The Teleological Nature of Digital Aesthetics – the New Aesthetic in Advance of Artificial Intelligence

If aesthetic and teleological judgments are equally reflective, then it can be argued that such judgments can be applied concurrently to digital objects, specifically those that are products of the rapidly developing sophisticated forms of artificial intelligence (AI). Evidence of the aesthetic effects of technological development are observable in more than just experienceable objects; rooted in inscrutable machine learning, AI’s complexity is a problem when it is presented as an aesthetic authority, particularly when it comes to automated curatorial practice or as a progressively determinative aesthetic force originating in an independent agency that is internally self-consistent.Rooted in theories of the post-digital and the New Aesthetic, this paper examines emerging new forms of art and aesthetic experiences that appear to reveal these capabilities of AI. While the most advanced forms of AI barely qualify for a ‘soft’ description at this point, it appears inevitable that a ‘hard’ form of AI is in the future. Increased forms of technological automation obscure the increasingly real possibility of genuine products of the imagination and the creativity of autonomous digital agencies as independent algorithmic entities, but such obfuscation is likely to fade away under the evolutionary pressures of technological development. It’s impossible to predict the aesthetic products of AI at this stage but, if the development of AI is teleological, then it might be possible to predict some of the foreseeable associated aesthetic problems. Article received: April 10, 2019; Article accepted: July 6, 2019; Published online: October 15, 2019; Original scholarly paperHow to cite this article: Contreras-Koterbay, Scott. "The Teleological Nature of Digital Aesthetics – the New Aesthetic in Advance of Artificial Intelligence." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 20 (2019): 105-112. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i20.326.

Ecocriticism as Subversive Aesthetics

Art is subversive when it crosses the boundary of the generally acceptable, though over time such art can and does become mainstream. A much more complicated question is what is subversive in aesthetics? Ecocriticism has already become, along with ecofeminism and animal studies, an academic discipline. It can be defined as subversive if it is understood in terms of an attitude, which is not anthropocentric. And here is the catch: how can the human also encompass the alien? The question that emerges here is all but rhetorical: how can we decentre and amplify our human consciousness and perspective to include zoocentric, biocentric or geocentric positions? At this point the contemporary theory creates contrasting opinions, which cross the boundaries of aesthetics, poetics and ecocriticism since they reach out to the fields of metaphysics and antimetaphysics. Within the phenomenon of perception the other always appears, as Deleuze said in his Logic of Sense, as “a priori Other”. We have to deal, henceforth, with a kind of pre-reflexive level of consciousness and amplified sensory perception, which, as we know, is the basic condition of artistic creation. Thus, this paper – because it seeks to penetrate into the node of these questions – takes literary art as its starting point. In the spirit of the above-mentioned observations, I have attempted to investigate in ‘minority literature’ (female authors of contemporary Polish and Slovene literature) how this decentred attitude, which Jure Detela, a Slovene poet, poetically defined, corresponds to our thesis on a particular ecocritical stream, which can be defined as an ecofeminist aesthetics. The ‘minoritarian literature’ here is meant exclusively in the sense that was defined by Deleuze and Guattari’s books Kafka and A Thousand Plateaus. Article received: April 12, 2019; Article accepted: July 6, 2019; Published online: October 15, 2019; Original scholarly paperHow to cite this article: Kernev Štrajn, Jelka. "Ecocriticism as Subversive Aesthetics." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 20 (2019): 17-25. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i20.321

