Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences / New Aspects of the Artistic Image Theory

Full text (.pdf)
Issue
Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences. 2026 19 (9)
Authors
Koptseva, Natalia P.
Contact information
Koptseva, Natalia P. : Siberian Federal University (Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation); ; ORCID: 0000-0003-3910-7991
Keywords
actor-network aesthetic; artistic image theory; glitch; unstable media; F. Halsall; M. Bettencourt; R. Menkman
Abstract

This article explores the possibility of updating the artistic image theory proposed by V. I. Zhukovsky, N. P. Koptseva, and their followers by integrating the fundamental ideas of Francis Halsall’s actor-network aesthetics and Michael Betancourt and Rosa Menkman’s glitch aesthetics. Actor-network theory allows for a re-description of the artistic image not as a static result of a dialogue between a work of art and a viewer-recipient, but as the effect of a heterogeneous network comprising the artist, material, tools, exhibition space, viewer-recipient, and technical protocols. In this perspective, each element of the network is recognized as a fully-fledged agent capable of influencing the emergence and transformation of the image. Glitch aesthetics, in turn, demonstrates that the artistic image (especially in screen art) may arise not from the harmonious form of both the artwork and the process of image formation, but from a disruption of these forms, a technical failure, a compression artifact, or a data transmission error. As a result, the artistic image ceases to be a complete structure and begins to be understood as an event on the brink of disappearance, where the materiality of the media asserts itself as an active participant in the aesthetic event. In this model, the viewer-recipient transforms from a passive observer into a network operator, forced to complete the image at the moment of its disintegration. The proposed synthesis allows for a transition from the aesthetics of presence to the aesthetics of rupture, opening up new possibilities for analyzing digital and networked artistic experience within the context of the theory of the artistic image

Pages
1806–1815
EDN
NDECFY
Paper at repository of SibFU
https://elib.sfu-kras.ru/handle/2311/160099

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