Meta-relativist agenda in contemporary visual arts theory and practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-53
Author(s):  
Marat Khassanov ◽  
Vera Petrova ◽  
Assiya Khassanova

The borders of visual art on the eve of the 20th-21st centuries are being extremely expanded both at the empirical and theoretical levels and so is the agenda of contemporary philosophy of art. Is the unprecedented polyphony of discourses a methodological drawback or is it a heuristic opportunity that can help to broaden our knowledge about the essence of art and the notion of a work of art? What is visual art and what is artwork speaking the 21st century language? The study examines the current trends and innovations in the visual arts field and how they can be interpreted. Authors come to conclusion that the times of normative or negativist approaches are over. The plethora of transformations is a value-in-itself and can be seen as a legitimate methodological situation, namely, as a meta-relativist turn. Examples that are presented in the paper deal with different sides of “a work of art formula”: span of discourse, artist, audience, art space, art market, new technologies, etc. Those cases demonstrate the ambivalence of current visual art practices that can be interpreted either as complete negation of the preceding standards or as new discourses that are equally legitimate with the older ones. Meta-relativist approach treats all existing discourses and practices as equally legitimate and thus provides the method to broaden our understanding of the essence of art and definition of an artwork. The study suggests that it is a contemporary tool for further intra- and inter-disciplinary dialogue.

In visual arts both the subject matter and the techniques form traditions extending sometimes through millennia, recording the human evolution and humanity in far more direct ways than, for instance, textual traditions can ever do. In short, visual arts open a rare window to the essence of humanity itself. Visual art is testing in a comprehensive manner the human capabilities to experience the world. Modern art has further opened up the whole definition of visual arts and freed even greater number of possibilities. Anything can be presented as visual art, if the audience is ready to accept it as art and “sees” it as art. I also discuss the basis of art as we inderstand it. Life imitates art and art imitates life. Which one is the copy then? The concept of mimêsis is one of the most frequently misunderstood concepts of classical Greek philosophy. In spite of breaks in tradition and misunderstandings, what is most important, is that in European art traditions the idea of liberal art as a means of expressing and shaping in a creative way ideas has kept alive and strives.


Author(s):  
Endre Kiss

Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy avoids the problem of literary objectiveness altogether. His approach witnesses the general fact that an indifference towards literary objectiveness in particular, leads to a peculiar neglect of par excellence literariness as such. It seems obvious, however, that the constitutive aspects of the crisis of literary objectiveness cannot be shown to contain the underlying intention of bringing about this situation. At this point, one can identify what could probably be the most important element in a definition of literary objectiveness. In contrast to ‘natural’ objectiveness and objectiveness based on various societal conventions, the legitimacy of a literary work is solely guaranteed by its elements being organized in accordance with the rules of literary objectiveness. Thus when the crisis of literary objectiveness intensifies, literariness will also find itself in a crisis. This crisis detaches new, quasi-literary formations from various definitions of literariness. When literary objectiveness ceases, however, to be understood as a system constituted by various objective formations aiming to correspond in one way or another to the ‘world’, scientific analysis of literary objectiveness will be rendered impossible. The crisis of literary objectiveness thus brings about the crisis of the theory of literature and the philosophy of art. Gadamer explicitly argues that the scientific approach proves to be inadequate in the analysis of artistic experience. This attitude results in the categorical rejection of a scientific orientation (and so in a complete indifference towards literary objectiveness), but he seems to overemphasize an otherwise correct thesis on the non-reflexive character of artistic experience. It is the anti-mimetic and Platonic character of Gadamer’s aesthetic hermeneutics that determines the status of literary (artistic) objectiveness in his system of thought. What is of crucial importance, however, is to point out that this aesthetics entails a fundamental reduction of the significance of literary objectiveness. As soon as the essence of aesthetic object-constitution is taken to be re-cognition (plus the emanating aesthetic possibilities), the absolutely natural interest in the original object represented by a work of art.Undoubtedly, Gadamer’s conception answers a number of questions that tend to be ignored by other theories. It is just as obvious, however, that Gadamer completes here the aesthetic devaluation of the objective domain. It is not the characteristics of the ‘original’ that constitute the image, but in effect the image turns the original into an original. Paraphrasing this claim one arrives at a near paradox: not objectiveness makes a work of art possible, but a work of art lends objects their objectiveness.


