Is art created with computers really art? This book answers ‘yes.’ Computers can generate visual art with unique aesthetic effects based on innovations in computer technology and a Postmodern naturalization of technology wherein technology becomes something we live in as well as use. The present study establishes these claims by looking at digital art’s historical emergence from the 1960s to the start of the present century. Paul Crowther, using a philosophical approach to art history, considers the first steps towards digital graphics, their development in terms of three-dimensional abstraction and figuration, and then the complexities of their interactive formats.
Is art created with computers really art? This book answers ‘yes.’ Computers can generate visual art with unique aesthetic effects based on innovations in computer technology and a Postmodern naturalization of technology wherein technology becomes something we live in as well as use. The present study establishes these claims by looking at digital art’s historical emergence from the 1960s to the start of the present century. Paul Crowther, using a philosophical approach to art history, considers the first steps towards digital graphics, their development in terms of three-dimensional abstraction and figuration, and then the complexities of their interactive formats.
This book shows that art involves an aesthetics of self-becoming, wherein we do not simply consume artistic meaning, but become empowered—by adapting ourselves to what creation in the different art forms makes possible. Paul Crowther argues that the great political task in aesthetics is no longer the creation of political art as such, but rather the winning back of art and aesthetics as central societal concerns. This involves the overcoming of neo-liberal treatments of art as mere commodity and misguided attitudes that dismiss it as the product of dead white European males. The book begins with a theory of self-consciousness which reveals the necessary role played by the aesthetic in personal identity. It then emphasises how art forms empower through processes of making and aesthetic effects that are unique to them individually. To show this, he considers the ontology of pictorial art, sculpture, installation and assemblage works, architecture, literature, cinema, and music. His arguments concerning these are supported, throughout, by in-depth discussions of specific artworks. The book’s effect, overall is to reorientate aesthetics by showing how art empowers through its revelation of new possibilities of experience. The Aesthetics of Self-Becoming will appeal to philosophers of art and aesthetics, as well as scholars in art history, literary studies, film studies, and music theory who are interested in the book’s central concerns.
The aesthetic nature and purposes of computer culture in the contemporary world are investigated in this book. Sean Cubitt casts a cool eye on the claims of cybertopians, tracing the globalization of the new medium and enquiring into its effects on subjectivity and sociality. Drawing on historical scholarship, philosophical aesthetics and the literature of cyberculture, the author argues for a genuine democracy beyond the limitations of the free market and the global corporation. Digital arts are identified as having a vital part to play in this process. Written in a balanced and penetrating style, the book both conveniently summarizes a huge literature and sets a new agenda for research and theory.
Digital art, along with the technological developments of its medium, has rapidly evolved from the digital revolution into the social media era and to the postdigital and post-Internet landscape. This new, expanded edition of this invaluable overview of the medium traces the emergence of artificial intelligence, augmented and mixed realities, and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), and surveys themes explored by digital artworks in the areas of activism, networks and telepresence, and ecological art and the Anthropocene. Christiane Paul considers all forms of digital art, focusing on the basic characteristics of their aesthetic language and their technological and art-historical evolution. By looking at the ways in which internet art, digital installation, software art, AR and VR haveemerged as recognized artistic practices, Digital Art is an essential critical guide.
Reflecting the dynamic creativity of its subject, this definitive guide spans the evolution, aesthetics, and practice of today’s digital art, combining fresh, emerging perspectives with the nuanced insights of leading theorists. Showcases the critical and theoretical approaches in this fast-moving discipline Explores the history and evolution of digital art; its aesthetics and politics; as well as its often turbulent relationships with established institutions Provides a platform for the most influential voices shaping the current discourse surrounding digital art, combining fresh, emerging perspectives with the nuanced insights of leading theorists Tackles digital art’s primary practical challenges – how to present, document, and preserve pieces that could be erased forever by rapidly accelerating technological obsolescence Up-to-date, forward-looking, and critically reflective, this authoritative new collection is informed throughout by a deep appreciation of the technical intricacies of digital art
An art-historical perspective on interactive media art that provides theoretical and methodological tools for understanding and analyzing digital art. Since the 1960s, artworks that involve the participation of the spectator have received extensive scholarly attention. Yet interactive artworks using digital media still present a challenge for academic art history. In this book, Katja Kwastek argues that the particular aesthetic experience enabled by these new media works can open up new perspectives for our understanding of art and media alike. Kwastek, herself an art historian, offers a set of theoretical and methodological tools that are suitable for understanding and analyzing not only new media art but also other contemporary art forms. Addressing both the theoretician and the practitioner, Kwastek provides an introduction to the history and the terminology of interactive art, a theory of the aesthetics of interaction, and exemplary case studies of interactive media art. Kwastek lays the historical and theoretical groundwork and then develops an aesthetics of interaction, discussing such aspects as real space and data space, temporal structures, instrumental and phenomenal perspectives, and the relationship between materiality and interpretability. Finally, she applies her theory to specific works of interactive media art, including narratives in virtual and real space, interactive installations, and performance—with case studies of works by Olia Lialina, Susanne Berkenheger, Stefan Schemat, Teri Rueb, Lynn Hershman, Agnes Hegedüs, Tmema, David Rokeby, Sonia Cillari, and Blast Theory.
What is the purpose of art? What drives us to make it? Why do we value it? Nick Zangwill argues that the function of art is to have certain aesthetic properties in virtue of its non-aesthetic properties, and this function arises because of the artist's insight into the nature of these dependence relations and her intention to bring them about.
In this fiercely ambitious study, Meredith Anne Hoy seeks to reestablish the very definitions of digital art and aesthetics in art history. She begins by problematizing the notion of digital aesthetics, tracing the nineteenth- and twentieth-century movements that sought to break art down into its constituent elements, which in many ways predicted and paved the way for our acceptance of digital art. Through a series of case studies, Hoy questions the separation between analog and digital art and finds that while there may be sensual and experiential differences, they fall within the same technological categories. She also discusses computational art, in which the sole act of creation is the building of a self-generating algorithm. The medium isn't the message - what really matters is the degree to which the viewer can sense a creative hand in the art.
This book investigates a new interactive data visualisation concept that employs traditional Chinese aesthetics as a basis for exploring contemporary digital technological contexts. It outlines the aesthetic approach, which draws on non-Western aesthetic concepts, specifically the Yijing and Taoist cosmological principles, and discusses the development of data-based digital practices within a theoretical framework that combines traditional Taoist ideas with the digital humanities. The book also offers a critique of the Western aesthetics underpinning data visualisation, in particular the Kantian sublime, which prioritises the experience of power over the natural world viewed at a distance. Taoist philosophy, in contrast, highlights the integration of the surface of the body and the surface of nature as a Taoist body, rather than promoting an opposition of mind and body. The book then explores the transformational potential between the human body and technology, particularly in creating an aesthetic approach spanning traditional Chinese aesthetics and gesture-based technology. Representing a valuable contribution to the digital humanities, the book helps readers understand data-based artistic practices, while also bringing the ideas of traditional Chinese aesthetics to Western audiences. In addition, it will be of interest to practitioners in the fields of digital art and data visualisation seeking new models.