FICTIONAL REALITIES OF PERFORMATIVE STORYTELLING IN CONTEMPORARY ART

JEZIK, KNJIŽEVNOST I DIJALOG (2024): 13–25

AUTHOR(S) / АУТОР(И): Jelena Petrović

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DOI: 10.46793/LLD24.013P

ABSTRACT / САЖЕТАК:

This paper focuses on art-based storytelling practices that challenge conventional boundaries between reality and fiction, weaving pluriversal narratives that blend mythical, futuristic, and historical elements. These artistic research practices open up public spaces for critical reflection, artistic exploration, and alternative realities in response to contemporary social, political, and cultural contexts. Through the lens of performative storytelling techniques, the paper highlights how today’s artists navigate and transcend semiotic limitations imposed by language to express personal dissent regarding societal norms and power structures. Often embodied through Bakhtin’s concept of grotesque realism and related theoretical approaches (Kristeva, Derrida, Bourriaud, Bishop, Butler and others), such storytelling formats in contemporary art celebrate incompleteness, transgression, and the disruption of norms by symbolically grounding elevated phenomena in tangible experiences. The paper particularly focuses on several examples of contemporary art storytelling that embody such carnivalesque language of resistance, including performances by Alexis O’Hara, Lala Raščić, Walid Raad, and Margareta Kern. Through subversive narratives of fictional realities, these storytelling practices not only question established truths and reimagine possibilities for change and liberation, but also amplify resistant voices that resonate, either individually or collectively, in art and everyday life.

KEYWORDS / КЉУЧНЕ РЕЧИ:

performative storytelling; fictional realities; carnivalesque language; inter/textuality; politically engaged art.

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