Arte de Conducta (Behavior Art)

/ The following concept was generated by the artist to define her practice.

Arte de conducta (behavior art) is the presentation of a situation that challenges the audience to become active citizens. This reaction of the audience completes/finishes/continues/gives meaning to the artwork. The artist is an instigator. The artwork is not the physical elements presented in the space but the aftermath of the experience—the ensuing process of behavioral change. The works invite participants to question and unlearn normative behaviors. They do not seek to resolve specific problems, but to lay out a quandary in which new behaviors are rehearsed and potential future scenarios are imagined.

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Arte de Conducta it is expressed in the use of social behavior (the language through which society communicates) taken by art as its work material for public and social art. Arte de Conducta has its roots in conceptual art and performance, but instead of focusing on the limits of language and the physical body it works with the reaction and behavior created in those who witness the work and participate in it, thus giving rise to a process where the audience transforms into citizenship. Just as behavior enters into social life from one generation to another through memory based on experiences, oral tradition or rumors, the documentation of Arte de Conducta pieces, although using the traditional means of documentation, tries to incorporate to collective memory as a form of long term social permanence and dialogue. Social beings are aware of symbolic meanings, also the result of experience, expressing through behavior and the exercise modeling its meanings to transform praxis. That is why Arte de Conducta focuses on the civil aspect of society.

Arte de Conducta is not concerned by forms. It uses behavior as a linguistic tool and cancels aesthetic purposes not stemming from a relationship with ethics. It is interested in the possibility of functioning and not of showing off. It moves away from the allegoric representations of the piece and tries to understand and manage elements from within society to provide moments and found institutional structures or systems which will contribute to the modification of some given aspects of society.