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NEW AESTHETIC NEW ANXIETIES

Published : 2012-06-22
License : GPL
TABLE OF CONTENTS
New Aesthetic New Anxieties
1 Aesthetic Turns 3
2 Contributors 6
Introduction
3 Introduction 11
4 New Anxieties 18
Curatorial Readings
5 A Blogpost as Exhibition 28
6 Collect, Remix, Contribute -> Curate? 32
7 Error 404: No Aesthetic Found 35
Irruptions
8 The New Aesthetic as Representation 41
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What are the Conditions of Possibility for the New
Aesthetic? 44
10 The New Aesthetic as Mediation 49
11 The Politics of Emergent Aesthetics 54
12 Bibliography 64
13 Acknowledgements 72
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NEW AESTHETIC NEW ANXIETIES
1. AESTHETIC TURNS
2. CONTRIBUTORS
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1. AESTHETIC TURNS
A mont h bef ore t his book was developed, t he Dut ch Elect ronic Art Fest ival 2012
exhibit ion The Power of Things opened it s doors. The exhibit ion examined not ions of
mat erialit y and beaut y t hrough a collect ion of eight een works which were most ly
sculpt ural object s. Numerous people at t ending t he opening night and t heir
overwhelmingly posit ive responses f illed t he curat orial t eam wit h a sense of pride and
achievement . The next day, however, one of t he curat ors encount ered a renowned
media art crit ic out side t he exhibit ion venue and asked him if he had enjoyed t he
exhibit ion. The answer (t o t he curat or's surprise) was a f irm No. According t o t he
crit ic, t his is not t he t ime t o address such t edious t hings as nat ural phenomena, let
alone relat e t hese t o t rivial discussions on beaut y! How could one, in t hese dark t imes,
ignore t he t hreat s we are f acing and t he slashed cult ural f unding t o creat e an
exhibit ion t hat does not t ake a crit ical st and against t he crises at hand? Did t he crit ic
have a point ? Was t his exhibit ion an exercise in f iddling while Rome burned? The crit ic
ref used t o acknowledge t hat at t his very moment a push f or aest het ics - as a polit ics
of f orm and experience - is a pot ent ially radical gest ure.
In 2006, Claire Bishop signalled t hat art crit icism of t en f ails t o judge t he art ist ic merit
of socially engaged pract ice as emphasis is shif t ed away f rom t he disrupt ive
specificity of a given work and ont o a generalized set of moral precept s (64). Indeed,
if t he art ist ic experiment at ion and t he reworking of f orms, af f ect s and mat erials is
downplayed, art becomes st agnant and only preaches t o t he convert ed. Wit h t he
recent 'social t urn' in cont emporary art , curat ors and art ist s have quit e of t en resort ed
t o t he discourses of polit ical aut onomy t o f rame t he hist orical present . Cert ainly, t he
current sit uat ion is charact erised by new pressures and urgencies, requiring clarit y and
f irm direct ives. But if t his result s in a reduct ion of legit imat e polit ical posit ions,
perspect ives and st ances, t hen t he operat ive zone f or art becomes very narrow.
There is a level of account abilit y and risk-t aking involved here. Polit ics cannot just be
coquet t ishly applied t o t he whit e cube gallery space and expect ed t o st ick. This was,
f or example, t he case at t he 2012 Berlin Biennale, where t he curat ors invit ed t he
Occupy Berlin movement int o t he gallery space of KW Inst it ut e f or Cont emporary Art ,
t he main biennial venue. This move ignored t he f act t hat t he Occupy movement is
about public dissent in public space; it is about t he st reet being heard. Locking up
Occupy in t he whit e cube is a simplist ic curat orial gest ure of put t ing polit ics on
display. A perf ormat ive act such as t his, t urns art ist ic pract ices and curat ing int o
perf ormances of already-act ivat ed polit ical processes.
Perhaps an exhibit ion like The Power of Things was dif f icult t o read as crit ical,
because a crit ical exhibit ion - in t radit ional elect ronic art t erms - t ypically ent ails a
bunch of comput er screens and robot ic sculpt ures in a dark indust rial space, brought
t oget her under a dyst opian scenario serving as an exhibit ion t heme. Such classic
crit ical elect ronic art exhibit ions, however, inf orm an ant iquat ed int eract ive elect ronic
art aest het ic - one t hat dict at es t hat crit ically looking at t echnologys impact on our
world is best achieved by displaying hardware at work, and dispensing wit h f rivolous
t opics such as beaut y. Crit ical art , however, is also a quest ion of sense and
percept ion, of t ransf ormat ive f orms and diagrams. The approach of The Power of
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Things explored relat ions bet ween dif f erent mat erials in t he world. This involved an
aest het ics aimed at generat ing new hybrid or more-t han-human collect ives.
The Power of Things exhibit ion included only a f ew screens, and t heir presence was
always t o support sculpt ural object s. Pigeon d'Or (2010) by Tuur van Balen, f or
example, was a proposal t o genet ically modif y pigeons so t heir excrement is
composed of soap and, t heref ore, t he cit y is cleaned rat her t han soiled when pigeons
def ecat e. The inst allat ion included mat erial t hings which gave viewers a sense of a
project 's concept ual and t hemat ic scope. Most works in t he exhibit ion were sculpt ural
object s, or object s wit h screens as support , inst ead of t ime-based or image-based
int eract ive works. This was not a prohibit ion on t he use of screens, but an at t empt t o
complicat e cert ain est ablished and convent ional exhibit ion pract ices in new media art .
Ot her works such as Irrational Computing (2011) by Ralf Baecker dealt wit h t he
mat erials and aest het ics of digit al processes. Using semiconduct or cryst als (t he key
t echnical component of inf ormat ion t echnologies), f ive modules based on varied
elect rical and mechanical processes t hat f orm a kind of primit ive, macroscopic signal
processors. Irrational Computing is not supposed t o f unct ion it s aim is t o search f or
t he poet ic element s on t he border bet ween accuracy and chaos, amplif ying t he
poet ic side of t hese mat erials. Similarly, Pulse (2008) by Marcus Kison dealt wit h t he
mat erials and af f ect s of digit al processes in t he f orm of a cascade of wires and
exposed mechanical part s. Pulse is a live visualizat ion of real-t ime emot ional
expressions on t he int ernet . Each t ime an emot ion is ident if ied in a recent blog ent ry, a
red shape-shif t ing object at t he cent re of t he inst allat ion t ransf orms it self , so t hat t he
new volume of t he shape creat es a visual represent at ion of an overall current
emot ional condit ion of int ernet users.
Beyond t he domain of new media art , human-comput er relat ions are also not new t o
t he cont emporary art world. The works of Thomas Bayrle present ed at dOCUMENTA
(13) f or example, are machines which move in rhyt hmic and hypnot ic ways,
accompanied by barely audible soundt racks of murmured prayers. Also at
dOCUMENTA (13), in a neighbouring venue, several physical experiment s by
physicist Ant on Zeileger were inst alled, which af f ect ively mat erialized t he work of a
f ield which is normally quit e opaque t o t hose out side it . Alt hough t he cont emporary art
world could not be said t o be hermet ic (an int erest in machines and t heir aest het ics
st ret ches back t o at least Fut urism), t he new media art world and cont emporary art
world st ill remain very much dist inct . Manovich inf amously ref erred t o t his as t he
dif f erence bet ween 'Turing-land' and 'Duchamp-land' (Manovich, 1996). Curat or
Cat herine David expressed t he Duchamp-land view in an early st at ement when she
suggest ed "t echnology in it self is not a cat egory according t o which I judge works. This
t ype of cat egorizat ion is just as out moded as division int o classical art genres
(paint ing, sculpt ure). I am int erest ed in t he idea of a project ; ideally t he means of
realizing t he project should arise f rom t he idea it self " (1997). However, f rom t he
perspect ive of a decade of change, we can now recognize t he ret icent polit ics of t he
'project ' as a charact erist ic of neoliberal government alit y.
The conversat ion about t he New Aest het ic, even t hough it arose f rom a design
cont ext , is remarkable f or t he way t hat it so nat urally disregards est ablished divides of
creat ive indust ries, art pract ice and t heory. It posit s an aest het ic t urn t hat has
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arguably animat ed all of t hese scenes; an aest het ic t urn brought about it self t hrough
a 'new nat ure' (Bridle 2011c).
Irit Rogof f argues in her essay on t he not ion of 't urns' in cont emporary art 's t raject ory
(including t hose wit hin t he pract ice of curat ion it self ), t hat "it seems pert inent t o ask
whet her t his umbrella is act ually descript ive of t he drives t hat have propelled t his
desired t ransit ion" (2008). Cont emporary art workers encount er suggest ions of
t urns wit h ambivalence and a cert ain secret sense of relief - everyone needs senses
of movement in t heir f rames f or working, t he st yles of comport ment f or what t hey do,
in order t o enable a capacit y t o absorb, recognize, sit uat e and insight f ully propel
individual pract ices int o int elligible scenes of aest het ic encount er - usually t his t akes
shape as an exhibit ion. But what const it ut es a t urn, and what kind of comport ment do
specif ic t urns regist er in relat ion t o t he larger hist orical present s in t o which t hey are
pit ched and t hrown? Rogof f asks:
Are we t alking about a 'reading st rat egy' or an int erpret at ive model, as
was t he underst anding of t he 'linguist ic t urn' in t he 1970s, wit h it s
int imat ions of an underlying st ruct ure t hat could be read across numerous
cult ural pract ices and ut t erances? Are we t alking about reading one
syst ema pedagogical oneacross anot her syst emone of display,
exhibit ion, and manif est at ionso t hat t hey nudge one anot her in ways
t hat might open t hem up t o ot her ways of being? Or, are we t alking
inst ead about an act ive movement a generat ive moment in which a new
horizon emerges in t he processleaving behind t he pract ice t hat was it s
originat ing point ? (2008)
For Rogof f , who seems very much aware of t he relat ionship of art world t rends t o
net worked connect ivit y and socio-t echnological change, what is at one moment
heralded as a t urn can easily "harden" int o a series of "generic or st ylist ic t ropes," and
might risk even resolving t he kinds of urgencies t hat underwrot e it in t he f irst place
given t hat it is designed t o deal wit h int erdisciplinary challenges at t he precise point s
where t hings "urgent ly need t o be shaken up and made uncomf ort able" (2008).
Taking up t his challenge t o consider disrupt ion, Michelle Kasprzak (Curat or at V2_
Inst it ut e f or t he Unst able Media in Rot t erdam) invit ed one f acilit at or and six writ ers t o
come t oget her in a 'book sprint ' t o explore t hese issues. The book sprint f ormat
involves a group t asked wit h writ ing a book over a f ew int ensive days - in t his case, we
met over approximat ely f our and a half days. Talking, writ ing, edit ing, eat ing, drinking,
and debat ing ensued and t he result of t hose f ocused days of ef f ort is t his publicat ion.
We are proud of what emerged in t his int erdisciplinary group of curat ors, writ ers, and
academics, alt hough of course as we neared t he end of t his process we f ound
ourselves wishing f or "just one more day". As an init ial st ep t owards a deeper analysis
of t his cont emporary moment where new aest het ics appear against t he backdrop of
global discord and unrest , we hope you f ind it as int erest ing t o read as we have f ound
it t o (collaborat ively) writ e.

Rot t erdam, June 2012
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2. CONTRIBUTORS

David M. Berry is a Senior Lect urer in Digit al Media in t he Depart ment of Polit ical and
Cult ural St udies at Swansea Universit y. He is current ly a guest researcher at Institutt
for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK), Universit y of Oslo. He is aut hor of The Philosophy
of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age (2011), Copy, Rip Burn: The
Politics of Copyleft and Open Source (2008), and edit or of Understanding Digital
Humanities (2011) and Life in Code and Software: Mediated life in a complex
computational ecology (2012). He is @berrydm on Twit t er ht t p://t wit t er.com/berrydm
and also ht t p://www.swan.ac.uk/st af f /academic/art shumanit ies/berryd/.

Michel van Dart el (NL) is a curat or at V2_Institute for the Unstable Media and
t he Dutch Electronic Art Festival. Current ly he is a guest t eacher at Transmedia, a
post graduat e program in art , media, and design at Sint -
Lukas Brussels Universit y College of Art and Design. Michel also works as ext ernal
advisor t o t he Mondriaan Foundation and t he Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; guest
curat or of ARTICLE, a biennial f or elect ronic and unst able art ; and, associat e edit or
of t he Journal for Artistic Research. Prior t o his current appoint ment s, Michel
undert ook research on knowledge represent at ion in robot models of cognit ion, f or
which he received a PhD in Art if icial Int elligence and an MSc in Cognit ive Psychology
f rom Maast richt Universit y. (@MichelvanDart el | michel@v2.nl
| www.v2.nl/archive/people/michel-van-dart el)

Michael Diet er (AUS) is a lect urer in New Media at t he Universit y of Amst erdam. His
research int erest s f ocus on relat ions of media art , ecology and polit ics. He is f inishing
his PhD on cont emporary t echnoscient if ic art pract ices, ent it led 'Ret icular Aest het ics'.
His publicat ions have appeared in Fibreculture, M/C and t he Australian Humanities
Review.

Adam Hyde (NZ/DE) is a Book Sprint f acilit at or, Project Manager of an open source
book product ion plat f orm (Bookt ype) and f ounder of FLOSS Manuals. Adam st art ed
t he Book Sprint met hodology 4 years ago and has been pushing t he f acilit at ion
process f urt her int o new cont ext s of collaborat ive knowledge and cult ure product ion.
ht t p://www.booksprint s.net
Michelle Kasprzak (CA/PL) curat or and writ er based in Amst erdam, t he Net herlands.
She is a Curat or at V2_ Inst it ut e f or t he Unst able Media, t he Dut ch Elect ronic Art
Fest ival (DEAF), and part of t he global curat orial t eam f or t he 2012 ZERO1 Biennial in
Calif ornia. She has appeared in Wired UK, on radio and TV broadcast s by t he BBC and
CBC, and lect ured at PICNIC. In 2006 she f ounded Curat ing.inf o, t he webs leading
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resource f or curat ors. She has writ t en crit ical essays f or Volume, C Magazine,
Rhizome, CV Photo, Mute, and many ot her media out let s, including one ant hology and
essays f or t wo books current ly in product ion. Michelle is a member of IKT
(Int ernat ional Associat ion of Curat ors of Cont emporary Art ). (@mkasprzak | mk@v2.nl
| www.v2.nl/archive/people/michelle-kasprzak)
Nat Muller (NL) is an independent curat or and crit ic based bet ween Rot t erdam and
t he Middle East . Her main int erest s include: t he int ersect ions of aest het ics, media and
polit ics; media art and cont emporary art in and f rom t he Middle East . She is a regular
cont ribut or f or Springerin, MetropolisM and her work has been published in Bidoun, Art
Asia Pacific, Art Papers, Majalla, Daily Star and Harpers Bazaar. She has curat ed
video screenings f or project s and f est ivals in a.o. Amst erdam, Rot t erdam, Berlin, New
York, Ist anbul, Copenhagen, Grimst ad, Lugano, Dubai, Cairo and Beirut . Wit h
Alessandro Ludovico she edit ed t he Mag.net Reader2: Between Paper and Pixel
(2007), and Mag.net Reader3: Processual Publishing, Actual Gestures (2009), based
on a series of debat es organized at Document a XII. She has t aught at t he Willem de
Kooning Academy (NL), ALBA (Beirut ), t he Lebanese American Universit y (Beirut ),
A.U.D. in Dubai (UAE), and t he Riet veld Academy (NL). She has served as an advisor
on Euro-Med collaborat ions f or t he European Cult ural Foundat ion (ECF), t he EU, and
as an advisor on e-cult ure f or t he Dut ch Minist ry of Cult ure. She is current ly working
on her f irst book f or t he Inst it ut e of Net work Cult ures and Nai Publishers. She serves
on t he advisory board of t he Palest inian websit e project Art t errit ories (Ramallah), t he
art s organisat ion TENT (Rot t erdam), seat s in t he select ion commit t ee of t he
Mondriaan Fund (NL).

Rachel O'Reilly (AU/NL) is an independent writ er, curat or and crit ic based in
Amst erdam, t he Net herlands and Aust ralia. Her current research examines
relat ionships bet ween moving image and inst allat ion art pract ices, aest het ic polit ics
and neoliberal governance. She was a curat or of f ilm, video and new media at t he
Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane (AUS), 2004-08, and Special Project s Consult ant t o
MAAP Mult imedia Art Asia Pacif ic, 2008-9. She was part of t he Pacif ic Rim New Media
Summit s Cult ural Fut ures working group f oregrounding post colonial and indigenous
approaches t o code, locat ion and virt ualit y f or ISEA 2006, and in book f orm in Place:
Local Knowledge and New Media Aesthetics. Key curat orial project s include The
Leisure Class (co-curat or) at t he Gallery of Modern Art (AUS), 2007
and VideoGround (AUS, THAI, USA) 2008, commissioned by MAAP Mult imedia Art
Asia Pacif ic. She was part of t he Aust ralian Cinemat heque curat orial t eam of t he Fif t h
Asia Pacif ic Triennial (AUS), 2006, has t aught at t he Universit y of Wollongong (AUS)
and published in Postcolonial Studies Journal, Leonardo, RealtimeArts and numerous
exhibit ion cat alogues. (rachel.a.oreilly@gmail.com | www.racheloreilly.net )
Jos Luis de Vicent e (ES) is a researcher, curat or and writ er working in design, new
media and cult ural innovat ion. He direct s t he Visualizar program on Dat a Cult ure at
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Medialab Prado (Madrid) and is one of t he f ounders of ZZZINC, an independent lab
f or cult ural research based in Barcelona. Recent exhibit ions as independent curat or
include Invisible Fields: Geographies of Radio Waves (Art s Sant a Monica, Spain
2011) and Playtime: Videogame Mythologies (Maison d'Ailleurs, Swit zerland 2012)
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INTRODUCTION
3. INTRODUCTION
4. NEW ANXIETIES
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3. INTRODUCTION

It 's 2011, and I have no idea what anyt hing is or does anymore. (Taylor, in
Bridle 2011c)

How do we t hink about media art aest het ics and t he product ion of crit ical knowledge
as t he creat ive indust ries paradigm consolidat es around us, amidst ongoing f inancial,
environment al and polit ical crises? Can we st ill claim a special place f or media art
given t he increasing ubiquit y of inf ormat ional t echnologies in everyday lif e and t he
int ensif icat ion of cult ural dist ribut ion t hrough social media plat f orms? This book
ref lect s on t hese quest ions t hrough t he recent New Aest het ic. More specif ically, we
are int erest ed in ref lect ing on why a not ion developed by t he Brit ish designer James
Bridle caused such a react ion across mult iple cont ext s, sect ors and segment s of
net work cult ure. Pit ched as a highly-curat ed bat ch of crowdsourced visual and t ext ual
cont ent on t he commercial microblogging and social net working plat f orm Tumblr, t he
New Aest het ic was present ed as a 'shareable concept ', a 't heory object '. This
collect ion, moreover, was delivered wit h a message: t he machines were t elling us
somet hing, t rying t o speak t o us, and we just need t o ret urn t heir af f ect ionat e,
surveillant gazes, and communicat e wit h t heir program languages.
The t erm New Aest het ic f elt t he f ull f orce of love and hat e f rom a disparat e crew of
writ ers, media art t heorist s and pract it ioners, designers, object -orient ed
ont ologist s and curat ors in an out pouring of f renzied at t ent ion and crit icism. Ironically,
even ambivalent responses were well document ed. Since it s explosion online, many
have relegat ed t he phenomena of t he New Aest het ic t o t he st at us of a 'non-event .'
But how could such a t hing be bot h phenomenal and superf luous, at t ract ing so many
cont ribut ions, sight ings, parallels and revisionist account s, including f rom new media
pract it ioners t hemselves? The quest ion of how and why t he New Aest het ic became
emblemat ic of a part icular kind of sensibilit y, one arguably charact erist ic of a
disruptive network culture, is t he subject of t his book.
Approaching t his t opic, we want t o t hink t hrough t he anxiet ies, misunderst andings,
argument s, bruised egos and skirmishes t he New Aest het ic generat ed. We at t empt t o
move beyond lazy t hinking, posit ions of pious indif f erence or naive ent husiasm, and
ask what t he New Aest het ic might t ell us about t his junct ure in which f ind ourselves,
as curat ors, crit ics, art ist s t heorist s and creat ive workers. We especially want t o
explore t he discomf ort and challenges of t he New Aest het ic f or a number of
comment at ors working in proximit y t o 'new media aest het ics.' Somehow t he New
Aest het ic as a point of conversat ion seemed t o generat e st rong boundary anxiet ies
at a t ime when media art and t he cult ural sect or in general, here in t he Net herlands
and across Europe, are having serious dif f icult ies conceiving of present condit ions and
f ut ure visions of t heir own. Especially considering t his f act , t he sense of beaut if ic
sent iment alit y and f oreboding capt ured by it s images, along wit h t he dist ribut ive
at t ent ion it at t ract ed, raises int erest ing quest ions f or t he f ut ure of new media art .
The f irst sect ion of t his book provides some def init ions and int roduces key t hemes.
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This is f ollowed by a series of ref lect ions by curat ors on how curat orial pract ice and
expert ise in proximit y t o t he New Aest het ic makes sense of it s object s, f orms and
art if act s. We t hen move t o concept ually sit uat e t he New Aest het ic - as one kind of
emergent aest het ic f orm - int o a broader epist eme of comput at ionalit y and
periodisat ion of neoliberal government alit y. This is an at t empt t o expand our
perspect ive on what t he New Aest het ic might mean, and also consider how media art
can reimagine it self by asking some dif f icult new quest ions.

