Negotiating meaning

The dialogic imagination in electronic art

Eduardo Kac

pp. 199-216

in: Finn Bostad, Craig Brandist, Lars Evensen, Faber (eds), Bakhtinian perspectives on language and culture, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004

Abstract

The words "dialogical" or "dialogism" appear often in literary criticism and philosophy, but further research is necessary regarding the meaning of these terms in the visual arts. When applied to visual arts, these terms usually become tropes similar to their counterparts in literary theory, that is, metaphors to support the analysis of cultural products that are materially self-contained (for example books, paintings) and therefore incapable of creating the living experience of dialogues. It is clear that one can engage in a dialogue about a book, but the book itself is not a dialogical medium.¹ The understanding of art as inter-communication moves us away from the issue of "what is it that art or the artist communicates?" to question the very structure of the communication process itself. It is not so much what is being communicated in a particular situation that is at stake, but the very possibility of verbi-vocovisual interlocution that ultimately characterizes symbolic exchanges. Works of art created with telematic media are communication events in which information flows in multiple directions. These events aim not to represent a transformation in the structure of communication, but to create the experience of it. I propose that new insights can be gained by examining art works that are themselves real dialogues, that is, active forms of communication between two living entities.