Interstitial Artifactuality: Inventing New Realisms through the Conceptual Hybridization of Art, Design, Genres and Media

Abstract

Contemporary art is characterised by complexities and innovativeness, as artists continue to interrogate genre boundaries,
creating new epistemologies and hybrid art that exists in-between and outside the parameters of established genres. This
paper analysed the use of art in ‘INTERSTICE 2016', to interrogate the intersections between primitivism and modernity;
aesthetic appeal and repulsion, crafted forms and the readymade; detritus objects and the treasured; art and design; two
dimension and three dimension; as well as the boundaries between femininity and power, as a critical framework for
redefining/destabilizing established aesthetic constructs. Using discourse analysis and artistic methodology, the themes,
materiality, styles and curating of the works on display, were subjected to an in-depth analysis. The paper concludes that the
interrogation of intervening spaces between varying aesthetic idioms and genres, results in the creation of new approaches to
realism that deconstruct ideological and cultural subjectivities and instigate new dialogues across periods and genres.