Phenomenological Approach to Cyberarts

http://www2.arnes.si/~ljzpubs1/closeness.htm

Phenomenological Approach to Cyberarts

Today we are witnessing a great transformation in the contemporary arts, perhaps as significant and profound as the transformation from the pre-modern art to the modern art. The diversification and plurality of art forms at the end of the millennium has undoubtedly presented a problem for philosophies of art, cultural studies, and aesthetics. When most of the recent works of art are placed in a social context we find that the vast majority are no longer works in the mode of stable (material) artifacts; they come to us in the form of concepts, web projects, computer-mediated situations, and virtual articulations. The works of art coming into the foreground today are often cyberworks of art which appear at the intersection of art-as-we-know-it, techno-science, state-of-the-art technology, new media, computer mediated communications, design, new politics, cyberpop and techno-religions.

How can we come to a better understanding of these works of art and the radical turns (shifts of paradigms) which brought them into being, and still come to an understanding of the individual and the trend-setting linking, "clickual" sensitivity at the end of the millennium? How can we come closer to these projects, whose extreme forms and articulations profound impact our understanding of traditional works of art and more poignantly, the institution of art today? It seems that these art projects could be best understood as a kind of dry run for new ways of sensation, perception, and sensitivity. Above all, these projects should be seen as a new means of communication in the world. A communication guided by techno sensitivity.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a common denominator for works of art that are set beyond the art-as-we-know-it (viz. beyond the book, beyond the flat paintings, beyond the stage...), as projects turn toward extended concepts of creativity within artistic institutions that take into account such issues as politics, lifestyles, net activism, alternative modes of communication, new media, techno-religions, techno-sciences, and even alternative forms of sociability. We can approach the particularities of these projects only by recognizing the main features of the world that they thrive in, and by analyzing the crucial shifts which have dictated their aesthetics.

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