The article proposes the development of a new aesthetic approach to contemporary art produced in or for technological platforms, focussing on interactive art and art as knowledge

Albuquerque, Inês

Oliveira, Rosa Maria

Torres, Ricardo

Repositório Institucional da Universidade de Aveiro

Conference ProceedingsISEA2010 RUHRInês Albuquerque, Ricardo Torres, Rosa Maria Oliveira (pt): From Art as Knowledge to the Aesthetics of the Subject. New Ways of Thinking the Art of the 21st CenturyMichael Brodsky (us): Big Pixels: Pictoglyph to Favicon – A History of the PixelYonggeun Kim, Seungae Bang, Joonsung Yoon (kr): Site-Specific Art as Necrophilia; Platform in Kimusa Exhibi-tion in Seoul 2009New Art Theory IIIP 52480Conference ProceedingsISEA2010 RUHRIntroductionThe article proposes the development of a new aesthetic approach to contemporary art produced in or for technological platforms, focussing on interactive art and art as knowledge.Art as knowledgeThe work of art is a trustee of subjective, empirical and emotional informa-tion, accessible to those available to fit in the role of receiver and interpreter of that information.Authors such as Claudia Giannetti are working under the perspective of art as knowledge related with new forms of artistic expression rooted in medi-atic or technological environments, where the public plays a multiple role: as receiver, as collaborative partner, almost as an artist. Understanding art as knowledge means comprehend the interaction between public and artwork.Structuration of the subjectiveOne cannot fully analyse art by simply decontextualizing it (Panofsky, 1983; Bourdieu, 1979). It is necessary to take in consideration properly the micro and macro societal aspects, in a perspective ideally resembling that of Simmel’s snapshots, where the ordinary of everyday life is stripped for its given symbolic meaning and relation to the broader symbolic articulations of society.From Art as  Knowledge to the Aesthetics of the SubjectNew Ways of Thinking the Art of  the 21st Century Inês Albuquerque (pt)University of Aveiro – DeCA, Communication  and Art Department  Ph.D. Student  inesalbuquerque@ua.pt  Ricardo Torres (pt)ISCTE – IUL  Ph.D. Student torres.ricardo@gmail.com Rosa Maria Oliveira (pt)University of Aveiro – DeCA, Communication and Art Department | ID+ Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture Professor rosaoliv@ua.pt481Conference ProceedingsISEA2010 RUHRAs today’s society goes through globalizing processes with its cultural fluxes (Appadurai, 1991: 295-310) and traditional symbolic structures have lost their importance in the orientation of action and experience (Beck et al, 2000: 53), experience and reality become an individual construction, a work of every individual. This can be traced to Kantian philosophy and Goethe’s camera obscura experiment, which underlined the importance of the subject in the experience. The relevant part of the experience ceased to be its structure or its symbolic perception in favour of the individual and his own reflexive interpretation.The art system (Melo, 1994: 11-31) stayed on the path initiated since the institutionalization of anomie (Bourdieu, 1993: 238-253), leading to the definition of art as something not dictated by institutionalized dictates, but by symbolic legitimation originated from different social groups. Thus, contem-porary society helps in shaping art experience as a subjective experience, both in terms of individuality and in terms of structure. Perhaps the best way to describe the act of experiencing the new art forms lays in the literary figure popularized by Baudelaire, the flâneur. Maybe, as the flâneur walked the city in order to experience it, the contemporary actor must subjectively experience contemporary art in order to travel through it.Interactive art and a new paradigm to the observerInteractive art places the observer in a different situation from that in “tradi-tional art”, as he can establish a relation with the work of art. Because the observer faces a new situation, we can consider that the observer no longer exists. He is a dynamic, collaborative and active participant (subject) in the creative and aesthetical process of contemporary art.Modern and contemporary art framed in the relation between art, science and technology, under the goal of immersion and participation, include art forms such as installation, video, web art, virtual reality and ambient music (Paul, 2008).Aesthetics of the subject: a new aesthetical approach?In the context of contemporary art, authors seek to develop aesthetic approaches adapted to the reality of the relation between art and technol-ogy. However, this demand is not a result of the 21st century, since the last century was prolific in new ideas regarding art and technology: from Informa-tional Aesthetics of Max Bense and A. Moles in the 60s, to Systemic Aesthet-ics in the 90s, appropriated from Endophysics theories by Peter Weibel. This theory, applied to interactivity and virtual reality in art, in which the observer (or subject) and the interface were the most important aspects, influenced Claudia Giannetti in developing Endoaesthetics.Thinking the individual as the centre of the aesthetical process leads to the idea of the aesthetics of the subject. The key concept of this idea is the sub-ject: when the observer became a participating element, almost a co-author of the interactive work, he becomes the centre of the aesthetic question, a 482Conference ProceedingsISEA2010 RUHRsubject with a key role for understanding the artwork. His relationship and interaction with the work are the main ideas of this hypothesis.ConclusionsThis article presents a new aesthetic possibility, which is believed to make sense in the context of contemporary art.Society is changing. The structuring of how an individual perceives real-ity is changing as society gradually becomes different. And to monitor the development of new forms of art, it is also absolutely necessary to develop new ways of thinking that will confirm the opening of different paths in the art of the 21st century.AcknowledgmentInês Albuquerque acknowledges to FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia the financial support SFRH/BD/46133/2008.ReferencesBauman, Z. (2006) Liquid Modernity, Cambridge, Polity Press Beck, et al (2000) Modernização Reflexiva, Oeiras, Celta Beck, U. (2007) Risk Society, London, SAGE Bourdieu, P. (1979) La distinction, Paris, Minuit Giannetti, C. (2006) Estética Digital, BH, C/Arte Grau, O. (2007) Arte Virtual, SP, Unesp Melo, A. (1994) Arte, LX, D. Cultural Panofsky, E. (1983) Meaning in the visual arts, Chicago, U. of C. Press Paul, C. (2008) Digital Art, London, T&H 483

From Art as knowledge to the aesthetics of the subject: new ways of thinking the Art of the 21st Century

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From Art as knowledge to the aesthetics of the subject: new ways of thinking the Art of the 21st Century

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Repositório Institucional da Universidade de Aveiro