UDC

7.038.6

Authors

Stroeva Olesya Vitalyevna
Humanities Institute of TV and Radio Broadcasting named after M.A. Litovchin
3 Brodnikov pereulok, Moscow, 119180, Russian Federation;
e-mail: olessia_75@mail.ru

Abstract

This article analyses the phenomenon of hyperrealism – one of the most popular trends in contemporary painting and sculpture – in the context of the media sphere impact on aesthetic perception. The author argues that mass audio-visual culture dictates a new way of perceiving art works that should adapt to the “collective concentration deficit”. In modern media culture, images are not directly linked to referents; any screen image appeals to the emotional rather than rational perception and functions autonomously as part of the simulated reality of phantom images. Such is hyperrealism in painting, a pure simulacrum or the trick of simulation – photographic imitation – generated by media culture. However, in contemporary hyperrealistic sculpture, artists seem to mechanically reproduce corporeality without idealizing it, as in the case of Etruscan naturalism. The effect of silicone naturalism is opposed to idealized screen images in the way that Etruscan naturalism competed with the official Greek classicism in the Roman Empire. However, even quite radical forms of contemporary art (including political hyperrealism) are part of the same bricolage model of media culture dissolving in the system of mass-produced images. Modern figurative art is based on the principles of post-mimesis as a multilevel simulation accompanied by the active exploitation of consumer culture myths. The phenomenon of hyperrealism, as well as the general inclination of modern art practices towards corporeality, shows transformations in the perception of this category. This rearrangement is associated with changes in the perception of space and time that occurred under the influence of the media sphere and leads to a new post-modern anthropology.

Keywords

hyperrealism, contemporary art, simulacrum, corporeality, media culture, bricolage

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