Installation discourse: key positions and concepts

Abstract

The subject of this research is the fundamental positions and concepts of installation discourse, i.e. key texts that are dedicated to installation and formed representation on this artistic practice. Installation discourse has emerged in the West in the early 1960’s, and presently there can be determined the “anchor points, “objective concepts”, main positions and vectors of installation analysis. Elements of the discourse include academic monographs, such as art criticism, texts of artists, and exhibition catalogues. The article employs the methods of discourse analysis of E. Laclau, C. Mouffe, N. Fairclough, as well as general discourse theory of M. Foucault described in the “Archeology of Knowledge”. The conducted discourse analysis allows making the following conclusions. The three main vectors of installation discourse can be associated with three “turns” of philosophy and humanistic thought of the XX century – phenomenological, linguistic and performative. Discourse analysis allows tracing the meanings imposed on the “anchor points” in various vectors of the discourse. Discourse analysis gives a perspective on the “objective concepts” of discourse that underlie the understanding of installation at the present stage – “theatricality”, “indermediality”, “unlocked”, anti-object character of installation, site-specificity; institutional criticism, multisensority and ephemerality.