Abstract
This paper explores how installation art transcends language’s constraints to reveal truth in digital culture, drawing on Martin Heidegger’s view of language as both revealing and concealing reality. It aims to demonstrate art’s role in embodying truths beyond verbal articulation, as encapsulated by W.B. Yeats’ claim that “man can embody truth but he cannot know it.” Through hermeneutic analysis of Heidegger’s poetics, Gianni Vattimo’s view of art as philosophical inquiry, and Juliane Rebentisch’s concept of site-specificity, the study positions installation art as a dialogic medium engaging democratic aesthetics. The original installation, The Word (2024), featuring a wearable rib-shaped device and semi-transparent walls, invites participants to inscribe thoughts, revealing language’s opacity through interactive embodiment. Methods include textual analysis of philosophical works and case-study evaluation of The Word. Results show how art fosters visceral understanding of societal and environmental truths, resonating with digital culture’s sensory interfaces. This contributes to philosophy, aesthetics, and cultural studies, with implications for human-computer interaction (e.g., wearable tech) and sustainability (e.g., ecological critique). Installation art thus navigates mediated realities, fostering inclusive engagement with truth in democratic and digital contexts.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—From Democratic Aesthetics to Digital Culture
KEYWORDS
Embodied Aesthetics, Installation Art, Heideggerian Phenomenology, Digital Culture, Human-Computer Interaction
