The Question of Realism

Z nalogo pokazati, da je realistični diskurz aktualen mišljenjski model tudi v današnjem času, besedilo sledi krožni poti, ki jo predstavlja diagram treh tem iz izhodiščnega raziskovalnega vprašanja po današnji aktualnosti realističnega diskurza v luči literarnega realizma in novomedijske umetnosti. Prvi del razprave pregleda področje raziskav literarnega realizma, kot ga stroka razume v historičnem smislu za literarne pojave po letu 1830. Na kritičen način so predstavljene osrednje razlage realizma v literaturi. Izhodišče realističnega diskurza je kriza dejanskosti. Drugi del besedila osvetli problematiko sodobne umetniške ustvarjalnosti na prelomu 20. v 21. stoletje na področju novomedijske umetnosti. Tretji del razprave išče stične točke med literarnozgodovinskimi raziskavami in teoretskimi ter poetološkimi modeli sodobne umetnosti. Pristop, ki združuje na videz zelo različne pojave – literaturo in (praviloma računalniško podprte) nove medije – je v raziskovanju literarnega realizma novost. Prek prizem literarnega realizma in novomedijske umetnosti raziskava poišče rezultat, razlago realizma. Preprostega odgovora glede aktualnosti, npr. zgolj literarnega realizma v 21. stoletju, besedilo pravzaprav ne ponuja, skonstruira pa uporaben realistični način mišljenja sveta, v katerem živimo.This book is an attempt to show how the realist discourse maintains certain current relevance in literature and in the new-media art. The treatise is founded on the study of literary realism in its generally accepted meaning with the start of its development in the 1830-ies. In the 20th century, with a variety of late and neo-realisms, the status of literary realism becomes problematic. Different uses of the term realism in different scholarly disciplines and the field of art are presented. The discussion focuses on the theory of Joseph P. Stern and Wittgenstein’s philosophy from which the theoretical particulars of the term realism and its consequences in realistic literature and in other arts are derived. The introductory chapter is followed by an overview of traditional approaches to the research of realism that is based on the problem of representation. The chapter explicates the “debate on expressionism” and concludes the first part with an additional consideration of the typological concept of realism. The second part confronts literature as the verbal artistic medium with the filed of the new media arts. The treatise presents different communication models that bring order into the new media textuality: the text as a game and the concept of a digital community are considered on the grounds of the theory of cybertext by Espen J. Aarseth. The theoretical problems inherent in the mechanical construction of texts are presented as well. The second part of the book concludes with a discussion of the categorical obstacles in computer-based simulation of language. The last part of the book discusses the nature of the junction between the new-media art communication and realism. Here the treatise focuses on the notion of the archive from the theoretical point of view and on its uses in various artistic poetics and practices. Walter Benjamin’s theory of allegory is explained as a variant of the theory of archive, which, however, is not a realist one. The last chapter describes the idea of the ”realist way“ as