WHAT WAS THE NEW AESTHETIC?
Def ining t he New Aest het ic is necessarily problemat ic. It 's a vibe, an at t it ude, a
f eeling, a sensibility. Post ed t o t he blog f or The Really Int erest ing Group - a
creat ive design part nership based in East London - Bridle int roduced t he t erm on May
6t h, 2011 by st at ing:
For a while now, Ive been collect ing images and t hings t hat seem t o
approach a New Aest het ic of t he f ut ure, which sounds more port ent ous
t han I mean. What I mean is t hat weve got f rust rat ed wit h t he NASA
ext ropianism space-f ut ure, t he f ailure of jet packs, and we need t o see t he
t echnologies we act ually have wit h a new wonder. Consider t his a mood-
board f or unknown product s.
(Some of t hese t hings might have appeared here, or nearby, bef ore. They
are not necessarily new new, but I want t o put t hem t oget her.)
For so long weve st ared up at space in wonder, but wit h cheap sat ellit e
imagery and cameras on kit es and RC helicopt ers, we're looking at t he
ground wit h new eyes, t o see st ruct ures and inf rast ruct ures. (Bridle
2011a)
The post cont ained a series of digit al images document ing t his sensibilit y associat ed
of t he f ut ure. These visual art ef act s included sat ellit e imagery, t racking of geot agged
dat a f rom iPhones, t he locat ion of Osama Bin Laden's 'hideout ' on Google Maps f rom
a New York Times art icle, splint er camouf lage on milit ary jet s, t he Telehouse West
dat a cent er in East London by YRM Archit ect s and 'low res' indust rial design by Unit ed
Nude, among ot hers. At a glance, t hese appear as a random set of images. Indeed,
somet hing about it recalls what ADILKNO once described as vague media, "t heir
models are not argument at ive, but cont aminat ive. Once you t une in t o t hem, you get
t he at t it ude. But t hat was never t heir int ent ion; t heir vagueness is not an ideal, it is t he
ult imat e degree of abst ract ion" (1998). However, perhaps t he ref erence t o mood-
boards is more t elling, a highly cont emporary t echnique of concepting int egral t o
creat ive labour in advert ising and design set t ings. This is a cult ural t echnology which
involves creat ing an 'at mosphere' or context for consumption around a product
(Ardvisson 2005). Explicit ly f or Bridle, it is somet hing designed f or net work cult ure t o
t ake up: f or him, t he product s are 'unknown.' In t his respect , it aims purely t o evoke a
pot ent ial at mosphere around st andard inf rast ruct ure. It perf orms a sense of not ional
space, but not a nat ural sublime. On t he cont rary, t he New Aest het ics st rives t o st are
down a t horoughly hybridized socio-t echnological world (Lat our 2011).
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In his original pit ch, Bridle ref lect s on digit al and net worked t echnologies f rom t he
weird perspect ive of a f at her f igure f or t he machines in t he st yle of Alan Turing. For
Bridle, child machines should be educat ed not t hrough Turing's polit ically incorrect
met hod of punishment and rewards, but t hrough posit ive reinf orcement , care and
creat ive communicat ive st rat egies (2011c). Let 's be f rank, t here is an urgent need t o
int errogat e comput at ional processes, but Bridle's kit sch af f ect ion f or t hinking
machines is ult imat ely underpinned by a polit ical naivet y t hat could perhaps only be
maint ained by t he creat ive classes. The socio-polit ical asymmet ries perpet uat ed by
dat a-mining, t he privat ized social graph, f acial recognit ion t echnologies, drone
at t acks, and camouf lage are swept aside by t he posit ive message t o make t he world
"more excit ing, make it bet t er" (2011c).
We're not surprised any longer by t he polit ical aporias of t he creat ive sect or - even
whilst t hey claim an et hical st ance. We aim t o t ake t he New Aest het ic in ot her
direct ions; we're int erest ed in int ersect ing pract ices or ecologies, t echnical crit iques
and quest ions of medium-specif icit y in t he comput at ional epist eme. We're curious
about unknown product s, especially as it relat es t o a pot ent ial f or producing new
spaces f or t he common. But rat her t han f ixat ing on Bridle's pit ch, let 's f ind some ot her
angles and approaches int o t his vague t errain. Let 's f ollow some pract ices, discourses
and crit icisms associat ed wit h t he New Aest het ic, ref igure dist inct ions bet ween expert
and layman, t he commercial and t he noncommercial, t he proper and improper. Let 's
build some crit ical f eedback loops along t hese conf using t raject ories.

ALGORITHMIC AGENTS
Recent debat es over t he 'correct ' use of algorit hms can help us st art t o def ine t he
New Aest het ic in usef ul ways. Last February, Norwegian born, NYC-based art ist
generat ive art ist Marius Wat z post ed a brief art icle on his Tumblr t hat was int ended
t o act as a warning sign and wake-up call t o his peers - t he communit y of art ist s and
designers f or whom t he medium of comput er code is t heir working t oolset . He wrot e,
Yes, heavy use of st andard algorit hms is bad f or you. That is, it is if you
wish t o consider yourself a comput at ional creat ive capable of coming up
wit h int erest ing work... You cannot lay claim t o 'owning' any given algorit hm
(or hardware conf igurat ion), unless you have added signif icant ext ra value
t o it . To do so is at best ignorant ... This doesnt mean you shouldnt
experiment wit h great algorit hms. (Wat z 2012)
In ef f ect t his was a crit ique of what Wat z called "algorit hmic laziness" and seemed t o
be an at t empt t o sket ch t he cont ours of accept able algorit hmic use in art ist ic pract ice.
As Bruce St erling (2012a) comment ed, "A 'canon of algorit hms.' What an int riguing
development ."
It is helpf ul t o know a bit more about Wat z t o underst and t he relevance of his
comment s and t o f eel his concern. He has worked in t he medium of t he algorit hmic
image f or t he last decade, t aking his pract ice t o count less f est ivals and event s in t he
global new media circuit as he progressively execut ed a t ransit ion t o t he gallery scene.
13
Jumping f rom t he medium of t he screen and t he project ion t o more t angible out put s,
last year he became t he f irst 'Art ist in Residence' at Makerbot indust ries, t he open-
source, VC-backed company t hat produces t he most af f ordable and popular 3D
print er. Wat z is slowly becoming a f amiliar sight in hacking spaces and most ly-West ern
art and t echnology inst it ut ions.
Inst ead of choosing t he comf ort able posit ion of an art ist who concent rat es on t heir
own work and won't int ervene in debat es, Marius Wat z f requent ly cont ribut es. As an
evangelist of t he generat ive, he st art ed t he Generat or-X conf erence showcasing
lat est generat ive st rat egies and sof t ware processes in digit al art , archit ect ure and
design, has curat ed several sof t ware art exhibit ions and t eaches f requent ly coding
and modeling workshops f or beginners, f reelancers and prof essionals. While modest ,
he is also very opinionat ed, and will enjoy a (polit e and good humored) polemic on
blogs, social net works and mailing list s now and t hen. This is just t o say t hat Wat z
really cares about code, and has great expect at ions about it s role in art pract ices
t oday. He doesn't want his great love, t he comput at ed image, t o be banalized or t he
t ools of his t rade t o be used poorly. Some of t he most det erminant of t hese t ools are,
probably, algorit hms.
From t his perspect ive, t he ent ry post ed on February 13, 2012 on his Tumblr t it led 'The
Algorit hm Thought Police', was a sincere ef f ort t o unpack t he problemat ic relat ionship
bet ween t he art ist who writ es code and t he larger ent it ies t hat she manipulat es t o
produce a visual out put . Because t hese ent it ies, in his words,
Are not neut ral vessels. Algorit hms provide t he means t o produce specif ic
out comes, t ypically t hrough generat ive logic or dat a processing. But in t he
process t hey leave t heir dist inct f oot print s on t he result . [] speaking
t hrough algorit hms, your t hought pat t erns and modes of expression are
shaped by t heir synt ax. (Wat z 2012a)
These ent it ies - list s of inst ruct ions t hat calculat e a f unct ion - would be easy t o
recognize, if not name, by most cit izens in west ern societ ies t oday. Because t hey
codif y t hrough t heir out put s a specif ic, increasingly ubiquit ous t ext ure of realit y, a skin
t hat 's being overlaid in buildings, f ashion, cars, jewelry, print publicat ions, and chairs.
A list of t he creat ive coder's 'problemat ic f riends', in Wat z's af f ect ionat e t erm, would
include, among many ot hers: Circle Packing (which def ine an area in circles
progressively wit hout let t ing t hem ent er in cont act , unt il t he area is complet ely
covered), Polygon subdivision (dif f erent t echniques of split t ing an area in polygonal
shapes) and boids (t he simulat ions of t he behavior of birds f locking); or voronoi, which
is "t he part it ioning of a plane wit h n point s int o convex polygons such t hat each
polygon cont ains exact ly one generat ing point and every point in a given polygon is
closer t o it s generat ing point t han t o any ot her" (Bhat t acharya and Gavrilova 2008:
202)
Algorit hms are a t echnical aspect of t he medium wit hin which t he New Aest het ic is
being creat ed, used, disseminat ed and remediat ed. Wat zs concerns point us t o
issues of t echnical lit eracies, know-how, cat egories of dist inct ion and boundary
condit ions t hat are necessary f or est ablishing new modes of crit ique. The same
concerns regarding t he use of t ools, f orms, and t he creat ive t reat ment of digit al
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object s, t he polit ics of t heir management and so on, seem t o circulat e everywhere
across various academic and art ist ic scenes t hat are lit erat e in comput at ion and
polit ics. In our current condit ions, t hese quest ions of medium-specif icit y, mat erial
access t o devices and t echniques of int errogabilit y t hat support t he development of
media art pract ice t hemselves f ace new challenges. Processes of obf uscat ion, t he
ref rain of ef f iciency, int ellect ual propert y regimes, built -in obsolesence, censorship
and surveillance f orm part of a wider const it ut ive cont ext t hrough which t hese
pract ices become polit icized. In V2_s recent publicat ion Vital Beauty, Dut ch media art
crit ic Arjen Mulder makes explicit t he st akes of t his scenario,
All t he signs indicat e t hat t echnological art will succumb t o current social
pressure and becoming somet hing usef ul t o people and t he economy. In
t he process, we will lose part of what I will call t he int ellect ual lif e of our
t imes: t he ext ent t o which we are able t o be conscious of t he present .
Art ist s are not creat ive in t he sense of const ant ly coming up wit h new
cont ent . Rat her, t hey change t he f orm, t he medium, t he f ramework. In t heir
hands, f orm is elevat ed t o met hod, media become cocreat ors, and
blueprint s t urn int o diagrams. (Mulder 2012)
What is int erest ing about creat ive experiment at ion which is conscious of t ools and
polit ics is what new f orms of crit ical art t ry t o gat her up and deal wit h: t he complexit y
of our incont rovert ibly aest het ic negot iat ions of t hings.
Whet her radical, f ormalist , corporat e or f ascist , aest het ics compose subject s in a
cont ract wit h t echnological, polit ical and economic realit ies. In t his way, new f orms of
sense and percept ion of f er up dif f erent ways of t hinking about our int imat e
at t achment s t o t he hist orical specif icit y of t he world. In t his sense, t hey are also f orms
of publicit y f or specif ic kinds of comport ment . Already wit h Fut urism and t he hist orical
avant -garde, art works proximit y t o publicit y worked t o disrupt and deregulat e cult ural
values t hrough t he shocks of modernit y. The New Aest het ic, however, does not
present a modernist manif est o, nor invent an aut onomous aest het ic grammar. Rat her,
t he New Aest het ic exist s as a Tumblr t hat evokes part icular subject ivit ies; a cascade
of images, a collect ion, an archive, or more specif ically, a dat abase t hat at t empt s t o
document a cert ain unf olding condit ion.
This condit ion in quest ion is precisely t he age of t he algorit hm, or t he regime of
comput at ion (Golumbia 2009). For St erling, it capt ured an erupt ion of t he digit al in t he
physical, (2012b) f or David Berry, t his was an at t empt t o see t he grain of
comput at ion (2012a). The New Aest het ic signif ies t he digit al and comput at ion
t hrough image f iles. That is, t he Tumblr accumulat es represent at ions of pixels,
st andardized object s, calculat ive operat ions and ot her inst ant iat ions of applied
mat hemat ics.
Somewhat paradoxically, however, as t he New Aest het ic at t empt s t o document t he
'realit y' of t his condit ion - t he ubiquit y of comput at ional processes - it remains caught
in t he comput at ional regime it self . This is most obvious t hrough t he emphasis on visual
knowledge and in t he t ension t hat exist s bet ween represent at ion and mediat ion in
sof t ware (Chun 2011). The New Aest het ic at t empt s t o represent t he condit ion of
comput at ionalit y, but does not ref lect on it s own st at us as media. This is why t he New
15
Aest het ic seems t o evoke what already was, rat her t han what might be. Indeed, if t he
New Aest het ic suggest s a part icular subject , as we go on t o discuss, it would be more
accurat ely described as desubject if ied, or part ial. Def ined more by int ensit ies t han by
consciousness or act ion, which are depriorit ized or unavailable, t his is comparable t o
what Tiqqun call t he Bloom (2000), but we describe under comput at ionalit y as the
riparian user (Berry 2011). However, we want t o suggest t hat t his is not some crit ical
f ailure of t he New Aest het ic (it was never t rying t o be ot herwise); rat her, it can be
t aken as a generalized sympt om of disassociat ed relat ions t hat are charact erist ic of
sof t ware, bound by t he logic of comput at ion.
It is a relat ed concern t hat t he comput at ional regime is operat ive during a phase when
t he post -89 market -driven social and economic ref orms of neoliberalism have come
int o crisis, impact ing upon our comport ment in t he present as producers, crit ics and
everyday negot iat ors of cult ure at large. This is anot her, unt il recent ly, obf uscat ed
paradigm of product ion f or t oday's f ine art and creat ive indust rial work. As a
neoclassical economic approach t o government alit y, it st resses t he ef f iciency of
privat e ent erprise, delimit s t he st at es role in providing f rom public services t hrough a
polit ics of risk privat izat ion and social disinvest ment . As welf are st at e agendas are
deemed out moded, in t he view of it s hist orian's like David Harvey, neoliberalism names
t he deepening penet rat ion of processes and regimes of capit alizat ion int o polit ical
and social inst it ut ions and indeed, cult ural consciousness (2007). On many levels it
is not a changed capit alism, merely an int ensif ied, pernicious version of real
subsumpt ion. But it s dif f erence, t racked early in 1979 by Foucault in The Birth of
Biopolitics (2008), is t he way in which t he lat t er has succeeded in creat ing great est
concept ual dist ance bet ween t he st at e, corporat e t akeovers of wealt h, and t he
concept ion of t he 'f ree' liberal democrat ic imaginary of cit izenship. This f reedom rises
int o it s own et hic above all ot her polit ical imperat ives, and cult ural logics.
For af f ect t heorist Lauren Berlant , bot h art and popular cult ural experiment s process
t he present of our neoliberal, net worked relat ions and t heir condit ions of possibilit y
(2011). Aest het ic relat ions t ake shape as t rackable 'genres' or f orms which enable
cont emporary subject s t o at t ach t o and at least inhabit t he cont radict ions and
ambivalence of t his Now. A genre, perhaps especially when pit ched as 'new'
(pert aining t o now) of f ers us a recognizable f orm t hat we can "groove wit h" or hold
ont o, so t hat we modulat e and adjust t o t he present in t he f orm of af f ect ive cont ract s
upon encount ers wit h people and t hings. Genres, signif icant ly, can be bot h ef f ort s
t owards, and def enses f rom, more polit icized ways of t hinking and f eeling t hrough t he
present .
Most relevant ly, Berlant has t aken up t hese approaches t o aest het ic f orms t o replace
t he persist ent legacy approaches t o aest het ics inherit ed f rom modernism t hat are very
much unsuit ed t o t hinking t hrough moment s of ongoing crises. In Badiou, f or example,
event s t hrow us int o a new present , supposedly rendering old t ools, cat egories and
analyt ics, including polit ical analyt ics, supposedly obsolet e (2009). Berlant de-
dramat izes t his t o suggest cont rarily t hat t he present moment is increasingly being
experienced as t he imposit ion of a sense of ext ended crisis. Incident s don't inf act
shock us differently, t he drama in f act is t he opposit e of t his; t hings more t end t o pile
up and we navigat e t hem in a mode of adjust ment t hat it self f eels as permanent as it
does precarious (2011). For her, new aeset het ic genres invest ed in t he polit ical, t he
16
ones t hat in some way act ually respond t o, ride on, or aim t o make sense of crisis, are
also becoming increasingly ref lexive. She t racks and t heorizes such new genres as
dif f erent inst ant iat ions of dealing wit h what is unf olding about t he present s polit ical
scenes. This consciously polit ical invest ment in new genres, which we share
(dif f erent ly bet ween us) as curat ors, crit ics, writ ers and media t heorist s, connect s us
sensually t o t he pursuit of product ive knowledge; indeed it is an at t empt t o bring
consciousness and knowledge more in line, rat her t han experience t hese as
glit ched (2011). We pay at t ent ion t o new f orms of art and aest het ic encount er so t hat
somet hing, indeed anyt hing, about t he present might become more knowable. Here
especially, t he New Aest het ic poses a part icularly int erest ing case f or underst anding
t he polit ics of aest het ic at t achment s t o f orm in t he t echnocult ural present .
Deleuze and Guat t ari, ref lect ing on t he st at e of philosophical t hought in t heir lat e
work, expressed deep concern t hat t he most shamef ul moment had already come
when comput er science, market ing, design and advert ising, all t he disciplines of
communicat ion, seized hold of t he word concept it self and said: 'This is our concern,
we are t he creat ive ones, we are t he ideas men!' We are f riends of t he concept , we
put it in our comput ers" (1994: 10). There should be no doubt t hat t he New Aest het ic
arises f rom a cert ain 'creat ive cont ext '. But t he New Aest het ic is also an est ranged
idea, a "bast ard" of sort s born f rom net work cult ure. Besides appropriat ing already-
exist ing cont ent , it 's t raject ory was driven by collect ive emailing, t weet ing, post ing and
comment ing. Bridle himself would not e bef ore event ually closing t he Tumblr, "it 's a
rubbish name, but it seems t o have t aken on" (2012c). To be sure, t he New Aest het ic
has ent husiast s, but t here is also a real sense t hat it is a resent ed and unwant ed child.
It comes f rom t he wrong parent age (creat ives, Wired, SxSw, commercial design), and
has been subject t o ridicule, mockery and out right dismissal. However, being born out
of t hese condit ions, it provokes conf usion and discomf ort t hat does not easily
dissipat e. Cont ra Deleuze and Guat t ari (or perhaps, t o put it more accurat ely, in t he
spirit of t heir t hought ), we need t o now reconsider t he condit ions of possibilit y f or
concept product ion here. There is no simple solut ion, only problems and quest ions, t o
which we now t urn t o examine.
17
4. NEW ANXIETIES