Aesthetics Qua Excess: Mario Perniola and Jacques Rancière

According to Jacques Rancière, the contemporary anti-aesthetic consensus has denounced aesthetics “as the perverse discourse which bars this encounter and which subjects works, or our appreciation thereof, to a machine of thought conceived for other ends: the philosophical absolute, the religion of the poem or the dream of social emancipation” (Rancière, Aesthetics and Its Discontents, 2009: 2). However, what seems to be the most problematic trait of aesthetics is its excessive confusion of “pure thought, sensible affects and artistic practices.”But for both Rancière and Mario Perniola, the excess of aesthetics, that is, its confusion and obliteration of the borders between the arts, between high art and popular art, as well as between art and life – a commixture not to be mistaken for some postmodern transgression of modernist boundaries, for both Rancière and Perniola keep critical distance to the notions of modernism and postmodernism – constitutes the very knot “by which thoughts, practices and affects are instituted and assigned a territory or a ‘specific’ object” (Rancière, Aesthetics and Its Discontents, 2009: 4).This paper will demonstrate that aesthetics in Rancière and Perniola represents neither simply a general art theory nor a theory defining art by means of its effects on the senses, but rather a specific order of the identification and thinking of art. Moreover, it will argue that Rancière’s and Perniola’s respective elaborations of the relationship between aesthetics and art occur in the larger context of a primary aesthetics associated with the topographical analysis of the means in which the sensible, common world is constructed, parceled out and contested. It will also be shown that primary aesthetics, for both Rancière and Perniola, includes non-artistic realms and practices such as politics, culture, education, science, and economy in that all these realms and practices presuppose the sensible configuration of a specific world. Thus, primary aesthetics is ultimately to be grasped as distribution of the sensible (Rancière) or as sensology (Perniola) that determines not only that which is given in a common manner, but also – and more specifically – that which can be seen, felt, said or done and at the same time modes of seeing, feeling, saying or doing that are excluded from that which is given in a common manner. Article received: April 17, 2019; Article accepted: July 6, 2019; Published online: October 2019; Original scholarly paperHow to cite this article: Vogt, Erik. "Aesthetics Qua Excess: Mario Perniola and Jacques Rancière." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 20 (2019): 1-10. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i20.320

Can Artworks by Artificial Intelligence be Artworks?

The thinking power of Homo sapiens made human beings the lord of all creation. The ability to reason is also the premise of human existence. We, however, now know that this is not confined only to human but to Artificial Intelligence. Over the history of humankind, human beings have attempted to create an immortal being that could surpass their abilities and complements their inferiorities. We are making something immortal and transcendent, which are different properties from our own. Artificial Intelligence may be able to evolve on its own like humans have been doing. As a kind of numerical being, humans are able to be omnipresent with the technology provided. This new kind of existence makes us think about and see things differently. Humans are attempting to create ‘beings’ that can generate art, take care of weak human beings, talk and discuss human issues, and even fall in love with humans. As our minds can run beyond the boundaries created by our body limitations, we would like to infuse our creativity into AI that might evolve from its original state. Similar to what Prometheus did, humans are attempting to share their legacy with another existence. Recently a research team from Rutgers University in New Jersey proposed a system named CAN: Creative Adversarial Networks for generating art with creative characteristics. The team demonstrated a realization of this system based on a novel, creative adversarial network. Their proposed system possesses the ability to produce novel artworks which make people believe human artists produced them. The data the team proposes proves that AI now attempts to do something considered as a creative activity. With this research, the definition of art should be reconsidered. Since the Fountain(1917) by Duchamp, open concepts toward artworks have been embraced by many artists and their colleagues. However, it is time to contemplate the new phase. When we regard something as artwork, should it be created, selected, and combined by human beings? Is it possible that the thing that is accepted as artwork by people can be art? This paper seeks to propose several opinions regarding these questions. Article received: June 23, 2019; Article accepted: July 6, 2019; Published online: October 15, 2019; Review articleHow to cite this article: Park, Yeonsook. "Can Artworks by Artificial Intelligence be Artworks?" AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 20 (2019): 113-121. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i20.332

Can AR Technologies Have an Impact on the Definition of Art?

