INSTALLATION BEFORE INSTALLATION. TWO EXAMPLES OF RENAISSANCE SPECTACULAR CULTURE
This article reveals two examples of Renaissance spectacular culture in context of installation. The first is the arrangement of a mobile construction for sacra rappresentazione inside the Florentine church in 1439. Brunelleschi’s technical invention served the basis of its operation. Assisted by machinary, human figures and various kinds of materials, which acquire qualities distinguished from their primaries, it created the spatial installation. Thus in the interior of the church displayed a self-dependent visual structure with spectators being within it, but not observing the performance from outside. The other type of Renaissance «installation», being analyzed in the article, was used not only for religious purposes but also for secular selebrations or «triumphs». Festivals took place in the open air, the space itself was being converted into fictitious, reorganized in comparison with a real city environment. Author of the article is paying special attention to the way the triumphal chariot was used during such festivals: she analyzes it as the attribute of glorification on the pattern of Ancient Rome and as the stage for showing of a program of a festival procession. All these facts allow to conclude that there are obvious similarities between sacra rappresentazione and «triumphs» of Renaissance and modern installation, which become inevitably evident when the converted space, their composition and participants are being analyzed.