The #t umblresque is not John Berger's Ways of Seeing but sprays of
seeing. (Wark 2012)

What is it about t he New Aest het ic t hat makes you so damn uneasy? Theres a
deeply int riguing qualit y about t he New Aest het ic t hat is more remarkable t han any of
it s merit s: it cannot be ignored. Since Bruce St erlings f irst essay popularized t he t erm,
t he Tumblr t hat st ood as it s main plat f orm of communicat ion, and t he group of ideas,
ref erences and icons t hat it s originat ors gat hered under it s umbrella have been
ref ut ed, dissect ed, mocked, celebrat ed or laughed at . Those who have f elt obliged t o
ent er t he debat e about t he New Aest het ic come f rom philosophy, f rom new media art
pract ice and curat ion, f rom int eract ion design or f rom t he digit al humanit ies. But
almost no one has passed on t he opport unit y t o say somet hing; nobody has just
shrugged wit h indif f erence and said 't hey cant be bot hered'. The f act of t he mat t er is,
everyone seems bot hered, somehow.
This needs t o be invest igat ed because, quit e clearly, it says somet hing about t he
st at e of t hese disciplines and t hose who are working t oday in t his cult ural space. While
it would be almost impossible t o f ind any uncondit ional apologist f or Bridle's
proposit ion, it s even harder t o f ind indif f erent comment at ors. What ever t he New
Aest het ic is, it 's a set of ideas t hat can make you f eel t wit chy and uncomf ort able, f or
a range of reasons depending on who you are: t he academic, t he digit al curat or, t he
new media art ist . Whet her we call it a brand or a half -f ormed body of t heory, it ref lect s
back insecurit ies, biases, or f eelings of inadequacy as of t en as it at t ract s valid crit ical
responses.
But what would happen if we properly embraced t he New Aest het ic as a t opic f or
net work cult ure? It is claimed t he t erm ref ers t o a 'new nat ure', and as Haraway
reminds us, ref erences t o nat ure inevit ably raise quest ions of t he common, "we t urn
t o t his t opic t o order our discourse, t o compose our memory ... t o reinhabit ,
precisely, common places - locat ions t hat are widely shared, inescapably local, worldly,
enspirit ed; t hat is, t opical. In t his sense, nat ure is t he place in which t o rebuild public
cult ure" (Haraway 2004: 65). The New Aest het ic has t emporarily lit up and dist urbed
net work cult ure, not only in t erms of common concerns, but as a gauge of t he st at e
of net discourse. These anxiet ies, moreover, can be useful, especially in what
Mat t hew Fuller and Andrew Gof f ey describe as t he collision of grey media and grey
matter, where t he cracks, f ault s and dist urbances marking our ment al universes of f er
t he same kinds of opport unit ies f or exploit at ion as do bugs in t he algorit hmic
universes of sof t ware, and one st rat agem is always in t he posit ion of being able t o
t urn anot her t o it s own account (2010: 157). Let 's dig int o some responses, and
diagnose t he healt h of t he current debat e.
If we examine t he New Aest het ic as an anxious t opic, t he process comes wit h it s own
perils. What ever goal Bridle had when he opened t he New Aest het ic Tumblr, it was
18
inevit ably af f ect ed - maybe derailed - when St erling post ed his essay t o Beyond the
Beyond blog at Wired.com on April 2, 2012. Many of t he answers and addit ional
comment ary, while insight f ul, ignored t hat t his not ion was a work in process, an
at mosphere or mood, a t emporary lit any of f indings, and not a f inal and def init ive
st at ement .
St erling's init ial post set t he t one f or t he considerable debat e t hat f ollowed, by bot h
claiming t his project as a 'serious' avant -garde arising f rom Brit ish media designers,
while acknowledging it s short comings on a t heoret ical level. Of course, St erling shares
an invest ment wit h Bridle in science f ict ion and f ut ure-t hinking, and t here was more
t han a lit t le wish-f ulf illment here, alt hough expressed in a sat irical regist er.
Nevert heless, t he urgency of t he New Aest het ic was t he major aspect of t he essay
it self :
I've seen some at t empt s along t his line bef ore, but t his one has muscle.
The New Aest het ic is moving out of it s original discovery phase, and int o a
evangelical, podium-pounding phase. If a pioneer village of visionary
creat ives is f ounded, and t hey st art export ing some st art ling, newf angled
imagery, like a Marcel Duchamp-st yle explosion-in-a-shingle-f act ory
Well, well once again be living in heroic t imes! (St erling 2012b)
Ot her posit ive at t ribut es were list ed: t hat t he New Aest het ic is 't elling t he t rut h',
'cult urally agnost ic', 'comprehensible', 'deep', 'cont emporary', 'requires close at t ent ion',
'const ruct ive' and 'generat ional' (2012b). His piece worked hard t o myt hologize t he
'movement ' t hrough t he legit imacy of a modernist canon, cit ing Russian
Const ruct ivist s, French Impressionist s, It alian Fut urist s; even adding a comparison of
Bridle t o Andre Bret on-st yle Pope of t his emergent scene.
However, St erling also not ed a number of considerable downsides or t roubling
aspect s. Beyond recognizing t he messiness of t he accumulat ive Tumblr f ormat , t hese
mainly revolved around t he lack of rigorous t heoret ical analysis and comprehension. In
part icular, t he f act t hat many of t he images ref er t o radically dif f erent phenomena and
issues - splint er camouf lage, f or inst ance, is not about comput at ional vision, but t he
physiology of human percept ion - and almost none of t hese can be easily indexed
back t o a Turing not ion of art if icial int elligence or t hinking machines. On t he cont rary,
t he imagery generat ed by t he machines is a prof oundly human problem:
I hast en t o assure you t hat Im not making lame vit alist claims t hat our
human react ions are myst ical, divine, immat erial, t imeless or absolut e in
t rut h. I am merely st at ing, as a st ark and demonst rable f act , t hat our
machines have no such react ions. To rely on t hem t o do t hat f or us is
f raudulent . (St erling 2012b)
The real t rouble here, as St erling not es, is t hat t his concept ual f ramework hinders t he
development of an aest het ic agenda grounded by t he specif ic mat erial workings of
t hese t echnologies. More concerningly, as we also observed in t he int roduct ion, it
obf uscat es t he polit ical problems perpet uat ed by t hese digit al and net worked
syst ems. These crit ical comment s, in any case, were f or t he most part lost in t he
discourse on t he new aest het ic t hat f ollowed his essay, which t ended t o f ollow t he
'heroic' narrat ive. If t he new aest het ic is 'collect ively int elligent ', t hen St erling's essay
19
worked t o propane-f uel t his int ellect ual discourse.
The new aest het ic inevit ably raised quest ions around it s novelt y, hist oricit y,
ont ological basis, gender bias, polit ics. Here, a cent ral concern was t he 'new' in t he
new aest het ic it self , what does 'newness' ref er? Marius Wat z, writ ing on t he Creator's
Project in a series of responses t o St erlings essay, argued t he case t hat t his aspect
was decept ive, "most of what NA of f ers up f or examinat ion is not all t hat new.
Technologies like machine vision and geo-locat ion are old by most st andards (2012b).
In his reading, a sense of everyday pract ices and t he ubiquit y of digit al and net worked
syst ems were claimed as dist inct ive inst ead: what is new is t heir int egrat ion int o our
lives t o t he point where we are bringing t hem t o bed (2012b).
Moreover, if aest het ics can be t aken as a sensibilit y relat ed t o a t ransit ion in t he
pervasiveness of comput at ion, t hen t his experience is one t hat is equally wraught by
anxiet ies or dist urbances. As Wat z put s it ,
This is t he new Aest het ic - human behavior augment ed by t echnology as
of t en as it is disrupt ed. The New Aest het ic is a sign saying 'Translat ion
Server Error' rat her t han 'Post Of f ice'. The New Aest het ic is f aces glowing
ominously as people walk down t he st reet at night st aring at t heir phones -
or worse, t heir iPads (Wat z 2012b).
Indeed, disrupt ion and augment at ion can even be generalized beyond t his
phenomenological st at e, given increasing t ransf ormat ions associat ed wit h sof t ware
inf rast ruct ures t hroughout everyday lif e (Dodge and Kit chin 2011), and t he pressures
t hey have brought t o bear on inst it ut ional f orms (Lovink 2012). In ot her words, if t here
is a sensibilit y, it becomes one of experiencing t he large-scale 'breakdown' carried
along by socio-t echnological processes at large.
In t he recognit ion of t his shif t ing ground, a number of react ionary responses
immediat ely arose regarding t he relat ion bet ween media art and t his wider condit ion
signalled by t he new aest het ic. In t his cont ext , Mez Breeze, a pract ioner of code
poet ry and art ist involved in early net .art , raised concerns regarding t he appropriat ive
dynamics of new aest het ics in it s role as an aggregat ive lit any of digit al images. Using
t he t erm, 'The Phrase That Shall Not Be Named', t he specif ic act of labelling work was
crit icized as an act of assembling cult ural capit al, 'cred value', 'ego aggrandrisement ',
or cult ural capit al capable of being monet ized: "name t he new art phase in order t o
perf orm/get x" (2012).
This process was underst ood as raising a series of quest ions around cult ural
ownership and at t ribut ion: "t o employ a relevant phrase: it just smells wrong" (2012).
Indeed, f or Breeze, t he 'f aux-t rendoid label' problemat ically grouped t oget her a series
of pract ices, t echniques and approaches t o digit al and net worked t echnologies t hat
had much longer hist ories and were relat ed t o compet ing concept ual f rameworks and
discourses: "appropriat ing + remixing graphic markers/st andards f rom marginalised or
'ot her-f ied' disciplines/decades does not a new genre/paradigm make" (2012). Her
posit ion raises import ant quest ions around bot h t he hist ories and immediat e f ut ure of
media art pract ices. Nevert heless, gest uring t o t he dynamics of concept generat ion in
net work cult ures ("and so it goes"), she would conclude wit h t he highly pious not e:
"t his t oo will pass" (2012).
20
But how sat isf ying is t his f amiliar claim t hat media art is playing a long game, so t hat
any emerging development s can merely be ignored, and business can cont inue as
usual? Cert ainly, t he t radit ional resources and f unding t hat have support ed media art
are quickly evaporat ing or, at least , t hey are increasingly held in quest ion; but t here is
also a larger ongoing quest ion of t he role of t hese art ist ic pract ices in a period of
pervasive comput at ion. In a provocat ive set of secondary remarks on t he t opic,
ef f ect ively rubbing salt int o t he wound, St erling declared on his blog,
It may be, t hat af t er a long generat ion of 'New Media,' 'comput er art ,'
'digit al art ,' 'device art ,' 'net .art ,' 'code art ,' and similar always-new
pseudonyms, weve f ound a bet t er perspect ive. Weve paid a bill in blood
and st ruggle, and a generat ional shif t has occurred. It s like wat ching a
generat ion slog it out in t he muddy barbed wire, and t hen seeing a drone
appear overhead ... The barbed-wire and bayonet era of net -art is over. It is
one wit h Ypres and Verdun now, and it s t renches will f ill in wit h grass. It will
never ret urn. (St erling 2012c)
Such comment ary st rat egically disregarded any dist inct ion bet ween t he design
cont ext of Bridle and media art pract ices f or t he purposes of pursuing an agenda of
algorit hmic art .
Elsewhere, t he cult ural polit ics of curat orial work was a major st rand in t his
discussion. Christ iane Paul post ed on t he empyre mailing list ,
I have a hard t ime even seeing t he novelt y of t he 'new aest het ic'
const ruct - as many people on CRUMB have point ed out , it st ands in t he
t radit ion of many st rands of art ist ic pract ice t hat have developed over
decades. CTheory or Turbulence have cert ainly est ablished a lot more
(curat orial) cont ext f or approaching digit al works t han t he 'new aest het ic'
t umblr. Tumblr it self , wit h it s f ocus on t he lat est post , seems t o have
decont ext ualizing t endencies.
On a larger scale and along t he lines of Nicholas Carr's The Shallows, I'm
int erest ed in how t he online environment , which seems so deeply
cont ext ual by nat ure, can also oblit erat e cont ext t hrough t he privileging of
't he lat est post ' rat her t han a dialogue and "deep" crosslinking of ideas.
(Paul 2012)
Meanwhile, in a highly conservat ive response t o t he t erm, Robert Jackson drew a line
bet ween Bridle's 'low' social media and 'high' media art pract ices, not ing "t he t rit eness
of using Tumblr as t he 'of f icial sit e'" (2012). Immediat ely evident in t he t it le of his
cont ribut ion, 'The Banalit y of t he New Aest het ic', Jackson st at ed explicit ly: "memes
require inst ant sat isf act ion. Art requires dept h" (2012).
More radical ent husiasm about t he New Aest het ic came f rom Greg Borenst ein, who
suggest ed t hat when viewed t hrough Object Orient ed Ont ology (OOO), t he New
Aest het ic is a visible erupt ion of t he mut ual empat hy bet ween us and a class of new
object s t hat are nat ive t o t he 21st cent ury (2012). The New Aest het ic, in t his case,
can supposedly help us imagine t he inner lives of our digit al object s picking up on t he
21
pigeon language t hat t akes place bet ween t heir inaccessible inner lives and ours
(2012). Like Bridle, Borenst ein is enamoured wit h how such art if act s capt ure t he t race
of int eract ion designers, surveillance drones, gest ure recognit ion syst ems, f ashion
designers, image compression t echniques, art ist s, CCTV net works, and f ilmmakers all
wondering about one anot her wit hout get t ing conf irmat ion (2012).
This line of t hought was cont inued by games designer and t heorist Ian Bogost , who
argued t hat t he new aest het ic should expand it s apparent "correlat ionalist " int erest in
human relat ions and embrace t he possibilit ies of an expansive more-t han-human
ont ology: "t o my eyes, t he New Aest het ic could use a dose of good, old-f ashioned
t went iet h cent ury immodest y. Not na ve f ascism or impulsive radicalism, but bigger
eyes, larger hopes, weirder goals" (2012). Drawing f rom t he object -orient ed ont ology
posit ion out lined in his recent ly published book Alien Phenomenology (2012), Bogost 's
int ervent ion argued on t he t erms of OOO f or a considerat ion of relat ions bet ween
t hings, rat her t han an exclusive int erest in digit al and net worked t echnologies and
human sense and percept ion, or ant hropocent ric cat egories of beaut y f or an alien
aesthetics, as it were. This, he suggest ed, point s t o t he f act t hat NA only covers a
select ive int erest in t he vast met aphysical dimensions of t he real, a point conveyed
t hrough a (Lat ourian) lit any of ot her pot ent ial t hings t o consider aest het ic relat ions
bet ween: "airport s, sandst one, koalas, climat e, t oast er past ries, kudzu, t he
Int ernat ional 505 racing dinghy, t he Boeing 787 Dreamliner, t he brand name 'TaB'"
(2012). Suf f ice t o say, OOO is int erest ing and raises signif icant cont roversies, but
here we are not int erest ed in producing lit anies, and hold concerns regarding t he
polit ics of t he OOO project (Berry 2012; Galloway 2012; Golumbia 2012, Parikka
2011). Indeed, t his is a signif icant and cont est ed discussion, only t angent ial t o
t his New Aesthetic, New Anxieties project , and t heref ore, perhaps, a t opic f or anot her
t ime.
If t he New Aest het ic hit t he blogosphere as a shareable concept or t heory object , it
t ook some t ime f or f emale responders t o point out t hat t he zeit geist was t he
invest ment s of a whole lot of men doing t he looking, t alking, and writ ing about
t he New Aest het ic (Aim 2012a). While women art ist s and curat ors cont ribut ed art
hist orical perspect ive, including Joanne McNeil of Rhizome.org (2012), and Mez
Breeze analyzed t he gendered heroics of it s claim t o art movement st at us, Rahel
Aima and Madeline Ashby, respect ively writ er and f ut urist gave a basic inst ruct ion in
70's psychoanalyt ic f eminist screen t heory. In her blog post at The State, ent it led
'Curat ion, Gender and t he New Aest het ic', Aima awkwardly suggest ed t hat t he
at t ract ion of t he New Aest het ic might lie in t he possibilit y t o "brief ly inhabit a
(convent ionally) f eminised subject ivit y?" (2012b). In her words,
The New Aest het ic is about being looked at by humans and by machines
by drones, surveillance cameras, people t agging you on Facebook
about being t he object of t he gaze. It s about looking t hrough t he eyes of a
machine and seeing t he machine t urn it s beady LEDs on you. It s about t he
dissolut ion of privacy and reproduct ive right s, and t he monit oring, mapping,
and surveillance of t he (re)gendered (re)racialised body, and building our
own super-pervasive panopt icon. (Aima 2012)
Ashby went f urt her, reboot ing Laura Mulvey's seminal dest ruct ion of Hollywood
22
object s t o point out t hat what was being celebrat ed and sent iment alized by t he New
Aest het ic were f airly normat ive invest ment s in t he (en)gendering of cont rol and
dominat ion. This seemed like a rat her ordinary, age-old aest het ic of "everyday
(womens) lif e",
That spirit of perf ormat ivit y you have about your cit izenship, now? That
sense t hat someones peering over your shoulder, wat ching everyt hing you
do and say and t hink and choose? That f eeling of being observed? It s not
a new f acet of lif e in t he t went y-f irst cent ury. It s what it f eels like f or a girl.
(Ashbery 2012)
From here, more general ref lect ions were made on t he psycho-dynamics in screen
power, and t he lack of at t ent ion t o t he ont ological and hist orical dif f erences carried
along by t he New Aest het ic it self :
The f act t hat it s a conversat ion bet ween art ist s and t he f orces observing
t hem is not hing new. Weve been t hrough t his bef ore. We used t o design
cat hedrals so grand God had t o not ice. Now we print t he pat t ern of f aded
denim jeans on linen pant s so cleverly t he Int ernet has t o not ice. We
crochet masks so f acial recognit ion-enabled cameras wont not ice...
Someone has always been wat ching. (Ashbery 2012)
Signif icant ly, t hese perspect ives suggest s t hat t he New Aest het ic not only
sent iment alizes surveillance, but much more uncannily, ext ends or project s
phallocent ric screen relat ions ont o t he act ualit y of t hings. Of course current f eminist
approaches t o t he cinemat ic gaze are more nuanced t hat Mulvey's radical and
polemical reduct ion. Spect at or ident if icat ions, whet her in t he cinema or across mult iple
f orms and kinds of screens are not so clean cut . It could easily be argued t hough t hat
t he resort t o her work somehow mirrors t he reduct ive assumpt ions of ident if icat ion in
t he New Aest het ic it self . But f urt hermore, ident if icat ion is less helpf ul in t heory t han
at t ent ion t o drives, at t achment s, habit s, and especially, logics, when dealing wit h new
media. The New Aest het ic t akes place in a post -cinemat ic moment , a comput at ional
moment , as we will argue in t his book. We need t o t ake media f ar more seriously in
considerat ions of polit ical quest ions. If t he not ion of t he gaze is signif icant , t hen it
emerges f rom how t he New Aest het ic marks out it s st rangeness in media and as a
t heory object . Here we draw on (not only) f eminist cont ribut ions t o suggest t hat t he
New Aest het ic's project ive at t unement speaks not t o a romance not wit h God or t he
int ernet , but wit h t he bemusing inhumanit y of media power.