AR seems to be one of the most advanced and near-future technologies that produce new experiences and values that have never been before. However, both AR and art have a common means of engaging the senses. Thus, the problem of where the borderline between AR and art exists should come into question. In order to consider how AR will have an influence on the definition and the significance of art, this study analyses real and fictional elements in AR and art. AR requires the physical field where sensory information mediated by computer is projected. Consequently, viewers perceive the mixed image of real things and those not existing before eyes, that is fiction. Art also needs a real environment where the fictional world is opened. Though art and AR have something in common, there are crucial differences between them. AR technologies include the firm aim of erasing fictional elements that remain as ever in spite of their accurate representation. On the other hand, art attempts to preserve a fictional area within the real world. From the comparison of AR and art, it will come to light that whether there is the frame or not plays an important role in deciding what is art or what is reality. While AR reduces fictionality from a multi-layered scene to enrich a real experience, art cuts fiction from a present scene to idealize the real world. In this way, they constitute a dialectical circle and mediate new reality through fictional images from the reverse direction. Article received: April 5, 2019; Article accepted: July 6, 2019; Published online: October 15, 2019; Review articleHow to cite this article: Higashiguchi, Yutaka. "Can AR Technologies Have an Impact on the Definition of Art?" AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 20 (2019): 97-103. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i20.331

Revisiting Huxley’s Dystopic Vision of Future Cinema, The Feelies: Immersive Experiences through Contemporary Multisensory Media

Aldous Huxley’s concern with media, and in particular with cinema, is one of the most conspicuous components of his work as a social critic and as a novelist. Evaluating its potential societal functions, as an artistic genre, a didactic cultural tool for documentaries or as a mass entertainment venue, determined his critical relationship towards the medium. Due to his impaired eyesight, Huxley’s attention to perception, intertwined with advancing cinema-technologies, was not restricted to the visual, but extended to all of the human senses, as he demonstrated in the Feelies of his novel Brave New World (1932). Primarily with regard to mechanomorphic reflexes of human conditioning, this cinematic concept is interpreted by drawing from articles and essays of evolutionary, psychological, political, and aesthetic perspectives that Huxley developed on a parallel writing track in popular print media during the 1920s/30s. In confronting modes of multisensory immersion around 1900 with some of the 20th/21st centuries, this contribution reevaluates Huxley’s vision of future cinema. Article received: June 10, 2019; Article accepted: July 6, 2019; Published online: October 15, 2019; Original scholarly paperHow to cite this article: Milz, Manfred. "Revisiting Huxley’s Dystopic Vision of Future Cinema, The Feelies: Immersive Experiences through Contemporary Multisensory Media." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 20 (2019): 27-42. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i20.325

Book Review Andrija Filipović, Conditio Ahumana: Immanenece and Ahuman in the Anthropocene Epoch, [Conditio ahumana: imanencija i ahumano u epohi Antropocena]. Loznica: Karpos, 2019, 384 pp., ISBN 978-86-6435-110-2

How to cite this article: Bulatović, Marija. "Book Review: Andrija Filipović, Conditio Ahumana: Immanenece and Ahuman in the Anthropocene Epoch, [Conditio ahumana: imanencija i ahumano u epohi Antropocena]." Loznica: Karpos, 2019, 384 pp., ISBN 978-86-6435-110-2." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 20 (2019): 159-162. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i20.334

Artworks and the Paradoxes of Media-Transmitted Reality

This article analyzes selected classic art that influences contemporary images. The basis of this study is an analysis of the transformation of long-established and internationally-recognized artwork through digital technology and social media. This investigation also highlights the symbolic meaning behind the representation and reproduction of media images concerning the political impact of global visual culture.Visual culture consists of images of reality that are constantly being reconfigured. Thus, the visual arts develop consensually, based on democratic ideals and freedom of expression. Nonetheless, transgression occurs due to a lack of universal reference criteria and a dissolution of common human values. This situation explains why visual culture is often misunderstood and remains unassimilated. In addition, actual tragedies in life even become confused with art due to the fact that art so often closely imitates reality.Visual arts, a significant area of concern for media outlets, involves deciphering the meaning of images that have been manipulated and instrumentalized according to particular political and ideological interests. The objective of the current proposal is to help people discern fact from fiction and to look at and understand society’s emergence and relationship to democracy. Therefore, visual arts will be analyzed through a historical and iconological lens to investigate it as a form of communication and current social effects of political images.Finally, it is also considered the artifice of images and the absolute reference values of human existence on visual arts in the face of technological progress and their effects on social networks.Article received: May 14, 2019; Article accepted: July 6, 2019; Published online: October 15, 2019; Original scholarly paperHow to cite this article: Wagner, Christiane. "Artworks and the Paradoxes of Media-Transmitted Reality." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 20 (2019): 71-85. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i20.324.

