The aesthetic nature and purposes of computer culture in the contemporary world are investigated in this book. Sean Cubitt casts a cool eye on the claims of cybertopians, tracing the globalization of the new medium and enquiring into its effects on subjectivity and sociality. Drawing on historical scholarship, philosophical aesthetics and the literature of cyberculture, the author argues for a genuine democracy beyond the limitations of the free market and the global corporation. Digital arts are identified as having a vital part to play in this process. Written in a balanced and penetrating style, the book both conveniently summarizes a huge literature and sets a new agenda for research and theory.

Postdigital Aesthetics is a contribution to questions raised by our newly computational everyday lives and the aesthetics which reflect both the postdigital nature of this age, but also critical perspectives of a post-internet world.

An art-historical perspective on interactive media art that provides theoretical and methodological tools for understanding and analyzing digital art. Since the 1960s, artworks that involve the participation of the spectator have received extensive scholarly attention. Yet interactive artworks using digital media still present a challenge for academic art history. In this book, Katja Kwastek argues that the particular aesthetic experience enabled by these new media works can open up new perspectives for our understanding of art and media alike. Kwastek, herself an art historian, offers a set of theoretical and methodological tools that are suitable for understanding and analyzing not only new media art but also other contemporary art forms. Addressing both the theoretician and the practitioner, Kwastek provides an introduction to the history and the terminology of interactive art, a theory of the aesthetics of interaction, and exemplary case studies of interactive media art. Kwastek lays the historical and theoretical groundwork and then develops an aesthetics of interaction, discussing such aspects as real space and data space, temporal structures, instrumental and phenomenal perspectives, and the relationship between materiality and interpretability. Finally, she applies her theory to specific works of interactive media art, including narratives in virtual and real space, interactive installations, and performance—with case studies of works by Olia Lialina, Susanne Berkenheger, Stefan Schemat, Teri Rueb, Lynn Hershman, Agnes Hegedüs, Tmema, David Rokeby, Sonia Cillari, and Blast Theory.

Nearly a decade ago, Johanna Drucker cofounded the University of Virginia’s SpecLab, a digital humanities laboratory dedicated to risky projects with serious aims. In SpecLab she explores the implications of these radical efforts to use critical practices and aesthetic principles against the authority of technology based on analytic models of knowledge. Inspired by the imaginative frontiers of graphic arts and experimental literature and the technical possibilities of computation and information management, the projects Drucker engages range from Subjective Meteorology to Artists’ Books Online to the as yet unrealized ’Patacritical Demon, an interactive tool for exposing the structures that underlie our interpretations of text. Illuminating the kind of future such experiments could enable, SpecLab functions as more than a set of case studies at the intersection of computers and humanistic inquiry. It also exemplifies Drucker’s contention that humanists must play a role in designing models of knowledge for the digital age—models that will determine how our culture will function in years to come.

Argues we are in a post-digital moment, where the blurring between the "real" and the "digital" has fundamentally reconfigured how we make sense of the world.

Is art created with computers really art? This book answers ‘yes.’ Computers can generate visual art with unique aesthetic effects based on innovations in computer technology and a Postmodern naturalization of technology wherein technology becomes something we live in as well as use. The present study establishes these claims by looking at digital art’s historical emergence from the 1960s to the start of the present century. Paul Crowther, using a philosophical approach to art history, considers the first steps towards digital graphics, their development in terms of three-dimensional abstraction and figuration, and then the complexities of their interactive formats.

Social media provides a new way for aesthetic practitioners to connect with consumers and to differentiate their clinics. However, to most clinic managers and practitioners, digital media represents a sea of confusion that they cannot even begin to know how to navigate. With over 20 years of experience in medical aesthetics, Lewis offers a unique understanding of the challenges clinics face every day to market their products and services ethically, manage patients and stay profitable. This text serves as an expert user's guide written specifically for healthcare professionals in need of an in-depth introduction and comprehensive actionable program for digital marketing, social media, and aesthetic clinic management. It is a must-read for practitioners.

The aesthetic nature and purposes of computer culture in the contemporary world are investigated in this book. Sean Cubitt casts a cool eye on the claims of cybertopians, tracing the globalization of the new medium and enquiring into its effects on subjectivity and sociality. Drawing on historical scholarship, philosophical aesthetics and the literature of cyberculture, the author argues for a genuine democracy beyond the limitations of the free market and the global corporation. Digital arts are identified as having a vital part to play in this process. Written in a balanced and penetrating style, the book both conveniently summarizes a huge literature and sets a new agenda for research and theory.

Edited by Christiane Heibach and Karin Wenz. Essays by Mark Amerika, Giselle Beiguelman, Friedrich W. Block, Mark Bernstein, Nika Bertram, Simon Biggs, Philippe Bootz, John Cayley, Florian Cramer, Eduardo Kac, Bill Seaman, et al.

An original exploration of the role of aesthetics in contemporary design, uniquely combining philosophical aesthetics and cultural analysis of design. As a product of human ingenuity, design functions as an artificial interface through which we meet the world. While the ubiquity of design seems to render it imperceptible, when we truly reflect on design, we see that it is inextricably entwined with our experience of the world. In Design Aesthetics, Mads Nygaard Folkmann provides an engaging introduction to the field of design aesthetics and its role as a concept. Engaging with sensual, conceptual, and contextual considerations of design aesthetics, this book investigates design experience in tandem with design practice, objects, and perception. Part one of Design Aesthetics lays the theoretical foundation by differentiating between sensual, conceptual, and contextual dimensions of design aesthetics and clarifying what “aesthetic experience” means in relation to design. The second part of the book consists of studies in implications of design aesthetics for design practice, design objects with embedded technology, and the construction of perception of aesthetic qualities in objects. In its focus on design aesthetics, the book is intended for everyone working with design—design students, designer researchers, and designers—as well as students and researchers in aesthetics in general.