L’Hybridité des genres artistiques: une Gesamtkunstwerk à l’aube du XXIème siècle

Marie-Laure DELAPORTE

Abstract:

The notion of synesthesia in the contemporary artistic practices has its echoes in the work called multidisciplinary or even multimedia. In fact, the evolution of these practices often tends to show a will of unifying the arts and to get close to the Wagnerian concept of Gesamtkunstwerk. However, concerning the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, the filmic object (video or installation) seems to affirm itself as the main path of this synesthesia, being able to gather and modify the status of practices such as performance, sculpture and even opera. Through the pieces of artists like Bruce Nauman, Matthew Barney and Bill Viola, this paper proposes a multidisciplinary dialogue in order to place the system of display at the heart of the piece. Thus, film becomes sculptural and sculpture becomes filmic, and opera has never been so visual. However this mixing of genres, this link between arts lead to a potential confusion of the spectator’s senses that can be pushed to its climax in a will of immersing him. As Monique Maza explains it: “The synesthesia is not a simple confusion of sensations, sensory jumble, but a dynamic circulation between the sensory sites”. As a consequence, the synesthesia would not lead to confusion but to a fusion of the aesthetic feelings.

Keywords: film, video, installation, opera, total work of art, multidisciplinary

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