In this text, Ricardo Carreira distances himself from the idea that the artist or artwork must be committed “by moral requirement.” In his judgment, “The problem arises when we attempt to describe art’s degree of effectiveness.” The commitment or moral adhesion of the artist to a given cause is not sufficient: the crux of the discussion should be how to achieve an artwork that results in an effective contribution to the process of societal transformation. For him art has a specific nature with regard to its capacity for the dishabituationof institutional structures as well as social norms: in art we encounter life (along with other institutional structures) but without that life remaining the same. In other words art supercedes institutions—it is the other— that which as an immaterial medium is capable of breaking down other media and then communicating that reduction.” Carreira’s position with regard to the artist’s commitment is that it should not be measured in terms of a “moral requirement” but by “the art’s degree of effectiveness.” He distinguishes between commitment (that links art to society) and conflict (which restricts effect on the artistic level). He believes that art provokes or unleashes conflict, not commitment, within the viewer: “Art is conflictive but not compromising. (…) One of art’s functions in society is the creation of symmetrical structures (but whose goal is not to alienate) in life; it is the key that permits entrance into and passage out of conflict.” The conflict generated by art does not persist within the viewer; it lasts only as long as one remains in contact with the artwork (for example, a visit to the cinema or to an exhibition). This distinction is key to Carreira’s conception of the limits to art’s efficacy in provoking conflict; it is not an agent of permanent awareness. For him, art has a conflictive effect limited to its environment. Considering this limit, he asks: “What sort of art must then be made?: an awareness that is inescapable and that cannot be tolerated. The more massive and mundane the better. As mundane as my shoes but with one fitting me quite large and the other quite small.” The image of the shoes, one large and one small, alludes to an erosion of habitual patterns capable of generating art based on the most routine dimensions of experience (putting one’s shoes on every morning, for example). This dishabituation does not exclusively affect the artist; it propagates its effect on all. But however much conflict or dishabituation it produces, art is not capable of transforming the world, states Carreira: “Art does not produce the entire revolution, but art can go hand in hand with it. The more estrangement there is, the more effective is that art which is not estranged. The less freedom there is, the more admirable is the art of freedom.” It is the existing contrasts, the dishabituation of that which exists, that fill art with critical potential.The allusions to armed combat raised during the debates at the Primer Encuentro [First Encounter] are not merely metaphorical. Carreira believes that “the greater the number of men and women who die or are willing to die, the better the art of life, fault and victory.” He proposes “a struggle of solidarity.” At the same time the artist is suspicious of art’s capacity to propel that struggle forward. In spite of the inherent (political) limits [of] the artistic endeavor, Carreira does not renounce art: “that formal inquiry is most important.” He believes in the ability of some cultural movements to “accompany” and contribute to the transformation of the world, stating that: “psychoanalysis and surrealism helped to dismantle capitalism.”