The Possibility of " Democratic" Intervention in Interactive Approaches of Contemporary Art and its Manifestation in Artistic Activism

This articles focuses on the possibility of the audience’s democratic participation in the interactive arts and discovers it on some samples of art activism. The theoretical framework is based on Walter Benjamin’s ideas about democratic art, and on the relationship between art and politics as seen by Jacques Rancière. It searches features of democratic participation in art in two models, “the standing man” in Turkey as a political-artistic action, as well as the “Village of Arts and Humanities” in the United States as a socio-artistic activity. The paper analyzes political and democratic characteristics of the samples based on the theoretical framework proposed and explaines how art activism with interactive approach provides the equall involvement and participation of the audience and also clarifies why these activities should basically be considered as Art.