Intermediality: Exploring Relationships in Art

This symposium discusses the characteristics of 'intermediality' - the combination of diverse media and references, often in a quasi-curatorial gesture - focussing on the appropriation of digital images and environments and their combination with traditional media.

Contemporary life is characterised by the continuous flow and overlap of often contradictory images and narratives. The combination of multiple media is one of several strategies used by artists to engage with such a complexity. Particularly, this symposium will focus on the appropriation of digital images and environments and their combination with traditional media.

Despite acknowledging the gradual effacement of the term 'medium', this symposium proposes a return to the term 'intermediality' as a point of departure to a discussion of the generative potential of such intricate artworks. As the media scholar Jens Schröter argues, the political consequences of intermediality are interpreted in two central ways. On the one hand, Rosalind Krauss sees it as a form of 'capitulation to the capitalist spectacle'; on the other, intermediality is viewed as defamiliarising ordinary experiences of media (McLuhan), abolishing the separation between art and life and pointing to the future overcoming of the division of labour (Higgins).

In the context of participatory image culture, up to what extent are traditional art historical discourses about the medium still relevant to analyse the use of digital images in artistic installations, performances and other? In what ways do such dynamic networks of interrelations contribute to ongoing discussions about the relations between meaning and representation? What degrees of audience implication do they demand?

Curated by ICA Student Forum member Mafalda Dâmaso.