Reality of Art: Communication and Knowledge Creation

• Main Authors: Nikita V. Basov, Aleksandra E. Nenko, Anisya M. Khokhlova
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Russian Academy of Sciences, Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology 2015-12-01
• Series: Социологический журнал
• Online Access: http://jour.fnisc.ru/upload/journals/1/articles/3064/submission/proof/3064-61-7898-1-10-20160601.pdf

. The paper proposes a theoretical and methodological framework to study art as an autonomous reality, where knowledge is seen as a set of collectively shared meaning structures dynamically socially created throughout communication. The latter is triggered by artworks as stimuli, intermediaries and products of communication, evoking intellectual and emotional resonance between the creators and various publics, thus being both catalysts and reference points in the process of collective meaning construction. It is shown, that the mechanisms of knowledge construction in art are communicative by nature, as well as dynamic and heterogeneous, bringing various participants to interact in numerous situations enabling shared meaning creation, including interactions that can hardly be labelled as professional. Yet, knowledge structures generated and reproduced by the artistic reality should be seen as meaning structures in their own right, rather than a bare projection of social relations and conventions represented by the reality of everyday life. Though using the meaning constructs of everyday life and objects as building blocks, creative work and artistic communication linked to it are often able to produce new combinations of materials and meanings not corresponding the existing social relations and conventions. This makes the boundaries between the reality of art and the reality of everyday life transparent yet persistent, which allows art to maintain autonomy of its knowledge structures and communication patterns while at the same time to expand and to involve new participants into its reality.