New Media Aesthetics

The essay aims to explore the soundness of traditional definitions of Aestethics (as Theory of Beauty, as Theory of Sensibility, as Philosophy of Art) in the Age of New Media. Analyzing some texts written by Walter Benjamin, the essay focuses on some ideas (montage, innervation, aura-choc) that, in different way, we can find in the current Media Studies (McLuhan, De Kerckhove, Ortoleva). Particularly, the concept of the “Innervation” comes to that “Technological body” (subject of various performances) in which technical medium and human body complement each other. Digital devices strengthen the human body’s possibilities communicating and perceiving, therefore, they give a new relevance to Aesthetics as Theory of Sensibility (aisthesis) in the baumgartenian meaning.
ITALIAN: il saggio vuole verificare quale delle tradizionali definizioni di estetica (teoria della bellezza, teoria della sensibilità, filosofia dell’arte) sia ancora valida nell’età dei nuovi media. Attraverso l’analisi di alcuni testi di Walter Benjamin vengono individuati alcuni concetti (“montaggio”, “innervazione”, “aura-choc”) che trovano riscontro nelle teorie dei massmediologi contemporanei (McLuhan, De Kerckhove, Ortoleva). In particolare il concetto di “innervazione” ha trovato esito in quel “corpo tecnologico” (oggetto di varie performance artistiche) in cui medium tecnico e corpo umano si integrano. Il potenziamento comunicativo e percettivo apportato nel corpo umano dai dispositivi digitali conferisce nuova attualità all’estetica, intesa in senso baumgarteniano come teoria della percezione (aisthesis).

Today, our culture seems to be running on software and revolves around user interfaces. Aesthetics pushed computing into the realm of human perception, cognition and pleasure. The pendulum has now swung in favor of giving aesthetics priority in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field. The aesthetic aspects of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are essential for their success, efficiency, intuitiveness and appeal. GUI design has become to a large extent a matter of aesthetics because GUIs transformed our view of computer programs into a matter of visual perception. This thesis conducts a hermeneutic approach to trace the influence of art and aesthetics within the genesis of early GUIs. Such an historical study has been neglected in the field. As art is commonly understood to be an expressive aesthetic artifact produced by skill, we have found both art and aesthetics to be influential in HCI, and they are gaining more importance as computers become pervasive in our daily life. However, a good interface like a good piece of art is hard to achieve. This research is undertaken at a time when the field of HCI is being reshaped by necessity to be an aesthetics discipline. Familiar computer concepts such as the Desktop Metaphor can no longer be taken for granted. The past might have developed differently, just as the future might develop differently. Examining the classic ground-breaking designs is one way of guarding against that. It can only result in better future interaction designs.

Revisiting the origins of the term "Postinternet," a decade on, I assess its contemporary relevance from a psychological, political, and architectural perspective, in the context of the E-Flux series on Postinternet Cities. While I initially conceived of it as a way to refer to "art after the internet," I've more recently called for a focus on the postinternet condition as reflective of "symptoms of network culture." In this text I identify some of those symptoms, particularly the emotional affects of living our lives primarily online. I also speculate about the physical and residential needs of future lonely internet users.