23
NET EFFECTS
The new aest het ic episode, and t he set of react ions it spawned, reveals what can
happen when an open sket chbook of ideas and experiment in t ransparent research is
conduct ed in our current net work cult ure. In a post t o t he CRUMB list , Honor Harger
capt ured a sense of t he more t ragic out comes of t he debat e wit h some sober
ref lect ions. She highlight ed, in part icular, her dismay at t he ext reme react ions t o
Bridle's Tumblr, especially t he 'sneering insult s' of his work. By cont rast , she insist s,
t hat t his project was never a 'movement ', but a personal project . It was never
concerned wit h media art pract ice, and judging it wit hin t hose t erms is at best
'point less', at worst , 'unf air',
That someone's research project , undert aken in t he open and
t ransparent ly, has gone so ballist ic, so quickly, and wit h so lit t le input or
comment f rom it 's aut hor, is a sign of our t imes, I guess. It doesn't speak
well of t he f ut ure of open, int uit ive, long-f orm modes of public research,
t hat 's f or sure. (Hoger 2012)
Clearly, net discourse current ly unf olds wit h a degree of carelessness, a kind of
t erminal case of blindness and incomprehension. This alone should make us t ake
pause.
Indeed, we might wonder t he ext ent t o which t his out pouring was provoked by and
aimed at St erling's post , an essay loaded wit h high praise, polemics and provocat ions
(but f orgot t en crit icisms). There are some signif icant concerns here. How can a new
generat ion experiment and develop wit hin a net work cult ure charact erised by such
int ensit y, but also compet ing int erest s, invest ment s and agendas? The new aest het ic
might of f er a t opos or a common, but t his space is rif e wit h conf lict . Various
accusat ions t hat Bridle present ed a set of half -baked argument s t hat cannot
wit hst and rigorous analysis is somehow as obvious as it is irrelevant . Coherent t heses
or complet e philosophies are not usually present ed in t he shape of single-serving
Tumblr. But t est ing an idea and cont rast ing it wit h ot her cont ribut ors t o add t o it and
open it up t o ext ernal input is an import ant aspect of net work cult ure t hat should be
support ed. Work in process needs t o be t aken as such, and as Christ opher 'm00t '
Poole might put , we need t o maint ain spaces where people are f ree t o make mist akes
(2010).
Discussing t he recent ly published book Imagery in the 21st Century (2012) in a post t o
t he iDC list , Trebor Scholz,
At f irst , I asked myself , what holds t he t went y chapt ers in t his
book t oget her. What do all t he puzzle pieces add up t o? An analysis
of cont emporary imagery f elt like an uncomf ort ably all-
embracing ambit ion. What are we t alking about when we are t hinking
about cont emporary visualit y? The advent of inf ographics, games,
CCTV, animat ed gif s, art generat ed by algorit hms, hist ograms,
4D visualizat ions, or Inst agram? Const ruct ively, t he aut hors ref lect
on imagery not merely t hrough t he lens of a specif ic device, genre, social
pract ice, or social f unct ion, and it becomes clear t hat image lit eracy can no
longer be t he exclusive domain of art hist orians. But are we really, as t he
24
book suggest s, amidst an image revolut ion? ... What , t hen, is so subversive
or new, a Tumblr image collect ion might help t o answer. (Schulz 2012)
While acknowledging t he signif icance of t he New Aest het ic Tumblr t o convey a
dif f erent sense of visual knowledge, Schulz expands his analysis t o consider a call f or
new lit eracies f or analysis, int epret at ion and crit ical ref lect ion. This is somet hing
crucial t hat we support , somet hing t hat we want t o develop t hroughout what f ollows.
Opening up a space of discussion in t he public sphere about a new way of looking at
t he world is not somet hing t hat happens very of t en. When it did, t hat window of
opport unit y was not a result of t he ef f ort s of hundreds of researchers in t he higher
educat ion sect or - it happened because a group of designers in London t hat make
wit t y blog post s and do keynot e present at ions in creat ive indust ries conf erences,
somehow caught t he imaginat ion of an audience. Even if t he t hesis was somehow
conf used and conf using, t his amalgam of pixelat ed nost algia, drones and comput er
vision st ood f or somet hing st rongly enough t hat people would be willing t o list en.
So while some academics will just point at t he capacit y of t alent ed designers t o f rame
a (possibly f lawed) idea in a cat chy way and dress it up wit h int erest ing images, ot her
t hinkers and researchers in t he New Media communit y will conf ess t hey only have
t hemselves t o blame f or t heir incapacit y t o make t heir work resonat e out of t heir
sphere of inf luence.
It would be risky t o make assumpt ions, but Bridles sudden decision t o close t he New
Aest het ic Tumblr on May 6t h t his year f eels like his response t o t he debat e sparked by
his ideas; one more sign of discomf ort . And alt hough he achieved a nice symmet ry by
t erminat ing t he sit e exact ly one year t o t he day it was f irst opened, a f eeling of
incomplet eness looms over t he whole ent erprise. His ambiguit y about t he f ut ure of t he
New Aest het ic - The project will cont inue in ot her f orms and venues" (2012b) -
doesnt of f er t he promise of a clear deliverable. The product s, f or now, remain
unknown.

25
CURATORIAL READINGS
5. A BLOGPOST AS EXHIBITION
6. COLLECT, REMIX, CONTRIBUTE -> CURATE?
7. ERROR 404: NO AESTHETIC FOUND
26
27
5. A BLOGPOST AS EXHIBITION
The cont emporary obsession wit h novelt y is an obsession of high capit alist
consumerism: we need t o own t he newest t ech gadget , dress ourselves in t he lat est
f ashion, enjoy t he f reshest f oraged ingredient s f or t he new t hing in molecular dining
experiences, and cont inuously and persist ent ly come up wit h new excit ing ideas t o
market ourselves and our jobs. As communicat ions guru Marshall McLuhan said in one
of his numerous probes, "At t he very high speed of living, everybody needs a new
career and a new job and a t ot ally new personalit y every t en years" (McLuhan 2002:
114-115).
'New' is bot h t rendy and t rending, 'new' is yout hf ul, 'new' surprises us, 'new' is t he
varnish elaborat ely used t o shine up t hat what is already t here, what has been lying
around in t he bot t om of t he drawer collect ing dust and what no one paid at t ent ion t o...
unt il it becomes t he lat est 'new' t hing. Perhaps 'new' is t o modes of consumpt ion what
'radical' has been t o cont emporary art over t he past f ew decades. 'New' as a t erm in
cont emporary art is used sparingly however, as 'new' indicat es a highly signif icant
breaking point . In past decades cont emporary art and art t heory have t ended t o build
more on palimpsest ic models, which allow f or a layering of concept ual and t heoret ical
inf luences by predecessors and peers. Cont emporary art t heref ore pref ers t o use t he
t erm 't urn', which is milder and allows f or baggage t o be included and schlepped along.
The 'new' comes int o art in a dif f erent way, in t he sense t hat art makes us see t hings
'anew' and def amiliarises our percept ion of t hings. In his original blog post on 'The New
Aest het ic' of May 6t h 2011 on t he Really Int erest ing Group websit e Bridle int ends t o
make us see t he t echnologies we have wit h new wonder (2012a). In ot her words,
Bridle is employing a t est ed curat orial st rat egy of select ing images in order t o have
t hat very collect ion produce a dif f erent way of looking he want s us t o see wit h 'new'
eyes, as it were. So let us t reat Bridle's original post as curat ed exhibit ion space, a
curat orial project which at t empt s t o uneart h somet hing about cont emporary visual
percept ion and image product ion.
Blog post s are rigid exhibit ion plat f orms: t hey are unf orgivingly linear, so t hat t he
sequence of images whet her int ended or not has t o be read according t o a cert ain
hierarchy. Bridle's New Aest het ic blog kicks of f wit h a NASA sat ellit e image of an
agricult ural landscape (2012a). We see an abst ract paint erly composit ion,
consist ing de facto of a rocky land f ormat ion wit h a pixelat ed green pat t ern. The origin
of t his image does not seem t o be of great import ance, as it s biography is summarised
in a minimal hyperlinked capt ion as Guardian gallery of agricult ural landscapes f rom
space. What mat t ers t hough, is t he visual impact of t his image. It s nat ural rough and
organic t ext ures mix wit h unworldly pat ches of green, as if t he lat t er were
phot oshopped int o t he image. The capt ion suggest s t hat what we are looking at is
real, but whet her t his image is real or f ake is probably besides t he point . What Bridle
want s us t o see in t his image, it appears, is it s seemingly digit al aest het ic. How t his
image was produced however, by means of sat ellit e t echnology, is not revealed in
what we see. Bridle seems t o have select ed t he image because it s graphics suggest a
pixillat ed version of a landscape. The t echnological propert ies t hat are f oregrounded in
28
t he image are t hose t hat can be discerned on a surf ace level; t he t echnologies relat ed
t o it s graphical it erat ion are not t hose t hat concern it s creat ion.
In addit ion, we only recognise t his image as beaut if ul, and perhaps st rangely
alienat ing, because of it s f raming and condit ioning as an aest het ic image. It is t his
f raming of t he image t hat t rigger it s visual and art hist orical ref erences, such as f or
example aerial phot ography and land art . What is also int erest ing about t his image is
t hat it 'works' by grace of it s t echnological mediat ion: The image is capt ured f rom a
huge dist ance by sat ellit e, a perspect ive t hat is f oreign t o us and by corollary is
capable of conjuring up an imagery t hat is visually and concept ually int riguing. If we
would be walking in t he landscape we would not experience t he same visual impact ,
as we would recognise our surroundings as known and ordinary. Here Bridle has put
f orward a pure surf ace image. It s ref erent in t he real is of no consequence f or our
aest het ic appreciat ion of it . In t hat sense, t his image can be perceived as a hermet ic
whet her we place it online as a jpg or print it out and hang it on t he wall. It s ont ology
remains t he same, only it s scale and mode of present at ion might change.
It is all t he more curious t hen, t hat Bridles last image post ed on t he blog closing t he
series of his exhibit ion, as it were - is phot o document at ion of Brit ish sculpt or Cornelia
Parkers work Embryo Firearms (1995). Parker is well-known f or probing and st ret ching
t he possibilit ies of t he mat erials she works wit h. She dest roys and explodes mat t er t o
push it int o a new f orm, or resuscit at es discarded mat erials int o new lives. Her work
has been described as 'brut al beaut y or sweet carnage' (Hat t enst one 2010). Much of
Parker's work is ephemeral and sit e-specif ic, it is always spat ially embodied and
ranges f rom pulverised sculpt ural part icles t o giant shot guns. The mat erialit y of t hings
where it begins and where it ends is what Parker is int erest ed in.
Why would Bridle choose t o include Parkers piece consist ing of a pair of cast st eel
Colt 45 guns in t heir earliest st age of product ion? There is no pixel f et ishism or ot her
digit al-sensibilit ies-penet rat ing-physical-surroundings t hat charact erise t he ot her
images in t he select ion. Inst ead, t he object s are guns coming int o being, halt ed in t heir
development and t heref ore never f ully f unct ional, perf ect ly polished and f acing each
ot her as if mirrored. They are commodit ies t hat are not yet socially engaged. What is
compelling here about Parkers colt s is t hat t hey capt ure t he promise of a product , a
Colt 45. But more specif ically, t he work is a ref erent , a gun, and t he physical object
proper int o one. This, indeed, makes us see t hings anew, as t he promise of t he New
Aest het ic goes and is hardly a st rat egy unknown t o concept ual art . But what is
int erest ing about t he ref erences t o concept ual art work on Bridle's blog is t hat
concept ual art , like t he New Aest het ic, has paid similar height ened at t ent ion t o
publicit y regimes, t he relat ionship bet ween art , image and mat t er as an invest ment in
t he act ual experience of t he work (see Alberro 2003).
The acknowledgement of art object s as commodit ies and t hings t hat have percept ual,
semiot ic and mat erial impact , t oget her, is set out f or example in Brian Jungen's recent
concept ual art pract ice. His work consciously t oys wit h t he complexit y of t he relat ion
bet ween raw mat erial, t he pure commodit y and t he commodit y-object of art . Jungen
uses plast ic chairs t o const ruct whale skelet ons or Nike sneakers t o make t ribal
masks. His pract ice is all about what Jessica Morgan calls misplaced use value
(Morgan 2006): his object s are mass-produced consumer it ems, but also singular art
29
object s t hat keep a ref erent out side t he sphere of art . Jungens object s, like Parkers
guns, are hyphenat ed and accumulat ive object s and are always-already lit erat e in t he
st range socialit y of t hings.
In 'The f et ishism of commodit ies and t he secret t hereof ', Marx shows how
commodit ies seem t o capt ure social relat ions in t heir very essence:
A commodit y appears, a f irst sight , a very t rivial t hing, and easily
underst ood. It s analysis shows t hat it is, in realit y, a very queer t hing,
abounding in met aphysical subt let ies and t heological nicet ies. So f ar as it
is a value in use, t here is not hing myst erious about it , whet her we consider
it f rom t he point of view t hat by it s propert ies it is capable of sat isf ying
human want s, or f rom t he point t hat t hose propert ies are t he product of
human labor. It is as clear as noonday t hat man, by his indust ry, changes
t he f orms of t he mat erials f urnished by Nat ure, in such a way as t o make
t hem usef ul t o him. The f orm of wood f or inst ance, is alt ered by making a
t able out of it . Yet , f or all t hat , t he t able cont inues t o be t hat common,
everyday t hing, wood. But , so soon as it st eps f ort h as a commodit y, it is
changed int o somet hing t ranscendent . It not only st ands wit h it s f eet on
t he ground, but , in relat ion t o all ot her commodit ies, it st ands on it s head,
and evolves out of it s wooden brain grot esque ideas, f ar more wonderf ul
t han t able-t urning ever was. (2007: 83)
It is t his uncanniness t hat art works exacerbat e and t hat curat ors choose how t o deal
wit h crit ically (t his decision not f ixed in advance) quit e dif f erent ly t o designers,
especially in display decisions. Design t ends t owards f lat t er dynamics of ut ilit y, beaut y
and branding t hat seem st ill able t o t ravel well once t he object is t urned int o a
represent at ion only. Whet her t he commodif icat ion process collapses int o a f lat
represent at ion online, or is halt ed, such as in Bridle's mood board or Parker's guns
capt ured by it , t he dif f erent suspensions of t his drama accent uat e t he commodit y
st at us of t he t hing, f ixed int o surf ace. Crit ical art ist s dif f erent ly t ake account of t hese
uncanny dynamics of commodif icat ion in t heir individual works. Unlike t he f irst image in
Bridles collect ion, t he phot o of t he art work Embryo Firearms cannot be reduced t o a
f lat image since t he art work act ually physically exist s, or "st ands on t he ground" in
Marx's t erms (2007: 83). It s document at ion on a webpage works on a dif f erent visual
and int erpret at ive regist er t han t he physical object it self . Here it does mat t er whet her
you are looking at a jpg f ile on t he screen or encount ering Embryo Firearms spat ially,
because t he dif f erence creat es very dif f erent percept ions of aest het ic encount er in
t he viewer. Indeed t here is limit ed t o no "encount er" wit h Embryo Firearms upon
f lat t ening. The condit ions of present at ion (e.g., gallery, museum, or st udio) and how
t he work is cont ext ualised, inst alled and f ramed in relat ion t o it s surroundings alt ers
our reading and experience of t he work. To st age it in space is t o t ake in t o account
t he embodied and percept ual experience of it s imaging and how it impresses on t he
body as a proximat e mat erial-semiot ic t hing.
In cont rast t o t he f irst image in Bridles collect ion, which seems t o be able t o exist
solely on t he webpage because it is already a t ranscendent al commodit y, Embryo
Firearms as document at ion t heref ore f eels like it is f loat ing in space, excised f rom a
larger pict ure, decont ext ualized, and even bulky in comparison wit h t he ot her images,
30
which radiat e a light ness of f orm, even t hose t hat depict images of f ight er
planes. Embryo Firearms can never inhabit t hat light ness because it ident if ies
it self prima facie as a an object inst alled in space and t ime and human-scaled relat ion,
whilst t he sat ellit e image does not . Even t hough aest het ically we can read t he
document at ion of Embryo Firearms as an image of art , it lacks t he object ness t hat
was precisely t he inquiry of t he work. So why was it t aken up in t he collect ion, and why
does it even close t he series? Well, because f or t he New Aest het ic, t he idea is t hat
sof t warized mat erial st rives f lat ly in t he direct ion of t ranscendent al commodit y st at us,
even when it doesn't get there. On t he mood-board f or unknown product s (Bridle
2012a) Parkers guns are unable t o be t ruly st aged as queer vascillat ions of
met aphysical and t heological, nat ural and art if icial, mat erials and labour.
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6. COLLECT, REMIX, CONTRIBUTE -> CURATE?
Remixing and collaging element s f ound on t he Web has been a part of net art since it s
incept ion in t he 1990s. Early works such as MTAA's Ten Digital Readymades (2000),
creat ed by ent ering t he t erm 'ready made' int o a search engine and archiving t hose
search result s, exemplif ied t he sense t hat mat erial on t he web of f ers rich f odder f or
art ist s t o develop work, wit h or wit hout heavy subsequent alt erat ion by art ist s
(Kasprzak 2009). A f ew years lat er, comparable collect ions -or 'f lea market s of
images' (Ramocki 2008) - became widely available on t he web due t o t he growt h of
uploaded cont ent and sharing media online, as well as t he ongoing evolut ion of search
engines. Those f act ors, coupled wit h simple websit e development becoming an
increasingly rapid and easy process, has produced condit ions f or creat ive expression
t hat ranges f rom 'surf clubs', group blogs where art ist s share t he f ruit of t heir Web
surf ing and f ragment s of t heir art pract ices, t o image collect ing on t he pinboard-st yle
phot o sharing plat f orm Pint erest . What is int erest ing about Ten Digital Readymades,
however, and t he link it set s up bet ween Duchamp and process, is how comput at ion
act ually serves t o reinvigorat e our underst anding of t he radical aspect s of t he
readymade concept .
In an essay by Mat t hew Fuller, reviewing net art pract ices t hat used appropriat ion and
remixing bef ore t he advent of social web-phenomena such as surf clubs, Tumblr, and
Pint erest , he st at es:
First ly, each piece of work is not especially apart f rom t he ot her works by
t he art ist or groups t hat produced it - it is part of a pract ice. Secondly, each
work is assembled out of part s t hat belong t o a collect ively available
resource. So t his again, is somet hing set aside f rom t he st andard issue art
modes, unique visions, t alent ed individuals and all t he rest of it . It is t he
power t o connect . (Fuller 2001)
Put t ing Fuller's quot e int o cont ext , he seems t o support t he idea t hat assembling
somet hing out of part s t hat 'belong t o a collect ively available resource' provides a
more or less direct lineage f rom t he earliest Dadaist s collage art , t o net art , t o surf
clubs, t o Tumblr, and t o Pint erest . Fuller's assert ion is t hat t his kind of online bricolage
brings us out of 'st andard issue art modes' conf ront s t he perennial bat t le bet ween
low and high cult ure, i.e., bet ween t he t alent ed art ist s and t he hopeless amat eurs,
since anyone can access t he collect ive resource online, appropriat e t hings, remix t hem
and st art collect ions. The est ablishment side is represent ed in Guardian blogger
St ephen Moss's assert ions t hat "t he great majorit y of popular cult ure in t he UK
is wort hless, moronic, meret ricious, self -serving, ant i-democrat ic, sclerot ic garbage: it 's
t he enemy of t hought and change: it should be ignored, marginalised, t rashed" (2007).
Of course, we would not deny malaise just t o creat ive indust rial pop, but we need t o
acknowledge, regardless, t hat t he lines bet ween t he product ion of prof essional
cult ural workers (and comment at ors) and creat ive work produced in more economized
modes have been more complex and blurred f or some t ime.
We want t o emphasize t hat curat ing and collect ing are not t he same, t hough some
might argue f rom t hat premise. One can collect st amps, miniat ure t rains, and art , but
curat ing implies a public gest ure and a subject posit ion t hat f rames t he collect ion and
32
int ends t o produce connect ions bet ween t he collect ed it ems. In ot her words, curat ion
is int erest ed in producing meanings t hat push t he collect ion t o be more t han t he sum
of it s part s. It calls f or a posit ioning be t hat aest het ic, t hemat ic, t echnological,
polit ical or ot herwise. One could argue t hen t hat collect ive spaces like Tumblr and
Pint erest are curat ed spaces because t hey are public and t o a cert ain ext ent
t hemed. However, do t hese image collect ions in t heir openness and volume t ell us
more about t he images we are viewing, or are t hey just producing more of t he same?
Curat ing, any curat or will grudgingly admit , is seldom democrat ic, it is based on
select ion, and select ion is never inclusive by def ault . The phenomenon of online
collect ion as it relat es t o curat ing is described at lengt h in For What and For Whom?,
The larger role of t he curat or encompasses t he creat ion of links t o ot her
creat ive dialogues, writ ing and cont ext ualising work, developing t he
physical (or virt ual) exhibit ion sequencing and f low, and perhaps most
import ant of all, nurt uring a relat ionship wit h t he pract it ioners who make
t he work and underst anding t he narrat ive inherent in t heir career t raject ory.
(Or, in t he case of t hose who work wit h hist orical collect ions, having a
scholarly background on t he movement s/t ime periods/art ist s represent ed
in t hese collect ions). What can and will be lost in t he reduct ion of t he t erm
curat or t o mean one who clicks on a t humbs-up or t humbs-down icon is
t hat sense of f or what and f or whom. (Kasprzak 2008)
There have been at t empt s at open online curat ing. For example, t he open source
sof t ware applicat ion KURATOR by programmer Grzesiek Sedek and curat or Joasia
Krysa (2004), which merges a plat f orm f or source code (as art ), wit h an open and
collaborat ive curat orial plat f orm:
Designed as f ree sof t ware t hat can be f urt her modif ied by users, kurat or
f ollows t he st ruct ures and prot ocols of convent ional curat ing and
implement s a series of algorit hmic processes t hat part ly aut omat es t hese
procedures. It t ranslat es curat orial prot ocols int o modular sof t ware
prot ocols, breaking down t he curat orial process int o a series of commands
or rules. The sof t ware opens up t he curat orial process t o t he public by
of f ering a syst em t hat is open t o user input in t erms of submit t ing
examples of source code, arranging displays, comment ing on t hese,
adding f unct ionalit y and modif icat ions t o t he sof t ware it self . (KURATOR
2012)
Users can add code t o t he reposit ory, t ag it , browse ot her cont ribut ors comment s
and submissions. In t hat respect it s dynamics resemble more t hat of a social
net working space or a dat abase t han a curat orial space. Marina Vishmidt comment s in
her rhizome post on Kurat or t hat it ,
Posit s sof t ware curat ing as a way t o dist ribut e curat orial process over
net works of people, including art ist s and ot hers, and f inally out wards f rom
t he special domain of an individual. It f urt her combat s t he reif icat ion of
t ast e by part ially aut omat ing many of t he t radit ional met iers t hat
dist inguish t he curat or - select ivit y being one. (Vishmidt 2005)
We must ask, t hough, can t he at t ribut ion of meaning and crit icalit y be aut omat ed?
33
Can t his job be done at all by a machine? And can open source models just be copy-
past ed and applied t o curat orial pract ices? Where do we locat e it s crit icalit y if any?
These are quest ions t hat must be considered when we invest igat e online image
collect ing and moving curat orial t echniques t o t he online realm. They will not answer
t hemselves, nor go away anyt ime soon. We should encourage f urt her
experiment at ion, art ist ic research and t heorizat ion of t hese t opics.
34
7. ERROR 404: NO AESTHETIC FOUND
At t he core of new media art is t he quest ion of how cult ure is embracing digit al
t echnology. Represent ing digit al art ef act s and online behaviours in t he physical world
is a recognized art ist ic st rat egy among new media art ist s t o address t his quest ion (f or
an example, Bart holl 2012). Alt hough many new media art works are part of or
comment on t he erupt ion of t he digit al int o t he physical (St erling 2012) t hat t he New
Aest het ic speaks t o, we have been challenged t o t hink why many of t hem would be
out of place post ed on t he New Aest het ic Tumblr or grouped as part of t hat meme.

