Digital aesthetic

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Digital aesthetic
In the state of continual becoming

• by Dragana Kupres

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aesthetic

• From sensory and reception (greek aisthetos)
• to digital as numerical
• aesthetic has been interested in epistemology and
  origin of art and beauty.
• (Philosophical dictionary, 1984)

3
postmodern question

• The classical question
• how do we see the world
• has changed to
• how do we perceive the digital world?

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digital perception

• The perception of it cannot be done directly, but
  only through analog interfaces
• one cannot... perceive the digital itself via
  the seenses, but only its transformations of the
  analog world.
• (Murphie and Potts, 2003)

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interface

• Many authors are defining interface as
• a new sensory model, encoder of binary
• code or, as Steven Johnson states
• a kind of translator, mediating between two
• parties.
• (Murphie and Potts, 2003)

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visualizing data

• Søren Pold state that
• the interface aims to visualize invisible data
• and even that it is the basic aesthetic form of
  digital art.
• (Pold, 2005)

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digitalworld

• This interface help us in communicating with
  interactive, instable things which are constantly
  changing - the digital world.
• (Murphie and Potts, 2003)

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running to catch our world

• It is an artifact which is constantly changing as
  the digital world is taking new forms. We are
  constantly producing new tools to help us
  perceive and read our (digital) world.
• In order to be able to live in (and use) the
  world which we are creating, we constantly have
  to invent new artifacts and learn how to use
  them.

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characteristics of digital aesthetic

• Constant divergence
• Interactive
• Differential
• Frag
• mental
• Recontextualization
• Postmodern
• eclectic and multimultimultiple
• Sampling
• Repetative Repetative Repetative
• Decentralized
• Collaborative
• Reinventing

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how...?

• ...is digital aesthetic
• frag mental
• and
• differential?

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frag mentation

• Timothy Druckrey thinks that digital photography
  made us think differently because the trope of
  totality has been eroded and in this
  multiplicity has been assigned to images.
• (Murphie and Potts, 2003, p.81)

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frag mentation

• Electronic Hypertexts Are Generated Through
  Fragmentation and Recombination. As a result of
  the frothy digital middle of the computer's
  structure, fragmentation and recombination are
  intrinsic to the medium. These textual strategies
  can of course also be used in print texts, for
  example in Raymond Queneau's Cent mille milliards
  de poemes.
• But unlike print, digital texts cannot escape
  fragmentation, which is deeper, more pervasive,
  and more extreme than with the alphanumeric
  characters of print.
• (Hayles, 2000)

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atomism

• The Platonic view of the idealistic world with
  one perfect idea has been (once again) ruled out
  with the atomistic conception of the universe.
• The monotheism is backing up to politeism,
  wholness to multiplicity.

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differential

• In that, the digital works of art are regaining
  new meaning, but they are not holding it for
  long, because the process of production is never
  finished.
• Digital works can be constantly changed. They are
  differential or, as Timothy Murray call it, they
  are digital incompossible. (Murphie and Potts,
  2003)

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timothy murray potential vs. actual

• Digital contain within the potential for
  differences to arise in any combination.
• Differences coexist as potential experiences of
  the artwork.
• Different, virtual experiences of the digital
  artwork that only cancel each other out in their
  actualization... only in one actual working...
  are other possibilities within the work
  eliminated.
• (Murphie and Potts, 2003, p.90)

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timothy murray potential in actual

• In digital these other possibilities are not
  entirely eliminated. One can always go back and
  start again.
• Digital highlights the many alternatives within
  one situation. Every repetition would be
  different and any situation has an infinity of
  opportunities buried within it.
• (Murphie and Potts, 2003, p. 90-91)

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aristotelpotential vs. actual

• The question is is the Aristotel idea of infinite
  potential and finite realization challenged with
  the notion of potentially infinite possibilities
  that digital work holds, or are those
  possibilities, although numerous, in the end
  anyway countable and finite.

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potential found in history

• Digital art is turning to memory and cultural
  history. It is finding the opportunity to explore
  virtual potential held in the past as it
  dynamizes the present.
• Digital artist are reworking the past through
  digital, to see what infinite opportunities it
  might hold. They are working with the past, with
  the memory.
• (Murphie and Potts, 2003, p.91)
• but again, is history infinite?

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in the state of continual becoming

• ... G.B. Shaw found his refuge
• ... the digital world is founding its essence.

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references

• Hayles, N. K. (2000) Flickering Connectivities in
  Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl The Importance
  of Media Specific Analysis. Postmodern Culture,
  10 (2). The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  Retrieved June 5 from http//www.iath.virginia.edu
  /pmc/current.issue/15.2pold.html
• Murphie and Potts. (2003). Culture and
  Technology. New York Palgrave Macmillan.
• Filozofijski rjecnik (Philosophical dictionary).
  (1984). Zagreb Nakladni zavod Matice Hrvatske.
• Pold, S. (2005) Interface Realisms The Interface
  as Aesthetic Form. Postmodern Culture, 15 (2).
  The Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved
  June 1, 2005 from http//www.iath.virginia.edu/pmc
  /current.issue/15.2pold.html