Toward Alive Art

Abstract

Electronics is about to change the idea of art drastically. We know this is going to happen - we can feel it. Much less clear to most of us are the hows, whens and whys of the change. In this paper, we will attempt to analyze the mechanisms and dynamics of the coming cultural revolution, focusing on the ≪artistic space≫ where the revolution is taking place, on the interactions between the artistic act and the space in which the act takes place and on the way in which the act modifies the space and the space modifies the act. We briefly discuss the new category of ≪electronic artists≫. We then highlight what we see as the logical process connecting the past, the present and our uncertain future. We examine the relationship between art and previous technologies, pointing to the evolutionary, as well as the revolutionary impact of new means of expression. Against this background we propose a definition for what we call ≪Alive Art≫, going on to develop a tentative profile of the performers (the ≪Alivers≫). In the last section, we describe two examples of Alive Artworks, pointing out the central role of what we call the “Alive Art Effect” in which we can perceive relative independence of creation from the artist and thus it may seem that unique creative role of artist is not always immediate and directly induced by his/her activity. We actually, emphasized that artist’s activities may result in unpredictable processes more or less free of the artist’s will.