THE REPRESENTATION PROBLEM
The New Aest het ic meme lives online (Bridle 2012a, 2012b), which by def ault means
t hat any physical t hing or event it embraces is by def init ion a digit al represent at ion of
t hat t hing or event . This is problemat ic f or an art work t hat is concept ually grounded in
t he f act t hat it is physical, t aking place in t hree dimensional space and t ime. This
includes many new media art works t hat f ormally f all under t he New Aest het ic. Take
Aram Bart holl's art work Maps (2006-2010) f or example, post ed on t he New Aest het ic
Tumblr on June 2, 2011. In Maps Bart holl places act ual-size Google balloons in public
spaces t o invest igat e t he aest het ic of "t he red map marker of t he locat ion based
search engine Google Maps" (Bart holl 2006). Clearly, it is t he sheer overwhelming
impact of a larger-t han-human-sized Google Maps balloon t hat communicat es t he
awkward relat ive measurement s of digit al art ef act s t hat we seem t o accept wit hout
quest ion in t he digit al realm. This awkwardness only really becomes apparent however
when one physically encount ers such an 'out -of -proport ion' Google balloon. By
document ing and post ing such an encount er on a Tumblr, t he Google Maps balloon
is re-int roduced int o t he digit al realm in which it s proport ions are commonly accept ed,
which consequent ly radically decreases t he art work's communicat ive power.
Even bet t er examples of t his 'represent at ion problem' f or new media art works in t he
light of t he New Aest het ic exist out side of t he New Aest het ics Tumblr. Take Aram
Bart holl's Dead Drops (2010-2012) project f or inst ance, "an anonymous, of f line, peer
t o peer f ile-sharing net work in public space" (Bart holl 2010). The f ile-sharing net work
exist s of USB f lash drives 'embedded int o walls, buildings and curbs accessible t o
anybody in public space' and on which everyone is invit ed t o drop or f ind f iles (ibid.).
The Dead Drops concept can undeniably be communicat ed t hrough phot o or video
document at ion, but t he art work it self can not . The art work consist s of physically
st anding out side in t he st reet wit h ones lapt op pushed against a wall mount ing t he
USB drive while receiving suspicious looks of passers-by as one drops f iles or picks
t hem up. It is t his embodied experience imposed by t he mat erialit y of a dead drop t hat
makes a user t hink 'Is t his legal?', 'Do I owe somebody copyright ?', or 'Are t he lyrics t o
t his song perhaps t oo explicit ?' In ot her words, it 's t he f act t hat Dead Drops
mat erializes f ile sharing in our daily urban environment t hat conf ront s us wit h t he
et hics of online f ile sharing, which moreover happens anonymously and users
consequent ly f eel less account able f or t heir act ions.
35
Similarly, perf ormat ive project s t hat (by def init ion) belong t o t he realm of t he New
Aest het ic suf f er t his 'represent at ion problem'. Topshot Helmet (2006/2007) by Julius
von Bismarck f or inst ance, recreat es t he bird's eye (or 't opshot ') perspect ive t hat is
common in t he digit al realm, f or inst ance in video games or online navigat ion
applicat ions such as Google Maps. It recreat es t his perspect ive by means of a head-
mount ed display t hat depict s live video f rom a camera f loat ing above t he user's head
point ing downward. The art work comment s on t he unnat ural perspect ive t hat t his
bird's eye view is t o humans - it 's even hard t o navigat e an empt y room wit h
t he Topshot Helmet on. More import ant , it conveys t his ref lect ion on t he bird's eye
perspect ive common in t he digit al realm t hrough t he physical experience of t his
perspect ive. Topshot Helmet, t he art work, is t he embodied experience of t he 't opshot '.
Any f orm of online document at ion of t he art work is mere represent at ion of t he act ual
work; somet hing t hat might convey t he idea behind t he art work but not do just ice t o
t he art work it self .
For many post s on t he New Aest het ic Tumblr, t he f act t hat Tumblr only allows f or
represent at ions of project s in t he physical world is not at all problemat ic. A glit ch
design is a glit ch design when capt ured in t he phot ograph of a billboard or f lyer.
Similarly, a milit ary vehicle wit h pixel-like camouf lage does not t ransf orm it s meaning
so much in t he document at ion of t he vehicle; it is already a surf ace print af t erall. Many
art works t hat represent digit al art ef act s and behaviours in t he of f line world (and
hence t hus by def init ion belong t o t he 'New Aest het ic'), however do ref erence st rongly
dif f erent iat ed experienced in t he physical world. For t his reason, art works such as
Dead Drops and Topshot Helmet sit uncomf ort ably under t he New Aest het ic meme.
The meme lives online, while t hese art works live in t he world, are concept ually
grounded in t heir mat erialit y, and convey t heir concept s and mat erial-semiot ic
negot iat ions t hrough embodied experiences.

BEYOND THE PIXEL SCULPTURE
Many of t he post s on t he New Aest het ic Tumblr are relat ively st raight f orward physical
rendit ions of a digit al aest het ic. Take t he many pixel sculpt ures f or example t hat
f eat ure on t he New Aest het ic Tumblr and t hose t hat appear in t he lect ures t hat
f ollowed it . They seem t o say not much more t han somet hing in t he vein of "We look
perf ect ly normal on a comput er screen, so what are you looking at ?!" Besides perhaps
provoking awareness regarding t he low resolut ion of t he digit al realm in comparison t o
t he world of f line, t hese sculpt ures do not really af f ect our view on pixels, and it 's saf e
t o say t hat pixel sculpt ures do not inf luence our behaviour when we engage wit h
pixels. Many art works t hat by def init ion would qualif y as belonging t o t he New
Aest het ic however do much more t han t hat . We might ask why it is exact ly t hose
works, t hat aim t o af f ect our views and inf luence our behaviour, t hat seem t o be
missing in t he New Aest het ic discourse. Take Domestic Tension (2007) by Waf aa Bilal
f or inst ance, a perf ect exemplar of a 'nat ive product of modern net work
cult ure' (St erling 2012), but never discussed in t he light of t he New Aest het ic.
In DOMESTIC TENSION, viewers can log ont o t he int ernet t o cont act or "shoot "
Bilal wit h paint ball guns. Bilal's object ive is t o raise awareness of virt ual war and
36
privacy, or lack t hereof , in t he digit al age. During t he course of t he exhibit ion, Bilal
will conf ine himself t o t he gallery space. Over t he durat ion, people will have 24-
hour virt ual access t o t he space via t he Int ernet . They will have t he abilit y t o wat ch
Bilal and int eract wit h him t hrough a live web-cam and chat room. Should t hey
choose t o do so, viewers will also have t he opt ion t o shoot Bilal wit h a paint ball
gun, t ransf orming t he virt ual experience int o a very physical one. Bilal's self
imposed conf inement is designed t o raise awareness about t he lif e of t he Iraqi
people and t he home conf inement t hey f ace due t o t he bot h t he violent and t he
virt ual war t hey f ace on a daily basis. This sensat ional approach t o t he war is
meant t o engage people who may not be willing t o engage in polit ical dialogue
t hrough convent ional means. DOMESTIC TENSION will depict t he suf f ering of
war not t hrough human displays of dramat ic emot ion, but rat her t hrough engaging
people in t he sort of playf ul int eract ive video game wit h which t hey are f amiliar.
(Bilal 2007)
Just as pixel sculpt ures do, Domestic Tension t akes a digit al phenomenon of
af f ect ive experience and net worked mediat ion int o t he physical: t he opport unit y t o
shoot an (of t en anonymous) person t hat could be on t he ot her side of t he world; a
principle at t he heart of any online f irst -person shoot er game. Would Domestic
Tension however sit comf ort ably next t o a pixel sculpt ure in t he New Aest het ic
concept ual cont ainer? Arguably it wouldnt . Domestic Tension is much more t han a
physical rendit ion of a digit al aest het ic; it has a polit ics of af f ect ive experience and
embodied encount er t hat aims t o af f ect polit ical sensibilit ies and inf luence behaviour.
Pixel sculpt ures rat her lack such aims. This f undament al dif f erence bet ween a
polit ically engaged new media art work and a pixel sculpt ure seems marked and
sympt omat ic f or t he New Aest het ic; t he New Aest het ic claims a st at us as an
emergent aest het ic, but does not really aspire t o any sort of act ive or emergent
impact . While it makes claims about t he realit y of t he present , it does not wish t o
polit ically af f ect views or induce behavioural changes in t hat realit y, like art commonly
does. It merely document s and collect s.
How can an aest het ic t hat is concerned wit h "how cult ure is embracing t he t ools of
t oday" (McNeil 2012) be t his f ar removed f rom t he mat erial sit uat ions in which t hese
t ools operat e and seemingly st eer clear of t heir polit ical implicat ions? The so-called
New Aest het ic's elision of embodied experiences and of digit alit y beyond surf ace, is
an elision of posit ion t aking through aset het ics and of art 's invest ment in behavioural
changes. It 's exemplars would bear a st riking resemblance t o cont emporary art using
new media t echnology if it 's concept were act ually polit icized (see Tribe and Jana
2006). But it doesn't seem designed t o do t hat . Perhaps t his is why it f eat ures so
many weak experiment s wit h new media art 's t oolset ? Could t he New Aest het ic
simply be a poor at t empt at curat ing new media art online? If so, it s st yle is f ar f rom
new and merely borrows f rom evolut ions and t hroughout t he hist ory of new media art ,
evolut ions which have been widely discussed f or some years (see, e.g., Manovich
2001; Fuller 2005; Munst er 2006; Bosma 2011; Brouwer, Mulder and Spuybroek
2012). Int roducing a New Aest het ic t hat speaks t o t he erupt ion of t he digit al int o t he
physical (St erling 2012), but t hat does not account f or embodied experiences, st eers
away f rom t his erupt ion's cont ext ual dimensions and polit ical implicat ions. It is like
buying a domain name, but not knowing how t o build a websit e. Somet imes when one
receives a 404 error, it 's not wort h t aking a screenshot of it and post ing on a Tumblr
37
like Screenshots of Despair. Wit hout some analysis or comprehension of t hese
mat erial and t echnical process of mediat ion, t here is no aest het ic t here.

38
IRRUPTIONS
8. THE NEW AESTHETIC AS REPRESENTATION
9. WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS OF
POSSIBILITY FOR THE NEW AESTHETIC?
10. THE NEW AESTHETIC AS MEDIATION
11. THE POLITICS OF EMERGENT AESTHETICS
12. BIBLIOGRAPHY
13. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
39
40
8. THE NEW AESTHETIC AS REPRESENTATION

