The Artistic Installation as a Form of Transmitting of Socially Significant Meanings

Abstract

The connection between art and society presents the main subject of the article. Briefly touching upon the causes of this phenomenon, which stem from the high level of communicative activity of the modern context of our lives, the author shows the connection of these processes and the need of art to absorb the vital problems of our existence — war and peace, ecology, a healthy lifestyle, the role of art, etc. Many artists today think that the absence of that connection leaves art beyond the boundaries of its relevant and called-for forms. One sign of that global tendency is the special interest in the documentary artistic practices, as well as the drifting of art outside of its traditional environment of museums and concert halls. The result is wide dissemination of the performative forms of presentation of socially significant artistic concepts, one of which is installation. While characterizing the environmental side of the issue and tracing the key points of the historical development of the art of installation, the author observes that it is genetically determined to reflect the socially significant problems. Considering the different examples of installation artefacts, the author points out their predisposition to the synthesis of arts. Introducing music to the broad palette of expression means that it not simply intensifies this influence, but, because of the processual nature of music, it possesses the effect of theatricality that manifests itself in the process of exploration of artistically organized environments on the part of the audience. Analyzing the examples of installation constructs that are situated in urban landscapes from this perspective, the author arrives at the idea that the natural consequence of the aforementioned processes is the emergence of artistically presented installations. One of the possible examples is the installation by Heiner Goebbels Everything that Happened and Would Happen based on texts from Europeana: A Brief History of the 20th Century by Patrik Ourednik. The main aim of the analysis of all the examples is to identify some of the new forms of involvement of audiences in the process of perception. While traversing through the liminal state, it is involved in the meaning-generating process and in the process of search and comprehension of the meaning, the audience acquires the chance to understand profoundly the difficult problems of modern social life.

Keywords: installation, society, performance, synthesis of the arts