There’s been a small flurry of discussion about the New Aesthetic lately, several takes on which have connected it to object-oriented ontology. If you don’t know what “the New Aesthetic” is not to worry, the articles linked here explain it in addition to arguing for (or against) its relationship to OOO.

First, Greg Borenstein’s response to Bruce Sterling’s New Aesthetic essay, at The Creator’s ProjectWhat It’s Like to Be a 21st Century Thing. Gist: the New Aesthetics is an OOO for the modern technological era.

Second, my own piece in the Atlantic, The New Aesthetic Needs to Get Weirder. Gist: the New Aesthetics is unnecessarily limited to computational objects; even if those objects are interesting and influential, we need a broader metaphysics and aesthetics.

Third, Robert Jackson’s essay at Furtherfield, The Banality of the New Aesthetic. Gist: the hindrance of anthropomorphism in the New Aesthetic (and possibly in OOO more generally).

I’ll be interested to see if Jackson expands that last point elsewhere. Here’s a pull-quote that makes sense in the context of the New Aesthetic, but needs further work to apply to OOO more generally.

I’m interested in the way the new aesthetic never manages to access computation ‘just’ as it is. It only takes computation seriously when its functions as a qualitatively intelligent system, which meets or surpasses rational intelligence, or, it directly flips into “dumb tools” of (mis)communicative manipulation for the whims of human mental acts.

published April 17, 2012

Comments

  1. Robert Jackson

    Hey Ian,

    Thanks for the link. I am currently expanding that last point – it’s the major focus of my thesis.

    Long version: I’m trying to understand and develop an OOO-ish account of computational equivalency within complex systems, and how art functions between those systems (hence a non-human aesthetics). By equivalency, I don’t mean that one system can be substituted for another (in the functionalist sense), but as equivalent in sophistication.

    Short version: I’m essentially re-reading Turing as a creative writer and not a computer scientist.

    These things are complicated to blog-ify, but email me if you want more exposition – or, providing I get my skates on, I can actually forward you material.

    Rob

  2. Ian Bogost

    Thanks Rob. I’m super interested in this non-human aesthetics business. One of the interesting things about reactions to the OOO/New Aesthetic distinction (including both our essays) is a really strongly defensive reaction to this difference, which I find fascinating.

    I’m not sure I get the Turing bit, but it’s lurid. Will wait to hear more.

  3. dmf

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-02aCvQ-HFs&feature=youtu.be

  4. David

    Goodiepal, more non-human aesthetics: http://rhizome.org/editorial/2011/nov/16/goodiepals-plot-educate-ai/