2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATIA ARFARA

Originating from the avant-garde's attempt to supplant the structural limitations of perspective which ‘bound the spectator to a single point of view’, installation art emerged during the 1960s and the 1970s as a critique of the pure, self-referential work of art. Belgian artist Kris Verdonck integrates that modernist debate into his hybrid practice of performative installation. Trained in visual arts, architecture and theatre, Verdonck uses sophisticated technological devices in order to blur binary distinctions such as time- and space-art, inanimate and animate figures, and immateriality and materiality. This study focuses on End (Brussels 2008), which shows the possible final stages of a human society in ten scenes. I analyse End as an echo of the Futurists’ performance tactics, which prefigured a broadening of the formal aesthetic boundaries of performance art under the major influence of Henri Bergson's theory of time.


2003 ◽  
Vol 358 (1435) ◽  
pp. 1241-1249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Gortais

In a given social context, artistic creation comprises a set of processes, which relate to the activity of the artist and the activity of the spectator. Through these processes we see and understand that the world is vaster than it is said to be. Artistic processes are mediated experiences that open up the world. A successful work of art expresses a reality beyond actual reality: it suggests an unknown world using the means and the signs of the known world. Artistic practices incorporate the means of creation developed by science and technology and change forms as they change. Artists and the public follow different processes of abstraction at different levels, in the definition of the means of creation, of representation and of perception of a work of art. This paper examines how the processes of abstraction are used within the framework of the visual arts and abstract painting, which appeared during a period of growing importance for the processes of abstraction in science and technology, at the beginning of the twentieth century. The development of digital platforms and new man–machine interfaces allow multimedia creations. This is performed under the constraint of phases of multidisciplinary conceptualization using generic representation languages, which tend to abolish traditional frontiers between the arts: visual arts, drama, dance and music.


Author(s):  
V.M. Kyselov ◽  
◽  
G.V. Kyselovа ◽  

Abstract. The article explores the issues of the emergence and development of historical parks in Ukraine. There are four periods of formation and development of historical parks in Ukraine: the first ‒ from the times of Kievan Rus to the middle of the 17th century (the origin of park building), the second ‒ from the middle of the 17th century before the revolution of 1917 (construction of mainly private palaces and park ensembles), the third ‒ from 1918 to 1991 (soviet period), the fourth ‒ from 1991 to the present (the period of independence of Ukraine). The definition of the concept «historical park» is given. The park is a work of art. A unique situation in human practice: to create a living and perfect work of art at the same time. Gardens and parks provide this opportunity. The park is history. The historical park preserves and broadcasts this history to us ‒ it is an object of cultural heritage, our common heritage. Sometimes the park is also a museum-reserve and bears the function of preserving heritage. Historical gardens and parks often acquire the status of monuments. Monuments of landscape gardening art are historical and cultural monuments that organically include plants, landscape features (hills, water sources and waterfalls, stream or river valleys, stones, rocks, distant landscape perspectives, sometimes wetlands), architectural structures, sculptures, flower beds, etc. Historical parks of cities include palaces and manor complexes, botanical gardens, city parks and memorial parks, as well as parks-monuments. In total, there are 88 historical parks-monuments of landscape gardening art of national and 426 local significances in Ukraine. Parks-monuments of landscape gardening art of local importance include: parks of culture and recreation, arboretums, woodlands used as recreation parks, and other objects. In particular, in the Odessa region there are 22 parks-monuments, in the city of Odessa ‒ 5 parks-monuments of gardening art (T. Shevchenko Park, Dyukovsky Garden, City Garden, Victory Arboretum, Park named after Savitsky). The article highlights the main problems in the restoration work of historical parks and solutions. The history of the emergence and development of parks in Ukraine is analyzed. It was concluded that the historical parks are multifaceted and interesting not only for architectural ensembles, but also for their biocenosis.


2021 ◽  
pp. 105-118
Author(s):  
Nataliia BULAVINA

The article analyses the educational space of Ukrainian visual arts. The educational component of the modern art system is insufficiently studied and requires the definition of its boundaries, a description of the main characteristics, the delineation of development vectors. Therefore, the article gives a meticulous view of the preconditions and history of building the basic principles of the educational order of local visual arts. The rest of the research examines the current learning process, its structure, components and communication links. The author determines the place of education in the system of institutional structure of modern visual art of Ukraine, emphasizes its features in relation to the global educational art paradigm.


