Below the Surface: New Aesthetics and lmmersive Experiences for Trans-Cultural Groups


Symposium:


Session Title:
  • Social Theory and Electronic Media

Presentation Title:
  • Below the Surface: New Aesthetics and lmmersive Experiences for Trans-Cultural Groups

Presenter(s):


Abstract:

  • The presentation will examine the possibilities and approaches of artists and designers attempting to make new aesthetic forms in response to the emergence of spaces for culturally diverse groups in the electronic environment.The urgency for new aesthetics responds to the dynamic activities of cultural groups but also acknowledges the simultaneous transformation of the ‘narrative’ in the electronic environment worldwide.The processes for decentralised communications have enabled a level of subversion, political activism and cultural opposition proposing the destruction of a model for the dominant form in western contemporary society.Yet at the same time the evolution of electronic networking, virtual environments, and the increased engagement with interactivity to the point of submersion suggests a significant change in our understanding of cultural values, and even more radically devalues the presence and importance of the “object” If cultural values transcend representation of an enclosed social cultural canonization, will this new thinking of cultural practice and abandonment of the “object” in the electronic environment eventually supersede the current aggressive commodification of culture that ubiquitous technology permits? Important to this investigation is the exploration of”high”andlow” forms of media production, the differing levels of engagement for the audience and maker that defies a dependent relationship between pioneering scientific process and the success of the message especially for new virtual experiences. In particular notions of the”surface” will be examined in order to accredit claims for culturally specific aesthetics and to reveal the evolving relationship of the aesthetic to the process of the virtual experience. Case studies will be drawn from both developing and western countries contrasting the perceptions and utilization of wildly diverse technological processes in order to achieve new cultural forms which can sometimes surprisingly share common objectives and philosophies.

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