Estetyka intermedialności

Abstract

In this book, I am looking for a common denominator in the field of media aesthetics and visual culture studies which become now a field of wide-ranging reflection that mainly covers audiovisual media. To idea about the extent of this reflection, all you have to do is visit the website Aesthetics and Visual Culture, which has numerous links to subsequent websites, divided thematically, where you can find specialized publications about, among others film, television, video, virtual reality, and the Internet. The first chapter is an introduction to the issues of intermediality from the perspective of contemporary transformations and cultural transgressions. I start considering this by quoting the definition of intermediality, both those used contemporary, as well as those that belong to the so-called archeology of intermedies, or the concepts by Dick Higgins and Gene Youngblood. Then I make considerations in relation to the so-called intermedia strategies shaped on the field of art in the second half of the twentieth century (happening, hyperrealism, conceptualism). In this chapter, I am also doing classify contemporary theories of intermediality created on the basis of the German-language reflection of film and media studies (Knut Hickethier, Jürgen E. Müller, Joachim Peach, and Yvonne Spielmann). In the second chapter, I present the concept of the aesthetics of intermediality, which in its very assumption is the implementation of the postulates of renewed media aesthetics. I search premises for such a methodological shot in reflection about aesthetic theories of intermediality, starting with the romantic debate on subject Correspondance des arts and the theory of Gesamtkunstwerk as a synthesis of arts, to determinations of avant-garde aesthetics of the widely-understood in the archeology of new media by Lva Manovich. In concept, which I take as the basis of this book, the aesthetics of intermediality turns out to be the model of the "aesthetics beyond aesthetics" by Wolfgang Welsch, and its theoretical framework focuses on issues that can be represented in the form of two main groups of intermedia relations: ‣ of established between generally understood media in contemporary culture; ‣ of established between specific media that were analyzed they on the example of one intermedium, such as film or video. In chapter three, I take into consideration the subject of research of the aesthetics of intermediality. This is another aspect of constructing a kind of field of reflection about relationships between the media. As a starting point, I assumed that the subject of research of the aesthetics of intermediality relationships between existing media. However, an equally important aspect of these relationships is the creation of intermedia. The essence of the aesthetics of intermediality is so a binary structure concluded between the reflection on the subject of intermedia relationships which occur in the in-between media, and intermedia resulting from these relationships. For intermedia may be included: visual poetry, visual music, light art, intermedia photography, film, video, videoclips, television art, computer animation, interactive cinema, net art, holography, theater, ballet, and multimedia performative performances. The perspective of including interactive cinema and the Internet in the scope of research on the aesthetics of intermediality seems particularly interesting, as it has been omitted many times so far in relation to these media. In chapter four I present two theoretical perspectives of the aesthetics of intermediality, which are visual culture studies and media aesthetics. I have already presented methodological premises, which lead to recognition of these research perspectives as fields of reflection about audiovisual culture. In the scope of media aesthetics, the research concept presented by me is situated at the intersection of two planes of audiovisual culture description. The first of them develops in accordance with the modernist paradigm and has been defined as the aesthetics of the analog image, whose main means of expression is mise-en-scène ("put on the stage"). While, the second perspective, using the achievements of the postmodern reflection, can be called the aesthetics of a digital image, because it constructs visual representations based on the principles of mise-en page ("put on the page"). And finally, the fifth chapter - the last - presents the typology of the aesthetic of intermediality, which I decided to describe on three examples the aesthetics of the object, light, and surface. Listed these types of aesthetic reflection ones show the specificity of the discussed issue in relation to the concept of "image" understood as a visual event taking place in the performative form. In this example may we can trace the history of various aspects of representation, allegoricality, visual representations, the problem of seeing and understanding the concept of "image surface", which evolved with the appearance of subsequent visual media ranging from various forms of painting, through photography, film, video, television to digital medial and the Internet. Discussed the research methodology also realizes the formula of an aesthetic reflection, which is in the range of visual culture studies and media aesthetics, described as theoretical perspectives of the aesthetics of intermediality.