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Digital Relationality: Relational aesthetics in contemporary interactive art

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proceedings-article

Author(s): Lark Spartin , John Desnoyers-Stewart

Publication date (Print): July 2022

Conference name: Proceedings of EVA London 2022 (EVA 2022)

Conference theme: Use of new and emerging technologies in Digital Art, Data, Scientific and Creative Visualisation, Digitally Enhanced Reality and Everyware, 2D and 3D Imaging, Display and Printing, Mobile Applications, Museums and Collections, Music, Performing arts, and Technologies, Open Source and Technologies, Preservation of Digital Visual Culture, Virtual Cultural Heritage, Ethical Issues, Historical Issues, Digital Culture, Artificial Intelligence, NFTs

Conference date: 4–8 July 2022

Keywords: Relational aesthetics, Antagonism, Interactive installation, Virtual and augmented reality, Social media

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Abstract

In 1998, Bourriaud proposed relational aesthetics as an art form that took interhuman relations as its content to confront the progressive commoditization of those relations and propose alternative ways of living. Twenty years later, relational aesthetics has become even more relevant as a tool to reveal the relationality between technology and each other, as our everyday social relations have been commoditized in ways previously unimaginable. Given the enormous shifts that have occurred since its inception, relational aesthetics needs revitalization. In this paper, we aim to renew relational aesthetics as ‘digital relationality,’ recognizing important critiques about a lack of antagonism from Claire Bishop and identifying ways in which incorporating relational aesthetics with interactive art may resolve many of these criticisms. We analyse four of our own artworks as examples of how merging relational aesthetics with interactive digital art can benefit both realms. We propose that applying relational aesthetics to digital media reveals the antagonism within the structures imposed by technology ordinarily taken for granted. Drawing attention to these structures, and subverting the typical uses of these platforms, allows for reflection and discourse. This can lead both artist and viewer to imagine alternative ways of living beyond the constraints we ordinarily operate within, becoming active participants in constructing a digitally relational future.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Lark Spartin

John Desnoyers-Stewart

Conference

Publication date: July 2022

Publication date (Print): July 2022

Pages: 150-157

Affiliations

[0001]University of British Columbia

Kelowna, BC, Canada

[0002]Simon Fraser University

Surrey, BC, Canada

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/EVA2022.29

SO-VID: 3118a831-e15d-4888-9ab4-967b12183b49

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of EVA London 2022

Conference acronym: EVA 2022

Conference number:

Conference location: London

Conference date: 4–8 July 2022

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

History

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVA2022.29

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

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