A Conceptual Model for the Analysis of Site-Specific Installations

In the previous chapter, I argued for a broader notion of site specificity than the connectivity between the artwork and the physical location of display. The institutional and sociocultural contexts of production and reception were also identified as parameters for a site-specific installation, leading to my suggestion to conceive site specificity as a network of site-specific functions. In the current chapter, I develop a conceptual model for the analysis of site-specific installation artworks to understand how this network is formed and transforms over time. The model consists of two parts, one focusing on a categorization of the various functions of site specificity; the other proposing a methodology to compare successive iterations of the artwork and to analyse which “factors of influence” cause changes at a particular biographical stage.