Augmented Entanglement of Narrative Chronotopes and Urban Territories

The complex conditions of urban places render it difficult to identify and perceive their multivariate aesthetic characters. The question examined herein is in which ways digital media like Augmented Reality (AR) can facilitate a more comprehensive aesthetic appreciation of a place by individuals, enhance their overall experience and allow them to recognize the aesthetic distinctiveness of places that may be phenomenologically dense with aesthetics, memory, meaning, legibility. The framework proposed is founded on the inherent power of novels as chronotopes of potential dialogical experiences and on four characteristic strategies of AR.Narrative chronotope singularities are fundamental sources for understanding the collective, cultural, historical, social and spatial practices, leading to an understanding of urban environments. So the first step is to extract narrative chronotope analysis content from a novel’s urban substance (buildings, roads, squares), characters, plot and sequence of events. The second step involves a three-dimensional re-creation of urban heritage components. Finally, the AR media is interwoven with the novels based on four strategies: reinforcement of aspects of real-world urban places by digitally overlaying the novel’s setting; recontextualization to achieve the semantic transformation of places as the novel’s significance and meanings are revealed; remembrance by facilitating the emergence of diverse identities and memories; and re-embodiment through achieving a deeper understanding and re-interconnectedness with the aesthetic aspects of urban places.Augmented narrative descriptions restore harmony between body-mind-environment and fiction while ensuring that different times, places and psychological situations coincide. The proposed novel-based digitally-mediated interaction could provide a shift that leads to the embodiment, enhancement and re-conceptualization of the diverse aesthetic dimensions of constructs such as ‘heritage monuments’, ‘local community’, ‘public place’, etc.Article received: April 2, 2019; Article accepted: July 6, 2019; Published online: October 15, 2019; Review articleHow to cite this article: Makris, Dimitris and Maria Moira. "Augmented Entanglement of Narrative Chronotopes and Urban Territories." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 20 (2019): 87-96. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i20.335

Aesthetics of Art and Life Sciences: Collaborations and Resistance

In this paper, the author pays attention to the actual phenomenon of art and life science collaborative projects. She discusses the orientation of this project towards the world. In the course of modernity, the fields of art and science have been established as relatively autonomous fields with canonized methods and objectives. The author will compare scientific and artistic activities and address the question of their objectives. If art and science strive for different objectives, are these art and science projects about harmonizing them, or what is the objective that art follows and perhaps differs much from science? The author emphasizes a certain role of art, which art inherited from Romanticism. Comprehension of art as an avant-garde was extremely important for 19th-century art, particularly in France, where artists considered themselves the avant-garde of the society and also used militant rhetoric. Mallarmé, for instance, said that the modern poet is “at strike against the society”. This romantic attitude of the artists that position themselves rebelliously against the norms and cannons of the majority of population, insisted in the art throughout modernism and expressed particularly strongly in the historical avant-gardes. The author claims that exactly this heritage is crucial for the art that enters the field of science and is engaged with its socially-relevant aspects. The contemporary art projects entering the field of life sciences inherit the tradition of the avant-garde. The modes of collaborations and resistance will be addressed in the paper. Particular relevance will be given to the orientation of art towards the future. That is the comprehension of art as a political agent. Article received: June 12, 2019; Article accepted: July 6, 2019; Published online: October 15, 2019; Review articleHow to cite this article: Tratnik, Polona. "Aesthetics of Art and Life Sciences: Collaborations and Resistance." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 20 (2019): 11-16. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i20.329