Re-subjectivity: Media Art as a Practice of Identity

Abstract

This article focuses on media art (and specifically-virtual reality) as a powerful tool which allows transforming social agenda into personal meaning for a participating viewer. VR has recently become an intriguing medium which makes one feel present in the artistic "text"; to maximize the effect of immersion many VR projects give the viewer an opportunity to be not just a witness of a scene, but a participant, a one who takes action influencing the course of the narrative. Thus, we argue that VR should be analyzed as "machine" to gather new experiences and "melt" the boundaries of subjectivity including illusion of stability of both one's body and Weltbild. In virtual reality a user is able to experience the new subjectivity, being-with-the-Other, orto a certain extentbeing the Other. When such "meetings" take place in a safe space of aesthetic experience a spectator can literally take part in these scenarios and experience the affects which would be unimaginable in everyday life, expand his own boundaries of subjectivity and go beyond the limits of an egocentric position.