No. 29 (2022): Issue No. 29, October 2022 – Main Topic: Contemporary Aesthetics of Art and Technology

On cover: Provisional Salta Ensemble, Virtual Parameters, photocolague, 2019–2022.

Contemporary developments in both art and technology are currently challenging many of the traditional ways of seeing, thinking, feeling, and being. Technological and technology-enabled developments such as digitalization, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, robotics, virtual (VR) and augmented (AR) reality, Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, GPS, 5G, 3D printing, and biotechnology are examples of complex developments that are notoriously difficult to grasp without specific context and selected examples of their application. Art as another broad field of human activity plays an increasingly central role in raising awareness of new and emerging technologies but also, and perhaps more importantly, in asking the important questions that need to be asked when designing and using technologies. Art has thus, besides its quintessential link to aesthetic value, also significant cognitive and ethical value when dealing with technology, whether as its material, medium, or topic.

By examining some of the latest developments that bind together artistic and technological developments, the issue highlights the role of contemporary philosophical and applied aesthetics in making sense of the many intersections of art and technology. How new and emerging technologies mediate creativity, meaning-making, and artistic intentionality is one set of possible questions. Another way to approach the theme would be through how technology is changing experience, reception, and interpretation of art. Art has the ability to concretize values but also to show alternative trajectories for technological development. The aim of the issue is thus to move beyond mere presentation of current forms of technology-enabled artistic phenomena towards a richer understanding of the changing human and nonhuman art-interpreted agencies in the technologized world.

We are excited to call together contributions taking a closer look at the links between contemporary aesthetics, art, and technology to the 29th issue of the AM Journal of Art and Media Studies.

Guest Issue Editor

Dr Sanna Lehtinen

On the cover: Provisional Salta Ensemble, Virtual Parameters, photocolague, 2019–2022.

 

Published: 15.10.2022