Don Quixote: The Spectactor as Author

This article examines Don Quixote, a 24-hour immersive installation in which the traditional distinction between artist, artwork, and spectator is radically reconfigured. Visitors enter the installation in groups of three and undergo a carefully structured sequence of sensory disorientation and aesthetic revelation involving holographic projections, flashing lights, fragmented sounds, and tactile stimuli. Rather than passively observing a finished object, participants actively generate the work through their presence, perception, emotional response, and subsequent narration. The installation extends beyond the immediate experience. Those waiting to enter become a secondary audience through live video feeds, while each group concludes its participation by recording a three-minute interview in which they reinterpret Chapter VIII of Don Quixote. These recordings form an expanding textual and audiovisual archive, transforming the work into a collective process of authorship. Drawing on concepts from participatory art, relational aesthetics, and performance studies, the article argues that Don Quixote reconceives beauty as an emergent and probabilistic event rather than a fixed ideal. The artist assumes the role of architect, designing the conditions for shared creativity outside the conventional logic of the art market. In this framework, the spectator becomes the true author of the artwork.