The Literariness of New Media Art

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Claudia Benthien
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies ; Art History ; Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: from 2013 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 241624152

This transdisciplinary research project investigates the analysis of media art from the perspective of literary studies. The guiding concept is literariness, as developed by Russian Formalism. The term denotes the poetic "surplus" of meaning, emanating from a non-pragmatic use of language. The project explores signification generated through language, voice, and script. It aims at disclosing and distinguishing literary elements, such as poetic titles, text segments, acoustic language passages, lyrical speech, narrative structures or dramatic plot progressions, in a corpus of approx. one hundred artworks. The study groups this material according to four leading strategies: (1) the use of oral language and the voice; (2) the aesthetic integration of written texts or elements of script; (3) the exploration and adaptation of the literary genres (poetry, drama and prose) in media art; (4) the transformation of concrete works of literature into audio-visual time based art.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants