immersive art: innovative or destroying artistic essence?
Embodiment and a multi-sensorial experience of exhibitions has become an increasingly popular approach to exhibitions today, as we move away from the euro-centric prioritisation of vision among the senses. In our tutorial, this led to a discussion of the recent trend in the art world – immersive art exhibitions. Famous artists’ work, including Van Gogh and Monet have been transformed into new exhibitions which the visitor experiences through screens and projections which draw their attention to specific parts of the work and immerse them into the world of the artist. However, are these exhibitions simply profit-driven exploitations of art, designed to attract the ‘instagram generation’, ultimately taking value away from ‘pure’ art? David Hockney’s recent turn to digital ‘iPad art’ and his upcoming immersive, projection and screen-based exhibition which also immerses the viewer into his art, is an interesting example where the artist himself has turned to the digital and the immersive. Perhaps then, digital and immersive art is simply increasing access to art, democratising what can often be an elitist word? However, Hockney makes an important distinction between his immersive exhibition and those created for long-dead artists: ‘They are just using Van Gogh and Monet, and they’re dead. They can’t add anything to it,’ he quips. ‘Well, I’m still alive, so I can make things work better.’ Perhaps digitisation of art only works when the artist is still alive to preserve his unadulterated vision, instead of it being undermined by capitalism….
https://www.wallpaper.com/art/exhibitions-shows/david-hockney-announces-immersive-art-exhibition-london
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/article-david-hockney-ipad-painting-during-lockdown
Contributed by EilidhRoberts on 17/02/2023
One response to “immersive art: innovative or destroying artistic essence?”
Very interesting contribution, Eilidh. I think that you raise some fascinating questions about authorship and digitalisation .
One thing I want to point out though is that immersive art is not synonymous with digital art. I actually think that digital techniques are not that efficient in creating immersive environments and with my previous exhibitions I have tried to demonstrate how more traditional techniques (ie photography, film ect ) can create much better participatory and multi-sensory spaces.