This paper outlines the details of a study conducted on the aspects and meaning of conflict found in media art collaboration. Media art is a hybrid genre in which art coexists with various technical fields. Due to this coexistence of diverse fields, o...
This paper outlines the details of a study conducted on the aspects and meaning of conflict found in media art collaboration. Media art is a hybrid genre in which art coexists with various technical fields. Due to this coexistence of diverse fields, one of the requirements of media art is a capacity for holistic thinking that can integrate advanced technologies and artistic ideas that individual artists cannot handle alone. As such, collaboration is an essential alternative in media art, laying the groundwork for discovering original and new artistic ideas and forms of expression through the interaction of different specialties. However, it is important to note that collaboration can also result in conflict. In fact a greater level of expertise among participants often leads to more complex conflicts when collaborating. As a result, such conflicts that arise during collaborative efforts have long been simply dismissed as discord within the group. Can conflict really be considered as nothing more than a byproduct that hinders collaboration? Upon closely examining various discourses on this concept, it appears that conflict raises the possibility of pointing out structural issues or contradictions and bringing them to the center of attention through correction and transformation. If this is true, then what meaning does conflict have in the process of artistic creation? This question serves as the main focus of this paper. In order to understand the meaning behind the conflict that occurs in media art collaboration, it is first necessary to understand the historical context of collaboration in the world of art, as well as the structural discourse on conflict. Based on this initial understanding, it is then necessary to review actual case studies of conflicts in collaborations on art works that paved the way to media art as we know it today. To this end, this study aims to highlight the conceptual foundation for early art collaboration by focusing on the productive aspects of art, specifically in the form of workshops and apprenticeship education in the art market during the 16th and 17th centuries. Then, in order to observe the structure of the art world, which has changed in post-modern times, and the theoretical background for collaboration, an analysis was conducted on the institutional theory of art and Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory. In the context of collaboration in today’s advanced field of media art, this analysis functions as the theoretical basis for conflict analysis. Based on this discussion, this study aims to define conflict in media art collaboration as a creative act, while also analyzing the essence of this conflict as artistic instinct. In order to identify the aesthetic theory outlined in Friedrich Schiller’s aesthetic education theory as characteristics of artistic instinct, an analysis was conducted on the ideas presented by Nam-in Lee, who proposed that Schiller’s aesthetic theory is a specific artistic instinct theory. In this way, this paper aims to explain the cause of conflict in media art collaboration as a result of interactions with the artist’s inner instinct. This study presents a conceptual basis for reconsidering the meaning of conflict, which, until now, has been perceived in a negative light. As such, this paper aims to make a small contribution to expanding the possibility of uncovering the hidden driving factors of various artistic activities that have not been explained before due to such stereotypes.