This chapt er will look at t he common concept ion of t he new aest het ic as a f orm
of mere represent at ion, and part icularly how, so f ar, t he New Aest het ic has been
present ed as screenic images. It will point t o t he import ance of t he medium in
underst anding bot h t he new aest het ic as collect ed on Tumblr as well as t he wider
quest ion of how it is underst ood t hrough t his mediat ion. We const ant ly require
at t ent iveness wit h such a surf ace reading, as it ent ails a kind of f lat t ening of t he
digit al. A f lat t ening which may, or may not , have a presumed indexicalit y, such as t ime,
place and subject . We might also want t o t hink about t he met adat a implicat ions f or a
digit ally const ruct ed indexicalit y provided by geolocat ion, t echnical specs, and so f ort h
embedded in t he image. We can also not only st ay at t he level of t he screen, t hereby
avoiding and/or perpet uat ing screen essent ialism. Furt hermore, we have t o wrest le
wit h quest ions regarding t he comput at ional while st ill having a t endency t o lean on
poor (represent at ional) t ools t o do so.
It is int erest ing t o not e t hat a f eat ure/bug of comput at ional syst ems is somet imes
t hought t o be due t o t he immat urit y of t he disciplines and met hods, but af t er 40 years
of writ ing code/sof t ware we st ill suf f er f rom t he same problems namely it s
complexit y and our lack of met aphorical language t o describe it . Whet her inscribed
wit hin a model of procedual, f unct ional or object -orient ed st ruct ure, code is usually
bigger t han a single human being can underst and. Thus, in a running syst em, and in
escaping our comprehension, it inevit ably has aporia and liminal areas t hat mean we
cannot t ruly predict , cont rol or even underst and it s operat ion. Whilst here we haven't
space t o ref lect on t he radical pot ent ialit ies t his unpredict abilit y and risk t hat t his
'glit ch ont ology' opens in cont rol societ ies, it is nonet heless suggest ive f or polit ical and
art ist ic pract ice.
The New Aest het ic, t hen, can be underst ood as a comport ment t owards "seeing"
comput at ion, responding t o it , or merely being correct ly at t uned t o it (in a subsequent
chapt er t his is explored due t o it s pot ent ial f or t he passif icat ion of t he user). We might
t heref ore ask what are t hat t he kinds of 't hings' t hat show up as equipment , goals,
and ident it ies in t his new aest het ic and how t hey are specif ic t o comput at ionalit y. As
Heidegger argues,
So it happens t hat we, lost as we usually are in t he act ivit ies of observing and
est ablishing, believe we see many t hings and yet do not see what really is.
(Heidegger 1995: 60)
Tempt at ions t owards showing t he images of t he new aest het ic as somehow
unmediat ed, part icularly in relat ion t o machine, or comput er produced images,
f et ishizes t he "t hing" whilst also obscuring it s mediat ion. The New Aest het ic, in ot her
words, brings t hese pat t erns t o t he surf ace, and in doing so art iculat es a movement
t owards uncovering t he "unseen", t he lit t le underst ood logic of comput at ional societ y
and t he anxiet ies t hat t his int roduces. Nonet heless, we should, of course, be alert t o
t he aporias t hat it t hereby int roduces.
Wit hout an at t ent iveness t o t he layers of sof t ware beneat h t his surf ace int erf ace we
41
are in danger of f urt her 'screen essent ialism'. In t erms of t he comput at ional as
inst ant iat ed wit hin comput at ional devices (or code object s), one of t he key aspect s is
t hat t he surf ace can remain relat ively st able whilst t he machinery layer(s) can undergo
f renet ic and disorient ing amount s of change (Berry 2012c). This f rant ic disorient at ion
at t he machinery layer is t heref ore insulat ed f rom t he user, who is provided wit h a
surf ace which can be f amiliar, skeuomorphic (f rom t he Greek, skeuos - vessel or t ool,
morphe - shape), represent at ional, met onymic, f igurat ive or ext remely simplist ic and
domest ic. It is import ant t o not e t hat t he surf ace/int erf ace need not be visual, indeed
it may be present ed as an applicat ion programming int erf ace (API) which hides t he
underlying machinery behind t his relat ively benign int erf ace.
As discussed in t he int roduct ion, t he scope and boundary point s of t he New Aest het ic
are current ly being drawn, redrawn and cont est ed. This is great : it lives, it is being
t racked and experiment ed wit h, reworked and so on. But crit ical at t ent ion needs t o be
paid especially t o t he New Aest het ic's f ormal invest ment s in t he non-human
dimension of t he comput at ional, bot h in t erms of a worrying (rat her t han
met hodological) decent ring of t he human, but also it s relat ed problem of grant ing
ant hropomorphized agency t o code.
Indeed, t his raises quest ions about what we might call t he "t hinginess" of t he new
aest het ic object more generally. To a large ext ent t his "t hinginess" or perhaps t he
dif f icult y in engaging wit h it has been obscured due t o an over-reliance on images t o
represent it s set s of new aest het ic "t hings" t hat purport t o be in t he world. This mere
point ing t o mat erialit y (even screenic images are mat erial in an import ant sense) and
assumes t ransparent means of communicat ion f acilit at ed by comput at ional
commmunicat ional syst ems. That is, t here appears t o be a t heory of communicat ion
inbuilt int o t he new aest het ic as shown in it s popular regist ers. We need t o t ake
account of t his.
THE REPRESENTATION PRACTICES OF THE NEW AESTHETIC
The new aest het ic is deeply inf luenced by and reliant on pat t erns and abduct ive
reasoning (Berry 2012a). This is a common t hread t hat links t he list s of object s t hat
seem t o have not hing more in common t han a dif f icult y t o reconcile a t enuous
digit alit y, or a ret ro at t achment t owards older f orms of digit al rendering and
reproduct ion. In act ualit y it is no surprise t hat we see a ret urn of 8-bit ret ro it could
perhaps be described as t he abduct ive aest het ic par excellence, inasmuch as it
enables an inst ant recognit ion of , and indeed serves as an import ant represent at ion
f or, t he digit al, especially as t he digit al becomes high-def init ion and less 'digit al' by t he
day (see Jean 2010). Dif f erent ly, t his is a 'down-sampled' represent at ion of a kind of
digit al past , or perhaps digit al passing, given t hat t he kinds of digit al glit ches, modes,
and f orms t hat are chosen are very much hist orically locat ed especially considering
t hat we are moving int o a high-def init ion world of ret ina displays and high-pixel densit y
experience (f or an example, see Huf f 2012).
As comput at ion, and by def init ion it s carriers, code and sof t ware, increasingly
wit hdraw int o t he background of our experience, we have increasingly seen t his
f oregrounding of represent at ions of , and f or, t he digit al/comput at ional across art and
42
design. In some ways, 8-bit images are reassuring and st ill comprehensible as
dif f erent f rom and st anding in opposit ion t o t he everyday world people inhabit . In ot her
ways, however, t he glit chy, ret ro 8-bit esque look t hat we see in pixelat ed works are
act ually dist ant f rom t he capabilit ies of cont emporary machines and t heir 8-bit blocky
ont ologies provide only limit ed guidance on t he way in which sof t ware now organises
and f ormat s t he our shared, and sharable, world (Berry 2011). So ironically, just as
digit al t echnologies and sof t ware mediat e our experience and engagement wit h t he
world, of t en invisibly, so t he 'digit al' and 'sof t ware' is it self mediat ed and made visible
t hrough t he represent at ional f orms of pixelat ion and glit ch.
As not ions of abduct ion and relat ed aest het ic st yles in art and design become more
prevalent it will be int erest ing t o see more exemplars of t his f orm emerge and see how
we deal wit h t hem. Whilst t oday we t end t o t hink of t he 8-bit pixelat ion, sat ellit e
phot os, CCTV images, and t he like, it is probable t hat alt ernat ive, more comput at ional
f orms will probaby t ake over. Perhaps skeuomorphic images will become increasingly
common? Or indeed skeuomorphic represent at ions of older 8-bit t echnologies (f or
example enabled by MAME and ot her emulat ors) (see MAME 2012). Conceivably, t his
leads t o a f orm of cognit ive dissonance, perpet uat ing drives t o look f or pat t ern
aest het ics everywhere. Apophenia, t he t endency t o see meaningf ul pat t erns or
connect ions in random or meaningless dat a (called a t ype 1 error in st at ist ics) is
def init ely playing out in t he New Aest het ic in t his regard. We might f urt her expect t hat
people are also seeking digit al or abduct ive explanat ions f or art s of ot her moment s,
f or visual or even non-visual experiences which may not be digit al or produced t hrough
comput at ional means at all, a digit al pareidolia.
Pareidolia involves seeing import ance in vague and random phenomenon, f or example
a f ace in a random collect ion of dot s on paper. The t erm 'digit al pareidolia' we coin t o
gest ure t owards t his t endency in t he New Aest het ic t o see digit al causes f or t hings
t hat happen in everyday lif e. Indeed, under f ut ure regimes of comput at ionalit y it might
be considered st ranger t o believe t hat t hings might have non-digit al causes. Thus
apophenia would be t he norm in a highly digit al comput at ional societ y, perhaps even a
signif icant benef it t o one's lif e chances and well-being if f inding pat t erns becomes
increasingly lucrat ive. Here we might consider t he growt h of comput at ional high-
f requency t rading and f inancial syst ems t hat are t rained and programmed t o ident if y
pat t erns very quickly.
Sof t ware is not only necessary f or represent at ion; it is also endemic of
t ransf ormat ions in modes of governing t hat make governing bot h more personal
and impersonal, t hat enable bot h empowerment and surveillance, and indeed
make it dif f icult t o dist inguish bet ween t he t wo. (Chun 2011: 58)
When we speak of seeing t he grain of comput at ion, or perhaps it s 'seams', what do
we mean by t his and what is being art iculat ed in part icular discourses around t he
represent at ion of t he new aest het ic? Here we might not e t hat seeing t he grain of
comput at ion, is a merely represent at ional model of underst anding a media f orm, and
alt hough usef ul in one dimension is unable t o capt ure a range of specif ic medial
aspect s and issues t hat are very import ant , and t o which we now t urn.
43
9. WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS OF POSSIBILITY FOR THE NEW
AESTHETIC?

We want t o raise t he quest ion about t he conditions of possibility f or t he new
aest het ic, t hat is, f or t he possibilit y of surf acing t he digit al t hrough represent at ional
and mediat ional f orms. First ly, let 's look at t he not ion of a f orm of f oundat ional
ont ology t hat inf orms everyday lif e and t hinking t hrough a not ion of comput at ionalit y.
Secondly, we will examine t he quest ion of t echnology, underst ood here as t he
specif icit y of comput at ional t echnology, and it s dif f usion as net worked, mobile, digit al
t echnologies. Creat ive pract ices are assumed f or t he sake of t his chapt er t o be ont ic
dramas t hat t ake place always already wit hin very specif ic inf ormat ional, net work and
polit ical organizat ions. Whet her f ine art , non-prof it or creat ive indust rial, such ont ic
act ivit y displays hugely variable degrees of awareness of t hese condit ions. If , as we
have argued, t he New Aest het ic of f ered up a way t o t hink about and inhabit a present
regime of comput at ionalit y wit hout explicit ly and ref lexively t aking account of what it
is t hat we at t end t o, t hen let us consider t he background nat ure of t his comput at ional
way-of -being.

COMPUTATIONALITY
In order t o move beyond t he vagaries of t he t echnological sublime, we should begin
t he t heoret ical and empirical project s t hat can creat e cognit ive maps (Jameson
1991). First we should draw at t ent ion t o basic cat egories in what we might call
inf ormat ional, or comput at ional societ ies. This is helpf ul in enabling us t o draw t he
cont ours of what is called 'comput at ionalit y', and in art iculat ing t he relat ionship of t his
t he new aest het ic. As t he digit al increasingly st ruct ures t he cont emporary world,
curiously, it also wit hdraws; it becomes harder and harder f or us t o f ocus upon, as it
becomes embedded, hidden, of f -shored, or merely f orgot t en about . Part of t he
challenge f or citizens of a regime of comput at ion is t o bring t he digit al (code/sof t ware)
back int o visibilit y f or explorat ion, research and cult ural crit ique. Of course ref lexive
media art work, art ist ic and curat orial, has demonst rat ed signif icant and act ive
invest ment s in t his.
Comput at ionalit y is a cent ral, ef f ect ive, dominant syst em of meanings and values
t hat are abst ract but also organizing and lived. To t ake account of what
comput at ionalit y is t o t he New Aest het ic cannot be underst ood at t he level of mere
opinion or mere manipulat ion. It is relat ed t o a whole operat ive body of comput at ional
pract ices and expect at ions, f or example how we assign energy t owards part icular
project s and how we ordinarily underst and t he 'nat ure' of humans and t he world. The
meanings and values t hat it set s up are experienced as pract ices which are
reciprocally conf irming, repeat ed and predict able, at t he same t ime as being used t o
describe and underst and t he world it self . It is possible t hat sof t ware it self is t he
explanat ory f orm of explanat ion it self (see Chun 2011).
When t he New Aest het ic, alongside similar media art pract ices, cont ribut es t o a sense
44
of realit y, t ouches a growing sense or suspicion t owards t he digit al, or gives a sense
of t he limit s or even t he absolut e, t his is also because experienced realit y beyond
everyday lif e is t oo dif f icult f or most members of a societ y t o move or underst and.
What we are dealing wit h is a heurist ic pat t ern f or everyday lif e t he parameterization
of our being-in-t he-world. An example of paramet erizat ion as a kind of def ault (digit al)
grammar of everyday lif e would be say, t hat mediat ed t hrough t he 140 charact ers in
Twit t er or ot her social media.
Comput at ion in t his sense can be considered as an ontotheology. A specif ic historical
epoch def ined by a cert ain set of comput at ional knowledges, pract ices, met hods and
cat egories. Relat ed t o t his is a phenomenological experience of frantic disorientation
caused by, or t hrought t o be cont ribut ing t o lived experience which is not incident ally
an import ant marker of t he specif icit y of t he New Aest het ic t hat f oregrounds or even
renders as normal t he loss of cont rol, loss of human import ance or t he erasure of
dif f erence bet ween human and non-human. Theref ore new aest het ic regist rat ions of
t he comput at ional regime involve, in an import ant sense, an abductive aest het ic built
on pat t erning and f irst order logics, in which comput at ional pat t erns and pat t ern
recognit ion become a means of cult ural expression.
Pat t erns are deeply imbricat ed wit h comput erized recognit ion, repeat ed codes,
art if act s and st ruct ural element s t hat enable somet hing t o be recognised as a t ype of
t hing (see Harvey 2011, 2012 f or a visualisat ion of f acial pat t ern recognit ion). This is
not just visual, of course. Pat t erns may be recognised in dat a set s, t ext ual archives,
dat a point s, dist ribut ions, non-visual sensors, physical movement or gest ures, hapt ic
f orces, and so on. Indeed, t his point s t o t he import ance of inf ormat ion visualisat ion as
part of an abduct ion aest het ic in order t o 'visualise' t he pat t erns t hat are hidden in
set s of dat a.
Thus, comput at ionalit y (as an ont ot heology) inst ant iat es a new ont ological epoch as
a new hist orical const ellat ion of int elligibilit y. Code/sof t ware is t he paradigmat ic case
of comput at ionalit y, and present s us wit h a comput at ional 'object s' which are locat ed
at all major junct ures of modern societ y. To view it as an ont ot heology enables us t o
underst and t he present sit uat ion and it s collect ions, net works, or assemblage of
'coded object s' or 'code object s'.
One of t he t hings t hat t he New Aest het ic st rongly expresses (which indeed is not t hat
new in f ine art or pop cult ure) is t he concept of a 'glit ch ont ology'. To see t he 'erupt ion
of t he digit al int o t he physical' (which we underst and as 'irupt ion') everywhere, is t o
acknowledge glit ch as an ont ological condit ion. Heidegger has very int erest ingly
concept ualised t he way in which everyday object s come t o presence and wit hdraw
f rom our at t ent ion over t ime, depending on t he way in which t hey are used, which he
describes as Vorhandenheit (or present -at -hand) and Zuhandenheit (or ready-t o-
hand). The common example Heidegger uses is t hat of a hammer, which observed in a
det ached manner appears as 'present -at -hand', as an object decont ext ualised bef ore
us. In cont rast , when used by t he carpent er it becomes 'ready-t o-hand', t hat is part of
t he act ivit y, or making, of t he carpent er, no longer not iced as a discret e object .
In cont rast t o t he more subt le shif t s in t he vision/use of t he hammer, comput at ional
devices appear t o oscillat e rapidly bet ween Vorhandenheit/ Zuhandenheit (present -
45
at -hand/ ready-t o-hand) t his is a glit ch ont ology. Perhaps even more accurat ely,
comput at ional t hings are const ant ly becoming ready-t o-hand/unready-t o-hand in
quick alt ernat ion. By quick t his can mean happening in microseconds, milliseconds, or
seconds, repeat edly in quick succession. The upset t ing of seamless user experience
t hrough ongoing risks of , and exposure t o, glit ch, is an ongoing development issue
wit hin human-comput er design, which sees it as a pressing concern t o be f ixed or
made invisible or seamless t o t he user (Winograd and Flores 1987). We want t o
emphasize t hat t his is a concept of 'glit ch' t hat is specif ic t o comput at ion, as opposed
t o ot her t echnical f orms (Berry 2011).
Once glit ch creat es t he conspicuousness t hat breaks t he everyday experience of
t hings, and more import ant ly breaks t he f low of t hings being comf ort ably at hand, t his
is a f orm t hat Heidegger called Unreadyness-t o-hand (Unzuhandenheit). Heidegger
def ines t hree f orms of unreadyness-t o-hand: Obt rusiveness (Aufdringlichkeit),
Obst inacy (Aufsssigkeit), and Conspicuousness (Aufflligkeit), where t he f irst t wo
are non-f unct ioning equipment and t he lat t er is equipment t hat is not f unct ioning at
it s best (see Heidegger 1978, f n 1). Import ant ly here, if equipment breaks you have t o
think about it .
Conspicuousness, or conspicuous comput at ion is not a sign of complet ely broken
equipment . Conspicuousness only present s t he available equipment as in a cert ain
unavailableness (Heidegger 1978: 1023), so t hat as Dreyf us (2001: 71) explains, we
are moment arily st art led, and t hen shif t t o a new way of coping, but which, if help is
given quickly or t he sit uat ion is resolved, t hen t ransparent circumspect ive behaviour
can be so quickly and easily rest ored t hat no new st ance on t he part of Dasein is
required (Dreyf us 2001: 72). As Heidegger put s it , it requires a more precise kind of
circumspect ion, such as inspect ing, checking up on what has been at t ained, [et c.]
(Dreyf us 2001: 70).
In ot her words comput at ion, due t o it s glit ch ont ology, cont inually f orces a cont ext ual
slowing-down at t he level of t he mode of being of t he user, t hus t he cont inuit y of f low
or pract ice is int errupt ed by minut e pauses and breaks (which may beyond conscious
percept ion, as such). This is not t o say t hat analogue t echnologies do not break down,
t he dif f erence is t he conspicuousness of digit al t echnologies in t heir everyday working,
in cont rast t o t he obst inacy or obt rusiveness of analogue t echnologies, which t end t o
work or not . There is also a discret e granularit y of t he conspicuousness of digit al
t echnologies, which can be measured t echnically as seconds, milliseconds, or even
microseconds. All of t hese aspect s of glit ch ont ology raise int erest ing quest ions about
our experiences of comput at ional syst ems.
The New Aest het ic is int erest ing in t his cont ext because of it s implicit invest ment in
represent at ion, showing t he surf ace of t he ext ent t o which digit al media has
permeat ed our everyday lives. In Deleuzian t erms we might t hink of t wo st rat a here:
t he f irst , comput at ionalit y as t he plane of cont ent /mat erialit y; and creat ive pract ices
including t he New Aest het ic as t he plane of expression (Deleuze and Guat t ari 1987:
43). Import ant ly, and as Deleuze and Guat t ari make explicit , such a f ormulat ion is
usef ul because each plane does not need t o have a direct connect ion, logic, or
resemblance t o t he ot her. Indeed, t he represent at ional plane, as it were, can be only
loosely coupled t o t he ot her.
46
Comput at ion, underst ood wit hin t he cont ext of comput at ionalit y, pervades our
everyday lif e. It t heref ore becomes one part icular limit (t here are ot hers of course) of
our possibilit ies f or reason, experience and desire wit hin t his hist orical paradigm of
knowledge, or epist eme (see Berry 2012c). One can t hink of creat ive pract ices as
being bounded ext ricably wit h t he comput at ional and t he f oundat ion f or developing a
cognit ive map (Jameson 2006: 516). The f act t hat abduct ion aest het ics are
net worked, sharable, modular, 'digit al', and locat ed bot h in t he digit al and analogue
worlds is appropriat e, because t hey f ollow t he colonisat ion of t he lif eworld by t he
t echnics of comput at ionalit y.
David Hockney writ ing about his Fresh Flowers (Grant 2010) links his art ist ic work t o
t he medial af f ordances of t he comput at ional device, in t his case an iPad, st at ing
'when using his iPhone or iPad t o draw, t he f eat ures of t he devices t end t o shape his
choice of subject ...The f act t hat it 's illuminat ed makes you choose luminous subject s'
(Freeman 2012). Parisi and Port anova f urt her argue f or an algorit hmic aest het ic wit h
t heir not ion of 'sof t t hought ':
t he aest het ic of sof t t hought precisely implies t hat digit al algorit hms are
aut onomous, concept ual modes of t hinking, a t hinking t hat is always already a
mode of f eeling ordered in binary codes, and is not t o be conf used wit h sensing or
perceiving. Numerical processing is always a f eeling, a simult aneously physical and
concept ual mode of f eeling dat a, physical in t he act ual operat ions of t he
hardware-sof t ware machine, concept ual in t he grasp of numbers as virt ualit ies or
pot ent ials (Parisi and Port anova 2012).
Ot her researchers (Beaulieu et al 2012) have ref erred t o 'Net work Realism t o draw
at t ent ion t o some of t hese visual pract ices. Many of t he art works in t his book can be
seen t o f all under t his cat egory of work. Such works display similar invest ment s in
producing visual, af f ect ive and object -based art iculat ions of digit alit y and t he net work.
The Tumblr blog t hat present s t he New Aest het ic t o us as a st ream of dat a again,
signif icant in t his reading of comput at ionalit y (see also Kit t ler 2009) - collect s digit al
and pseudo-digit al object s t hrough a comput at ional f rame, and is only made possible
t hrough new f orms of comput at ional curat ion t ools, such as Tumblr and Pint erest
(2012). The New Aest het ic t hus gives a descript ion and a way of represent ing and
mediat ing t he world in and t hrough t he digit al, t hat is underst andable as an inf init e
archive (or collect ion). Secondly, alongside many ot her creat ive pract ices including art
pract ices t hat we have point ed t o in t his book, The New Aest het ic alt ernat ely
highlight s t he f act t hat something digit al is a happening in cult ure somet hing which
we have only barely been conscious of and also t hat cult ure is happening t o t he
digit al. Toget her t hese aspect s ont ological, t echnical, and of course mat erial,
cont ribut e t o what we might call t he condit ion of possibilit y f or emerging aest het ic
pract ices invest ed in t he present , invest ed as t hese are in irupt ing t he 'digit al' int o t he
'real'.
More surf ace-level invest ment s such as t hose capt ured in t he New Aest het ic we
might say remain f ocussed on t he aest het ic in t he f irst inst ance (rat her t han t he
ont ological) and in t his way perpet uat e t he obf uscat ion of t he sociological and polit ical
realit y of comput at ional condit ions. This is a usef ul point of dist inct ion f or considering
47
t he dif f erence between aest het ic f orms inst ant iat ed wit hin t he comput at ional
condit ion. The point we want t o make is t hat t he collect ions t hat Bridle and St erling in
part icular are ident if ying are in f act more symptomatic t han exemplary of a
comput at ional paradigm in creat ive work, of what ever kind. Some of us t hink t his is a
f airly obvious point t o make, but it nevert heless needs t his degree of explanat ion.
Surf ace digit alit y elides comput at ional realit ies t hat inf orm aest het ic f eeling, while
holding unclear or haphazard invest ment s in such hidden or lower level realit ies.
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10. THE NEW AESTHETIC AS MEDIATION

