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Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00243
- Thesis Title
- The Sublime in Interactive Digital Installation: An analysis of three artworks: Listerning Post, Translator II: Grower, The Cloud Harp
- Author
- Tegan Bristow
- E-mail
- tegan.bristow AT wits.ac.za
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- Masters in Digital Arts (MA)
- Year
- 2007
- Number of Pages
- 111
- University
- University of the Witwatersrand
- Thesis Supervisor
- Christo Doherty
- Supervisor e-mail
- christo.doherty AT wits.ac.za
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Language(s) of Thesis
- English
- Department / Discipline
- Digital Arts - Interactive Digital Media
- Copyright Ownership
- University of the Witwatersrand
- Languages Familiar to Author
- English
- URL where full thesis can be found
- Keywords
- Sublime, Interactive Digital Installation, Nature and Technology
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- This examines the notion of the sublime in interactive digital installation art, with the primary aim of showing the methods and devices used to evoke the sublime in the participant through interactive digital installation that uses data (from natural phenomena) as material. The evocation of the sublime which is largely associated with nature is an appealing yet contentious aesthetic in these technology driven artworks. This paper follows the notion of the sublime in the arts and philosophy from Dioynisus Longinus to Jean-François Lyotard, with an emphasis on Romanticism and Postmodernism. Three case studies are presented and addressed: Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen’s Listening Post (2001-2003), Sabrina Raaf’s Translator II: Grower (2004) and the NXIO GESTATIO Design Lab’s The Cloud Harp (1997). These are addressed as contemporary adaptations of the notion of the sublime, which comparatively address what is refered to as the ‘technological sublime’ and is influenced by the notions’ postmodern sentiments introduced by Jean Francois Lyotard.