? Will someone still take on the role of assigning meaning?

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Does the viewer value their attention more now, or do they have less control over it? In the context of social media, for instance—“if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.” Have viewers gotten used to giving away their attention in exchange for something?

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Why does the viewer need art at all?

What sets it apart from other content? What lies behind the intention and the voluntary act of offering one’s attention?

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You reference some texts—perhaps John Berger’s essay on originals and copies could be relevant here. Does the viewer still fetishize the original?

Despite the content overload, how does the democratization and constant reproduction of art affect the viewer—does it help reach their attention, or does it create a kind of “banner blindness”?

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Does this mean artists must adapt to this sliding attention? Or are they still hoping for that ethically-driven choice of the viewer to be present? "​

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to screenshot it to justify - question mark