Let 's explore t he not ion of mediat ion wit hin t he cont ours of t he New Aest het ic, in
part icular t he comput at ional cont ribut ion or f acilit at ion of cert ain way of working,
looking, and dist ribut ing. Whilst we are aware of t he limit at ions t hat t he st ruct ure of
t his book enf orces on our discussion of mediat ion, and especially t he dif f icult ies of
explicat ing t he complexit ies of comput at ional media, it is clear t hat emerging creat ive
pract ices are problemat ising, in some sense, t his medial dimension. Indeed, medial
change is linked t o epist emic change and here of course, we are ref erring t o a
software condition.
Sof t ware present s a t ranslucent int erf ace relat ive t o a common 'world' and so
enables engagement wit h a 'world', t his we of t en call it s int erf ace. It is t empt ing, when
t rying t o underst and sof t ware/code t o provide analysis at t he level of t his surf ace.
However, sof t ware also possesses an opaque machinery t hat mediat es engagement
t hat is not experienced direct ly nor t hrough social mediat ions. Wit hout an
at t ent iveness t o t he layers of sof t ware beneat h t his surf ace int erf ace we are in
danger of 'screen essent ialism'. In t erms of t his analyt ic approach, one of t he key
aspect s is t hat t he surf ace can remain relat ively st able whilst t he machinery layer(s)
can undergo f renet ic and disorient ing amount s of change (Fuller 2003). This f rant ic
disorient at ion at t he machinery layer is t heref ore insulat ed f rom t he user, who is
provided wit h a surf ace which can be f amiliar, skeuomorphic (f rom t he Greek, skeuos -
vessel or t ool, morphe - shape), represent at ional, met onymic, f igurat ive or ext remely
simplist ic and domest ic. It is import ant t o not e t hat t he surf ace/int erf ace need not be
visual, indeed it may be present ed as an applicat ion programming int erf ace (API)
which hides t he underlying machinery behind t his relat ively benign int erf ace. Here, are
usef ul links t o many of t he f ormulat ions around a not ion of t he New Aest het ic.
Indeed, we argue t hat t he New Aest het ic is int erest ing as a kind of point ing or
gest uring t owards mediat ion by digit al processes, in some inst ances connect ing t o
claims whereby it renders human input or cont rol unnecessary similar t o claims about
a non-human t urn. This is t he very act of aut omat ic comput at ion or a f orm of idealized
art if icial int elligence is in some senses a t echnical imaginary t hat runs t hrough t he
Bridle/St erling f ormulat ion. Mediat ion it self can be underst ood wit hin a f rame of
underst anding t hat implies t he t ransf er bet ween t wo point s of t en linked t o not ions
of inf ormat ion t heory. Guillory argues,
t he enabling condit ion of mediat ion is t he int erposit ion of dist ance (spat ial,
t emporal, or even not ional) bet ween t he t erminal poles of t he communicat ion
process (t hese can be persons but also now machines, even persons and
machines). (Guillory 2010: 357)
The sof t ware t hat is now widely used is part of a wider const ellat ion of sof t ware
ecologies made possible by a plet hora of comput at ional devices t hat f acilit at e t he
colonisat ion of code int o t he lif eworld (see Berry 2012d). In ot her words, sof t ware
enables access t o cert ain f orms of mediat ed engagement wit h t he world. This is
achieved via t he t ranslucent surf ace int erf ace and enables a machinery t o be
49
engaged which comput at ionally int eroperat es wit h t he world.

AVAILABLE COMMODITIES
In t his vein we want t o explore t he not ion of availability in relat ion t o t his idea of
surf ace. It is helpf ul here t o t hink of t he way t hat comput at ionalit y has af f ordances
t hat cont ribut e t o t he const ruct ion and dist ribut ion of a range of commodit ies. We
t hink of comput at ionalit y as t he very def init ion of t he f ramework of possibilit y f or
social and polit ical lif e t oday, t hat is, again using comput at ionalit y as an ont ot heology
(see previous chapt er). Here we t hink of a commodit y as being available when it can
be used as a mere end, wit h t he means veiled and backgrounded. This is not only in
t echnical devices, of course, and also includes t he social labour and mat erial required
t o produce a device as such. But in t he age of comput at ionalit y we t hink it is
int erest ing t o explore how t he surf ace ef f ect s of a cert ain f orm of comput at ional
machinery creat e t he condit ions bot h f or t he black boxing of t echnology as such, but
also f or t hinking about t he possibilit y of polit ical and social act ion against it . I will call
t his t he paradigm of availabilit y. Upon t his surf ace we might read and writ e what ever
we choose, as we are also of f ered a surf ace t o which we might read t he inscrut able
however we might wish.
What is st riking about t he paradigm of availabilit y made possible by comput at ionalit y,
is t hat it radically re-present s t he mechanisms and st ruct ures of everyday lif e,
t hemselves reconst ruct ed wit hin t he ont ology af f orded by comput at ionalit y. This
moment of re-present at ion is an of f ering of availabilit y, underst ood as inf init e play
and exploit abilit y (int eract ivit y) of a specif ic commodit y f orm which we might call t he
comput at ional device. Here we t hink of t he comput at ional device bot h in t erms of it s
mat erial manif est at ions but also as a diagram or t echnical imaginary. That is, it is not
only rest ruct uring t he mechanisms and st ruct ures, but t he very possibilit y of t hinking
against t hem. Part of t he paradox of availaibilit y, however, is t hat t he 'deeper'
st ruct ures are progressively hidden and of f ered inst ead t hrough a simplif ied 'int erf ace'.
In comput at ional capit alism t his af f ect s not just t he what we t hink of as nat urally
comput at ional, f or example a lapt op, but also ot her t echnical and mechanical devices
t hat are reconf igured t hrough t his paradigm.

50
Internals of an Apple II computer (introduced 1977) and Apples 2012 Retina Macbook
Pro (Begemann 2012).


Engine compartments of a 1982 Mercedes-Benz Series 190 (W-201) and a 2010
Mercedes Benz Concept Car called Shooting Break (Begemann 2012).
Here we see how t his comput at ional means t o black-boxing t he mechanism, and t he
af f ordances t hat comput at ion grant s, eg. miniat urisat ion, concret isat ion, obf uscat ion,
and so f ort h, become part of t he way-of -doing wit hin consumer capit alism. The
comput er becomes increasing dense and aest het icised (even int ernally as shown
above) and t he access point is t hrough t he obligat ory passage point s of t he int erf ace.
Equally, t he car reveals a similar logic of hiddenness and obf uscat ion, wit h t he driver,
now user, given an 'int erf ace' t o t he engine and associat ed mechanical syst em. These
int erf aces are built on rat ional and direct ed process of reason, what we might call
'mere reason' as a subset of possible ways-of -doing or act ing. This is also where t he
logic of comput at ionalit y and t he pract ices of comput at ional consumer capit alism
converge in t he creat ion of t echnical devices wit h inbuilt obsolescence and limit ed
means f or repair or maint ainence.
51
Kant argues t hat mere reason (rat her t han pure reason) is a programmed st ruct ure,
wit h in-built possibilit ies of "misf iring", and not hing but calculat ion as a way of seeing
right . The comput er is a t echnology t hat caused Derrida some concern f or precisely
t he reason t hat it at t empt t o subst it ut e f or t he f lux of everyday experience an
appearance of cert aint y t hat cannot represent human experiences adequat ely
(Golumbia 2009: 16). Mere reason is not like t he t wo major cat egories of cognit ion,
pure and pract ical reason, specif ically because in it s quest f or exact ness and
precision it act ually eliminat es t he possibilit y of human agency in t hinking or cognit ive
pract ice.
Driven by rapid changes in t echnology and part icularly innovat ion in social media, we
are seeing a t ransit ion f rom st at ic inf ormat ion t o real-t ime dat a. Real-t ime dat a
st reams are new ways t o consume various media f orms t hrough dat a st ream
providers like Twit t er. In f act it can be argued t hat Twit t er is now t he de f act o real-
t ime message bus of t he int ernet . This new way of accessing, dist ribut ing, and
communicat ing via t he real-t ime st ream is st ill playing out and raises int erest ing
quest ions about how it af f ect s polit ics, economics, social, and daily lif e. But t heres
also t he quest ion of what does t he real-t ime st ream do t o t he aest het ic experience?
Part icularly when t he real-t ime mediat es art or becomes a sit e f or art ist ic inst allat ion
or innovat ion.
To pick up a t heme int roduced early in t he book, we have cont inually quest ioned and
crit iqued t he behaviour gest ured t owards in earlier discussions of t he New
Aest het ic as a way-of -seeing, or even a way-of -being. This passivit y suggest ed in a
subject ivit y linked t o t he New Aest het ic t hat elsewhere has been described by Berry
(2011) as a riparian subject or raparian user. That is a subject t hat is encouraged t o
f ollow, wat ch, or consume st reams of dat a wit hout necessarily part icipat ing in any
meaningf ul way in t he st ream. Here,
riparian ref er[s] t o t he act of wat ching t he f low of t he st ream go by. But as,
Kierkegaard, writ ing about t he rise of t he mass media argued: The public is not a
people, a generat ion, ones era, not a communit y, an associat ion, nor t hese
part icular persons, f or all t hese are only what t hey are by virt ue of what is
concret e. Not a single one of t hose who belong t o t he public has an essent ial
engagement wit h anyt hing (Berry 2011: 144).
Above we gest ured already t owards t he sof t warizat ion of 'close reading', and t he
changing st ruct ure of a pref erred reader or subject posit ion t owards one t hat is
increasingly algorit hmic (of course, t his could be a human or non-human reader).
Indeed it is suggest ive t hat as a result of t hese moves t o real-t ime st reams t hat we
will see t he move f rom a linear model of narrat ive, exemplif ied by books, t o a
dashboard of a calculat ion int erf ace and navigat ional plat f orms, exemplif ied by new
f orms of sof t ware plat f orms. Indeed, t hese plat f orms, and here we are t hinking of a
screenic int erf ace such as t he iPad, allow t he reader t o use t he hand-and-eye in
hapt ic int erf aces t o develop int eract ive explorat ory approaches t owards
knowledge/inf ormat ion and discovery. This could, of course, st ill enable humanit ist ic
not ions of close reading but t he pref erred reading st yle would increasingly be dist ant
reading. Part ially, or complet ely, mediat ed t hrough comput at ional code-based
devices. Non-linear, f ragment ary, part ial and pat t ern-mat ching sof t ware t aking in real-
52
t ime st reams and present ing t o t he user a mode of cognit ion t hat is hyper at t ent ion
based coupled wit h real-t ime navigat ional t ools. Thus,
t he riparian user is st rangely connect ed, yet simult aneously disconnect ed, t o t he
dat a st reams t hat are running past at speeds which are dif f icult t o keep up wit h.
To be a member of t he riparian public one must develop t he abilit y t o recognise
pat t erns, t o discern narrat ives, and t o aggregat e t he dat a f lows. Or t o use
cognit ive support t echnologies and sof t ware t o do so. The riparian cit izen is
cont inually wat ching t he f low of dat a, or delegat ing t his wat ching t o a t echnical
device or agent t o do so on t heir behalf . It will require new comput at ional abilit ies
f or t hem t o make sense of t heir lives, t o do t heir work, and t o int eract wit h bot h
ot her people and t he t echnologies t hat make up t he dat ascape of t he real-t ime
web (Berry 2011: 144).
53
11. THE POLITICS OF EMERGENT AESTHETICS

In t he well-known lect ure, What is Crit ique? Foucault t races "t he crit ical at t it ude"
f rom t he "high Kant ian ent erprise" (to know knowledge) t o everyday polemics f ound in
government alit y. In t his way, crit icalit y is a st ance t hat f ollows modernit y: an act of
def iance by limit ing, exit ing and t ransf orming hist orically const it ut ed arrangement s of
power. Foucault ref erred t o crit ique in t his cont ext as t he art of not being governed,
or bet t er t he art of not being governed like t hat , or at t hat cost (2007: 45). Expressed
as a will, t his is conveyed by a suspension of judgment t hat drives praxis int o a direct
involvement wit h prevailing condit ions of possibilit y and power/knowledge, he adds,
If government alizat ion is...t his movement t hrough which individuals are
subjugat ed in t he realit y of a social pract ice t hrough mechanisms of power
t hat adhere t o a t rut h, well, t hen! I will say t hat crit ique is t he movement by
which t he subject gives himself t he right t o quest ion t rut h on it s ef f ect s of
power and quest ion power on it s discourses of t rut h. (Foucault 2007: 47)
This reconf igurat ion of problems is suggest ive of a way t o suspend t he riparian user
wit hin t he alt ered hist orical cont ext of comput at ionalit y and neoliberal goverment alit y.
Consider t he pract ices associat ed wit h media art : hacking, f ree and open source
sof t ware, net crit icism and so on. Consider Philip Agre's inf luent ial f ramework of
'crit ical t echnical pract ice' (1997) or, more recent ly, Julian Oliver, Gordan Savii, and
Danja Vasiliev's 'Crit ical Engineering Manif est o',
The Crit ical Engineer considers any t echnology depended upon t o be bot h
a challenge and a t hreat . The great er t he dependence on a t echnology t he
great er t he need t o st udy and expose it s inner workings, regardless of
ownership or legal provision... raises awareness t hat wit h each
t echnological advance our t echno-polit ical lit eracy is challenged.
(Oliver, Savii & Vasiliev 2011).
Such examples aim t o process exist ing regimes precisely t hrough t heir capacit y t o
suspend or reconf igure any 'correct ' t echniques and cont ext s f or engaging wit h
inf ormat ional inf rast ruct ures, whet her commercial int erf aces, plat f orm services,
junked hardware, at mospheric sensors, net work t raf f ic or geo-t agged dat a. We are
suggest ing t hat t hese pract ices work t o hack t he relat ional, af f ect ive and algorit hmic
logics of neoliberal subject ivit y t o t he ext ent t hat we begin t o act ively t hink wit h t hese
inf rast ruct ures in new ways, apply a t hreshold of encouragement t o break privat ized
senses of risk and loss, t o diagram st ruct ural violences, t o reconf igure at -risk
ecologies of pract ices, and so t o f ost er dif f erent modes of comport ment . If crit ique
always f orms wit hin pre-exist ing condit ions and set t ings, it does so t hrough 'volunt ary
disobedience.'
There are, of course, const ant and ongoing risks involved in crit ique, and in crit ical
cult ural pract ices, since t hey are provoked by dif f icult ies carried along by insecurit y
and precariousness it self . Nevert heless, we should not be disheart ened or
disappoint ed by t hese challenges. As Judit h But ler argues in her comment ary on
Foucault s lect ure, t his is "a moment of et hical quest ioning which requires t hat we
54
break t he habit s of judgment in f avor of a riskier pract ice t hat seeks t o yield art ist ry
f rom const raint " (But ler 2001). The moment , or movement , of crit ique is not based on
correct ing errors or mist akes, but on a 'virt ue' of quest ioning t he limit s t hemselves.
Crit ical aest het ic pract ices t end t o involve pulling open conduct ions of cont rol,
surf acing f rom t wist ed ensembles of t hings, dragging t heir problemat ic conf igurat ions
int o view. Such ef f ort s have been cent ral t o media art in t he past , but how can t hese
pract ices be f ost ered under current conf igurat ions of compulat ionalism and t he
dest ruct ive t endencies of neoliberal government alit y? Can t he New Aest het ic
illuminat e t hese ecologies of pract ices in new ways, t o light up f or an inst ant t he
invest ment s, subject ivit ies and conf lict s t hat def ine a crit ical net work cult ure?

Ref resh
A key premise of t his book has rest ed on a relat ively uncont roversial claim t hat t he
digit al, especially sof t ware, is an increasingly import ant aspect of our post -Fordist
inf ormat ional societ ies and cult ural pract ices. We have t aken a synopt ic look at t he
digit al t hrough t he phenomenon of t he New Aest het ic, t he quest ions it raises, and t he
st yle of comport ment t hat it suggest s. This experiment in t hinking t he present t hrough
collaborat ive and int erdisciplinary aut horship has enabled us t o consider t he prof ound
ways in which comput at ionalit y and neoliberal government alit y are imbricat ed wit hin
emerging aest het ic f orms, expressions, logics and ef f ect s. The 'deep' mat erialit y of
t he digit al cryst allizes part icular social f orms and values, but also generat es new
ment alit ies in combinat ion wit h economic f orms and social relat ions. This not ion of
comput at ionalit y as ontotheology indicat es t he prevailing doxa of a digit ally mat erial
world. Indeed, as Marx argued,
Technology reveals t he act ive relat ion of man t o nat ure, t he direct process
of t he product ion of his lif e, and t hereby it also lays bare t he process of
product ion of t he social relat ions of his lif e, and of t he ment al concept ions
t hat f low f rom t hese concept ions (Marx 2007: 493, f oot not e 4).
We are not suggest ing here t hat excesses of inst rument al reason, delegat ed int o
machines, have creat ed a t ot alit arian dyst opia where t he comput at ional and t he
inst rument al have become synonomous. That is a reading of t echnology t hat
Heidegger crit icized as a poor underst anding of t echnology which remains "caught in
t he subject /object pict ure" (Dreyf us 1997). In Heidegger's f inal analysis, t he goal of
t echnology was "somet hing complet ely dif f erent and t heref ore new" (1977: 5). It
involved increasingly ef f icient orderings of resources simply f or t he sake of t his
ordering and it has creat ed a world in which "everyt hing is ordered t o st and by, t o be
immediat ely at hand, indeed t o st and t here just so t hat it may be on call f or a f urt her
ordering" (1977: 17). Crucially, it 's at t his level t hat we have been drawing links
bet ween comput at ionalit y, t hought and comport ment .

