METAMODERN VISUAL PRACTICES: FROM ONTOLOGICAL VOID TO AFFECTIVE RECONSTRUCTION

Abstract

The presented text is devoted to the analysis of the transformation of the category of "the real" in contemporary visual arts within the context of the transition from the postmodern paradigm to metamodernism. The author examines a fundamental ontological shift wherein art ceases to be a mimetic reflection (a "mirror") of reality and transforms into an active aesthetic construct that shapes the anthropogenic world.

The object of the study is contemporary visual artistic practices viewed through the prism of their relationship to the category of the real. The author focuses on the mechanisms of forming the "illusion of authenticity," which acquire a fundamentally new quality under the conditions of metamodernism.

To achieve this goal, the work addresses the following tasks: tracing the evolution of artistic techniques used to produce authenticity; elucidating the content of the key metamodernist strategy of "as-if," proposed by T. Vermeulen, as the foundation for a new type of artistic utterance; analyzing the phenomenon of "oscillation" between irony and enthusiasm, deconstruction and reconstruction; investigating specific forms of "post-ironic realism" and "neo-romanticism," where technical mastery serves not the imitation of nature, but the legitimation of fictional, absurd, or digital worlds; justifying the necessity of shifting the frame of art historical analysis from the evaluation of visual resemblance to the study of the artist's intention and the phenomenology of reception.

In the course of the analysis, the author arrives at a series of significant conclusions. It is argued that in metamodern aesthetics, authenticity shifts from the domain of optical verification to the domain of affective impact. The illusion of authenticity no longer seeks to conceal its own artificiality; on the contrary, it is built upon a conscious "suspension of disbelief," where the viewer simultaneously recognizes the conventionality of the image and sincerely empathizes with it. The new quality of the illusion lies in its duality and emotional charge: it becomes a tool for the "reconstruction" of meaning and depth following the period of postmodern deconstruction. The result of this process is the formation of a "New Sincerity," which allows contemporary art to create autonomous ontological models possessing suggestive authenticity and therapeutic potential in an era of total relativism.