2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-308
Author(s):  
Stefan Ristic

The paper intends to determine the identity of the work of art in visual arts, music and literature. The discussion is of ontological nature. Particular attention is given to the problem of imitation of works of art in different arts, making a distinction between two types of imitation: fakes and forgeries. The first type is found only within the arts where the work of art is a singular physical object, i.e. with the so called autographic arts, whereas the second type can also be found in other, allographic arts, although less commonly. The problem of the imitation of works of art is closely related with the issue concerning the possibility of reducing the work of art to a formal symbolic system which would serve as a definition of the work of art. The discussion shows that a consistent analysis of the ontological status of the work of art in different art forms provides results that may seem at the first glance unintuitive and surprising.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-122
Author(s):  
Yuriy Truntsevsky ◽  
Vyacheslav Sevalnev

The purpose of the present article is to gain an understanding of the opportunities and difficulties created by the introduction and development of the practice of network (smart) contracts. Our research methodology is based on a holistic set of principles and methods of scholarly analysis employed by modern legal science. It uses a dialectical method involving both general approaches (structural system method, formal logical method, analysis and synthesis of individual elements, individual features of concepts, abstraction, generalization, etc.) and particular methods (legal technical, systematic, comparative, historical, and grammatical methods, method of the unity of theory and practice, etc.). We analyze the views of lawyers and other specialists from Russia and abroad, legislative innovations in the field of digital technologies, the practice of blockchain-based smart contracts, and the main risks (whether legal, technological, operational, or criminogenic) of smart contracts for economic activities with a study of their causes. In the present-day situation, it is necessary to move from the legal definition of the smart contract and its legal and technological characteristics, advantages and disadvantages to the implementation of startups in a wide range of areas, especially business, public regulation, and social relations. Scholarly and information support for such processes will contribute to the development of industry, public administration and digital technology applications to improve the life of individual citizens and society as a whole. The introduction of smart contracts does not require the adoption of new laws or regulations. Instead, one should adapt and, possibly, modify existing legal principles at the legislative and judicial levels to pave the way for the use of smart contracts and other new technologies. The system of contract law provides a sufficient framework for regulating transactions without the introduction of any new legal categories. We propose approaches to the legal definition of the smart contract and identify a set of problems that must be solved at the legislative and technical legal levels in order to implement smart contracts effectively in different spheres of life.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (2-4) ◽  
pp. 392-414
Author(s):  
Mihael Konstantinov

Engaging with the methods of studying contemporary digital audiovisual art is a dominant topic in contemporary theories of art. Against this background, the article offers a view onto some aspects of Juri Lotman’s and Gilles Deleuze’s studies on the cinema. As a rule, contemporary studies of digital audiovisual art take place in the context of interdisciplinary studies. One of the methodological principles of such studies consists in adopting a structural and semiotic approach. As of today, this methodological approach to studying audio-visual art is most developed in semiotics of the cinema, which is why in this article visual semiotics in general is viewed through semiotics of the cinema (proceeding from the approach of Juri Lotman). Also, the philosophical understanding of the nature of the cinema offered by Gilles Deleuze has proven fundamental for the study of contemporary audio-visual art. The two authors were contemporaries, but represented different scholarly paradigms: while Juri Lotman was an adherent of structuralism, Gilles Deleuze was a poststructuralist who criticized the structuralist approach. Yet despite this principal difference, both scholars still arrived at similar conclusions as concerns several questions regarding the understanding of the cinema and its very nature. In the present paper I focus on the features of these authors’ approach to spatial and temporal relations in the cinema, audiovisual relations in film as a heterogeneous form of the work of art, virtuality and mythologism in the viewer’s perception of cinema. The differences and similarities in academic approaches to cinema, developed by Lotman and Deleuze, indicate a common direction in the development of the cinema and visual arts theory, which seems relevant for the study of contemporary audio-visual arts.


Author(s):  
Luca Cigna

As of 2017, the number of ICT users worldwide reached 4 billion people – it was only 16 million in 1995. According to its early observers, the World Wide Web could effectively tackle socio-economic inequalities, promoting the diffusion of information and opportunities on the four corners of the globe. However, despite the expectations, “digital dividends” arising from new technologies have been distributed unevenly, missing the point of a dramatic, wide-spread emancipatory impetus. Furthermore, as the advantaged tend to seize resources and skills needed for benefitting from the ICTs, the deprived could be further “driven out” from the broadband revolution. Building on these concerns, the aim of the paper is that of reviewing the “state of the art” of the digital inequality debate, shedding light on five main accounts: 1. The adaptive definition of “digital divide”; 2. Methodological approaches; 3. Interaction with other forms of inequalities (socio-economic status, education, race, gender, age); 4. Global dimension and “digital peripheries”; 5. The intrinsically political issue of “connective action”. 


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