The sublime in interactive digital installation: an analysis of three artworks: Listening Post, Translator II: Grower and The Cloud Harp

Abstract

This examines the notion of the sublime in interactive digital installation art, with the primary aim of showing the methods and devices used to evoke the sublime through interactive digital installation. The evocation of the sublime which is largely associated with nature is an appealing aesthetic in these technology driven artworks. This paper follows the history of the notion of the sublime in the arts and philosophy from Dioynisus Longinus to Jean-François Lyotard, with an emphasis on Romanticism and Postmodernism. Three case studies of interactive digital installations art are presented and addressed: Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen’s Listening Post (2001-2003), Sabrina Raaf’s Translator II: Grower (2004) and the NXIO GESTATIO Design Lab’s The Cloud Harp (1997). These are addressed not only in regards to the histories of the notion but to a contemporary adaptation of the notion, influenced by the technology age and the Postmodern sentiments of Jean Francois Lyotard.