In this larger realm of New Imagism, artists like Borofsky, Bosman and Golub feel a need to direct their art toward specific aspects of their cultural, social or personal agenda. In this manner, their art is a manifestation of a certain social climate. The eighties expressed a heightened anxiety regarding the gloomy end of the twentieth century, which offers only a dark apocalyptic vision of the future. Thus, art needs to communicate these fears more directly, in the hope that the course of doom will change. These artists do not echo the others, but are equal voices that work in unison.
Artists now confront head-on the interactive role of art in society.
As the artist attempts to challenge the viewer, to force him into participation, installation art offers a viable solution. Now we are totally immersed in the artist's reality, where we are not allowed a passive role. The viewer is challenged to reconsider old premises he has brought along. He is bombarded with static visual images, textual information, moving images and sound. This is not a time to contemplate a single element in this reconstructed reality.