Neoliberal Re-Forms
55
We now f ind ourselves in a sit uat ion of increasing reliance on digit al t echnologies of
comput at ion and calculat ive rat ionalit ies. Many of t hese syst ems were init ially
designed t o support or aid t he judgement of people in undert aking specif ic act ivit ies,
analyses, and decisions, but t hey have long since "surpassed t he underst anding of
t heir users and become indispensible t o t hem" (Weizenbaum 1984: 236). Wit h a lack
of adequat e t echnical lit eracy, combined wit h processes of blackboxing, t hese
syst ems t hemselves resist int errogabilit y. Accordingly, in our current dependency on
comput at ionalit y, such inf rast ruct ures t end t oward growt h, t hrough addit ion of cont rol
at higher and higher levels of abst ract ion (Beniger, 1986). Indeed, as Kit chin (2011)
argues, sof t ware can t ie in st rongly wit h specif ic regimes of government alit y, in dense
and complicat ed pat t erns and dynamics:
Over t he past t wo cent uries a mode of government alit y has developed in
West ern societ y t hat is heavily reliant on generat ing and monit oring
syst emat ic inf ormat ion about individuals by inst it ut ions. Sof t ware-enabled
t echnologies qualit at ively alt er bot h t he dept h and t he scope of t his
disciplinary gaze, but also int roduce new f orms of governance, because
t hey make t he syst ems and apparat us of governance more panopt ical in
nat ure. At t he t echnical level, sof t ware is producing new machine-readable
and sof t ware-sort ed geographies t hat are radically alt ering how cit ies are
regulat ed Sof t ware creat es more ef f ect ive syst ems of surveillance and
creat es new capt ure syst ems t hat act ively reshape behaviour by alt ering
t he nat ure of a t ask. In recent years t here has been much academic
at t ent ion paid t o qualit at ive changes in surveillance t echnologies as t hey
have become digit al in nat ure, leading t o t he development of a new f ield of
surveillance st udies. That said, t here is st ill much concept ual and empirical
work t o be done t o underst and how f orms of governance are being
t ransf ormed and t he role played by sof t ware, and not simply t he broader
t echnologies t hey enable. (Kit chin 2011: 949)
Neoliberalisms deep penet rat ion int o subject ivit y, or what Foucault called
subject ivat ion, pulls economized, 'market -civilizat ion' t hinking int o social spheres in
ways t hat work in dest ruct ive and at omizing regist ers. This is one of t he challenges, in
our view, marked by t he New Aest het ic.
Drawing on Lauren Berlant s concept ion of mediat ized subject ives t hat at t une t o such
present s by f inding f orm (2011), we have considered t he New Aest het ic as just one
kind of af f ect ively compelling genre t hat had success as a 'concept ' f or hinging
oneself t o an obf uscat ed present . From specif ic condit ions of possibilit y, it spoke of
pat t erns, comput at ional regimes and economic condit ions t hat had become very much
our own. The New Aest het ic t wist ed convent ional anxiet ies; f or us, t he predict able
resist ance seemed t oo st aid, even f or t hose who were ambivalent about it . This
phenomenon showed us t hat t o t hink aest het ic encount ers now, we need t o t hink
dif f erent ly. The New Aest het ic isolat es t he urgency of our need f or new concept s: t o
be clearer on how t he dynamics of civil societ y have become increasingly eroded away
and are being reworked by comput at ional t echnologies and neoliberal t echnocrat ic
orders.
These relat e t o aest het ics of comport ment , t o orient at ions wit h object s, relat ionships,
56
t hings and communit ies. Experiment al art and crit ical project s might at t empt t o t hink
t hrough t hese inf rast ruct ures by playing wit h and breaking t he logics and medial
af f ordances dif f erent ly. We are emphasizing t he urgency precisely because all of
t his plays out on t he t opos provided by comput at ional t echnologies, on loose, hazy
neoliberalized social f abrics, which in a similar way t o sof t ware, render older f orms of
at t achment s and subject posit ions irrelevant . As Gelernt er argues:
No moment in t echnology hist ory has ever been more excit ing or
dangerous t han 'now.' As we learn more about now, we know less about
t hen. The Int ernet increases t he supply of inf ormat ion hugely, but t he
capacit y of t he human mind not at all The ef f ect of nowness resembles
t he ef f ect of light pollut ion in large cit ies, which makes it impossible t o see
t he st ars. A f lood of inf ormat ion about t he present shut s out t he past
(Gelernt er 2010).

Irrupt ions of t he Digit al int o t he Real, Economics int o Cult ure
Writ ing in t he Dut ch cont ext , we underst and t he cont emporary periods inat t ent ion t o
t he ef f ect s on t he subject of neoliberal t ransit ion as sympt omat ic of t he success of it s
ideological t akeover. Emerging aest het ic f orms and crit ical pract ices can raise
import ant quest ions about t he aut onomy and cont inuit y of t he human agent in t his
present where mat t ers of aut onomy f or cult ural pract it ioners and crit ics are becoming
increasingly st ressed and quest ioned.
In such cont ext s, moving t oward a technological polit ics is necessary. Consider f or
example t hat t he aut o-curat ion of t he st ream's processing Tumblr blogs, Twit t er
f eeds, and so f ort h - does not just provide inf ormat ion t o t he user, but also act ively
const ruct s, direct s, and even newly creat es, signif icant socio-cognit ive condit ions f or
t he subject ivit y of t he real-t ime st ream, a kind of algorithmic humanity. This is how t he
subject is capt ured by t he New Aest het ic, whose comport ment seems hooked t o t he
minimizat ion of risk, and shot t hrough wit h project ive sent iment alit y. We f eel
phenomena such t his might , as Derrida has argued,
Oblige us more t han ever t o t hink t he virt ualizat ion of space and t ime, t he
possibilit y of virt ual event s whose movement and speed prohibit us more
t han ever (more and ot herwise t han ever, f or t his is not absolut ely and
t horoughly new) f rom opposing presence t o it s represent at ion, 'real t ime'
t o 'def erred t ime,' ef f ect ivit y t o it s simulacrum, t he living t o t he non-living,
in short , t he living t o t he living-dead of it s ghost s (Derrida 1994: 212).
Sof t ware changes t he games of cult ural work and product ion; t he lesson t akes a long
t ime t o learn and is complicat ed by ot her parallel condit ions. The neoliberal economy is
not just driven by sof t ware as a kind of symbolic machine but inst ead is made of
sof t ware, as Galloway has emphasized (2012a). It f ost ers in a logic of t he ext ract ion
of value based on t he encoding and processing of mat hemat ical inf ormat ion (10). But
t his is not just t o say t hat sof t ware is a kind of concept ual mot or underpinning t he
economy, and usef ul f or t hinking it t hrough: more and more, sof t ware is t he t hing
which is direct ly ext ract ing value (10). For Galloway, t his sof t ware condit ion, like our
57
crisis-ridden economic condit ion, is impossible t o "wish away;" t here is cont rarilly a
"special relat ion t oday bet ween t he mode of product ion and it s mat hemat ics"
(11). The New Aest het ic f ound t his special relat ion, in it s absolut ely direct capt uring of
it s pat t erns, channels and economies of at t ent ion.

Implicat ions of an Apolit ical New Aest het ic
If it is not obvious by now, we have been as a collect ive dif f erent ly innervat ed,
perplexed and ambivalent about t his t hing called t he New Aest het ic. While we are
keen t o dist ance ourselves f rom a possible passive reading/writ ing of it s st yle, a st yle
t hat we have described as riparian, in as much as it encourages consumpt ion of a
cert ain kind of digit al product (ion), t he New Aest het ic as a case has delivered t o us
more underst anding of t he present condit ion and t he possibilit ies of using media t o
reconf igure t hings a lit t le. The way t hat t he phenomena so st rongly linked
comput at ion wit h consumpt ion and aspect s of t he neoliberal economic realit y,
enabled us t o generat e new insight s and quest ions; f or example, about t he care f or
art ist ic and creat ive work, t hat we have capt ured in t he curat orial anxiet ies st ressed in
t he middle sect ion of t his book. It has f elt crucial, moreover, t hat t hese complex
assocat ions t hat we have generat ed in proximit y t o t he t hing creat e ref lexive
art iculat ions. Here, we are recognizing our own pot ent ial breaks f rom comput at ional
and calculat ive reason. As Darrow Schect er not es,
The exercise of power and t he f ormalisat ion of knowledge t o be int imat ely
bound up wit h t he const it ut ion of living individuals as subject s of
knowledge, t hat is, as cit izens and populat ions about whom knowledge is
syst emat ically const ruct ed... Subject s are not born subject s so much as
t hey become t hem. In t he course of becoming subject s t hey are classif ied
in innumerable ways which cont ribut e t o t heir social int egrat ion, even if
t hey are simult aneously marginalised in many cases. (Schect er 2010: 171)
Our neoliberal selves have become more st rongly at t ached t o t he norms of 'market
civilizat ion' t hrough specif ic combinat ions of rat ionalit ies, st rat egies, t echnologies and
t echniques t hat mobilize government at a dist ance, and by manipulat ions of power
t hrough t he economic and discursive net works of a massively deregulat ed and
expanding new media (Gupt a and Sharma: 2006).
The most convent ional anxiet y around neoliberal subject f ormat ion is t hat t his mode
of government alit y reduces cit izens t o consumers only, enf olding all of lif e and cult ure
t o it s represent at ional pract ices. This is it s logic of course, but it can not be ever f ully
achieved. As Wendy Brown (2006) has argued, t he dif f erence of t he regimes and
pract ices of neoliberal t ransit ion is t hat t hey emphasize market rat ionalit y as an
already-achieved st at e, rat her t han an aspirat ion. This gives neoliberalism a
t eleological f orce and ordinariness t hat is dif f icult t o count er, and unpack. It is
signif icant t wist of already-realized market rat ionalizat ion t hat has signif icant
ramif icat ions not just on a t heory of t he subject , but f ollowing f rom t his, on any t heory
of t he spect at or or user of art , media, design, and cult ure. The New Aest het ic
acknowledges t he ensconcement of neoliberalism in subject ivit y, but t o t hink
aest het ics 'now', how can we t hink beyond t his?
58
Indeed, t here are huge dif f icult ies. To t he ext ent t hat neoliberal government alit y
subordinat es st at e power t o t he requirement s of t he market place, 'polit ical problems'
become lit erally privat ized, while cit izens are simult aneously promised new levels of
f reedom, consumerism, cust omisat ion, int eract ivit y and cont rol over t heir lives. This
exacerbat es anxiet y about whet her such f reedoms can be claimed or regist ered. In
ot her words, t he subject is promised an unf ulf illed expect at ion, t o t he ext ent t hey are
able t o exert t heir individual agency. While t he liberal subject aspired t o own her labour
and was mobilized by relat ed ideals (invert ed in Marx), t he neoliberal subject is t asked
not just wit h 'looking af t er t hemselves,' but wit h t ot ally embodying t heir own human
capit al biopolit ically and over t ime: as gat hered, cont ext ually adapt ive, and collat eral.
This is of huge relevance t o a polit ics of aest het ics, since once t he subject becomes
f igured as their own human capit al, it erodes away t he dist inct ion bet ween f igure and
ground, product ion and reproduct ion, creat ing mobile, speculat ive ident if icat ions, such
t hat we have observed in t he New Aest het ic. The subject 's comport ment t owards
const ant growt h is bot h necessary and precarious, as growt h is considered more
import ant t han ret urns; t he subject invest s in opport unit ies, selves, presence, object s,
t ools, comput er learning and so on, t o maximize claims on t he real (see Bolt anski and
Chiapello 2006).
In order t o f acilit at e neoliberal governence, cert ain inf rast ruct ural and t echnocrat ic
syst ems have been put in place; bureaucrat ic st ruct ures, compat ible comput at ional
agencies and so f ort h. But it is clear t hat providing inf ormat ion t o cit izens is not
suf f icient f or cont rolling and inf luencing behaviour. People's abilit y t o underst and and
manipulat e raw dat a or inf ormat ion is more limit ed in many cont ext s; t here is a heavy
reliance on habit , underst ood as part of t he human condit ion. As comput at ional
procedures pick up more of t his ordering work, goals and project s come t o be co-
expressed wit hin a comput at ional st ruct ure: real-t ime st reams t hat are procedural,
algorit hmic, modular, and quant it at ively expressed, are very amenable t o
neoliberalism. Indeed, t he ident it ies or roles t hat we t ake on enable us t o carry
ourselves comput at ionally, t hrough self -t racking, lif e-hacking, monit oring, et c. Clearly,
t hese also link t o t he represent at ional pract ices of a passive New Aest het ic.
The New Aest het ic sent iment alizes some of t hese hard f act s. Meanwhile, t he
ideological encroachment of market rat ionalizat ion, which t he curat ors among us have
f ound it crit ical t o t hink with, especially in proximit y t o t he concept of care and art ist ic
labour, has signif icant ramif icat ions not just on a t heory of t he subject , but on
approaches t o crit ical pract ice around emergent aest het ic f orms.

New Aest het ic: Crit ique as Pract ice
A concept of t en ref erenced f rom Foucault is his not ion of 'problemat icizat ion.' During
a lat e int erview wit h Paul Rabinow, he explained t his as an act of t hought involving t he
process of defining a problem (Foucault : 2000). Problemat izat ion is a rare concert ed
ef f ort t hat occurs when conf ront ed wit h dif f icult ies t hat arise f rom polit ical, social
and economic processes. These dif f icult ies somet imes cat alyze t hought by
int errupt ing it s consist ency; t hey provoke mult if acet ed or opposing responses, but
59
ult imat ely responses t hat t oget her posit a const it ut ive cont ext of t he problemat ic.
Under such condit ions, t hought , f or Foucault , is t hat which allows one t o 'st ep back'
f rom conduct , t o present conduct as an object of t hought and t o quest ion it s
meaning, goals and condit ions: t hought is f reedom in relat ion t o what one does, t he
mot ion by which one det aches f rom it , est ablishes it as an object , and ref lect s on it as
a problem (Foucault 2000: 117). This mot ion of f reeing up conduct is t he object of
Foucault s work, but also his pract ice. In ot her words, problemat izat ions are sought
out and re-posit ed in unt imely ways in t he present . Here, what is import ant is what
makes t hem simult aneously possible: it is t he point in which t heir simult aneit y is
root ed; it is t he soil t hat can nourish t hem all in t heir diversit y and somet imes in spit e
of t heir cont radict ions (Foucault 2000: 118) The re-posit ing of problems t hemselves
an act of bot h discovery and creat ion is t he domain of crit ique. How does t his
work? There exist s a st range doubling in t he not ion of re-posit ing a problem a
gest ure of het erogenesis t hat cannot be secured t hrough a set of f ormal crit eria, nor a
moralit y of solut ions, but always a kind of movement t hat grapples wit h it s own
const it ut ion.
We underst and t hat emerging aest het ic and crit ical pract ices do have pot ent ial t o
creat e such movement s. They present opport unit ies t o ret hink not only t he cont ext of
media art , but a variet y of sit uat ed pract ices, including speculat ive design, net
crit icism, hacking, f ree and open source sof t ware development , locat ive media,
sust ainable hardware and so on. This is how we have considered t he New Aest het ic:
as an opport unit y t o ret hink t he relat ions bet ween t hese cont ext s in t he emergent
epist eme of comput at ionalit y. There is a desperat e need t o conf ront t he polit ical
pressures of neoliberalism manif est ed in t hese inf rast ruct ures. We agree wit h Hal
Fost er in a recent essay, "surely now is a bad t ime t o go post -crit ical" (2012). Indeed,
t hese are risky, dangerous and problemat ic t imes, and t hese are periods when crit ique
should t hrive, but here we need t o f orge new alliances, invent and discover problems
of t he common t hat nevert heless do not eliminat e t he f undament al dif f erences in t his
ecology of pract ices (St engers 2005). Here, perhaps provocat ively, we believe a great
deal could be learned f rom t he development of t he New Aest het ic not only as a mood,
but as a t opic and f ix f or collect ive f eeling, t hat t emporarily mobilizes net works. Is it
possible t o sust ain and capt ure t hese at mospheres of debat e and discussion beyond
knee-jerk react ions and opport unist ic self -promot ion? These are crucial quest ions
t hat t he New Aest het ic invit es us t o consider, if only t o keep a crit ical net work cult ure
in place.

New Aest het ics: Pract ice as Resist ance
Any range of emerging aest het ic f orms, processing t hese condit ions, could of f er
cert ain 'exploit s' t o surf ace t he digit al and it s inequalit ies and cont rol in dif f erent ways
(Thacker and Galloway, 2007). What we might call t he 'knowledge inf rast ruct ure' is an
import ant possible sit e of resist ance in it self , reinf orced t hrough t he dif f usion of
t echnologies of t he inf ormat ion societ y. This can clearly be seen in t he pract ices of t he
hackers of t he f ree sof t ware and open source movement s and t heir crit ical pract ices
and discourses. Whilst we have not had space or t ime t o engage wit h t hese hacking
60
pract ices in relat ion t o t he New Aest het ic here, it is clear t hat t he overlaps, synergies
and connect ions remain relevant here we t hink of open access, piracy, and glit ch as
some of t he possible crit ical movement s t hat also have a popular f ollowing and link t o
current ly exist ing cult ural pract ices. There are also import ant crit iques t o be
est ablished and int ervent ions t o be made in a const ant ly st rengt hening and
cont ent ious regime of int ellect ual propert y right s which walk hand-in-hand wit h t he
growing inst it ut ionalisat ion of t he informative part of t he economy. It remains t he case
t hat t he onward march of copyright and pat ent regimes is not just overbearing, but in
some cases t hreat ens lif e it self . The dimensions of a crit ical making-visible of
comput at ionalit y, accordingly, must remain linked t o an aest het ic pract ice,
New t echnologies and new ways of using inf ormat ion are cont inually being
developed and t hese serve t o quest ion our assumpt ions about copyright
and creat ivit y. The current criminalisat ion of piracy, dat a t hef t and
hacking are t he lat est salvos by indust ries t rying t o rest rict t he f low and
use of t heir creat ive work. It is int erest ing t o not e t hat t he owners of t hese
creat ive works are seldom t he creat ors and pressure f or t he ext ension and
st rengt hening of copyright comes almost exclusively f rom t he mult inat ional
corporat ions. This alone should raise quest ions as t o who is benef it ing
f rom t he rise in int ellect ual propert y prot ect ion (Berry 2008: 28).
We might consider how creat ive works are increasingly dist ribut ed t hrough
paramet erizat ion, data-pours and t he 'embed' mechanism, which, of course, Tumblr
also uses. These are import ant dimensions of comprehension and crit ique (Liu 2004).
For exampe, cert ain nat ional copyright regimes have been st ruct ured t o creat e 'saf e
harbours' f or part icular ways of using and sharing digit al cult ure more generally. At t he
level of t he screenic t hese pract ices have increasingly become invisible t o t he user,
who remains bolst ered by t he ease of f low of t he st reams of dat a across t he browser
onscreen, whilst comput at ional processes mediat e t he 'correct ' use of copyright ed
mat erials, display aut horisat ions, and so f ort h. Needless t o say, whilst also collect ing
so-called 't racking' dat a about how t he screen and int erf ace are used t hrough t he use
of compactants and relat ed t echnologies (Berry, 2012a).

The New Aest het ic and Everyday Lif e
In so f ar as neoliberal government alit y also subordinat es st at e power t o t he
requirement s of t he market place, polit ical problems turn t o be re-present ed or cast in
market t erms. If t he New Aest het ic concerns t he ubiquit y of digit al and net worked
syst ems, t hen t hink about how comput at ion has challenged and reconf igured t he
ways in which cit izens and subject s now underst and t hemselves, f or example: (1)
Educat ion How well educat ed and lit erat e or people in relat ion t o t he digit al
st ruct ure of t he cont emporary world. How act ive are t hey in t heir part icipat ion in t he
polit ics of digit al t echnology, (2) Healt h - What t ypically is t he condit ion of peoples
physical st rengt h and healt h, addit ionally t heir ment al and physical skills f or
development and coping? (3) How well acquaint ed are people wit h t he art s in digit al
cult ure and how prof icient are t hey in art ist ic pract ices and t heir relat ion t o t hem; and
last ly (4) Convivialit y - How compassionat e are people privat ely as cit izens of
61
inf ormat ional societ ies? How devot ed are t hey t o helping ot hers who suf f er
deprivat ion and hardship? How conciliat ory are t hey t owards t heir opponent s and
enemies in net work cult ures (f lame wars, et c.)?
Clearly t oo, t he New Aest het ic as t he surf ace manif est at ion of t he comput at ional
device, it s polit ics, has been usef ul f or gaining only so many hooks on t he
comprehension of t he present and t he possible f orms of pract ice and crit ique t owards
t his condit ion. We considered f irst ly t hat t he New Aest het ic is an ideological
manif est at ion of a comput at ional ont ot heology being inst ant iat ed in a number of
medial moment s (t echnology, polit ics, social movement s, t he environment , t he st at e).
We also wished t o deconst ruct it s at t ract ive manif est at ion of t he commodit y f orm as
ends wit hout means, in ef f ect an example of commodit y f et ishism. Finally, our crit ique
implies a new f orm of lit eracy, which elsewhere Berry (2012c) has called 'it eracy,' able
t o underst and and int ervene direct ly in t he t echnological syst em we inhabit .
Cognit ively, it has been argued t hat st reams are also suit ed t o a t ype of reading called
dist ant reading as opposed t o t he close reading of t he humanit ies (Moret t i 2007).
This close reading has creat ed a cert ain t ype of subject : narrat ivised, linear, what
McLuhan called 't ypographic man' (1962). At present , t here is a paradoxical
relat ionship bet ween t he close reading current ly t aught in educat ional inst it ut ions and
t he dist ant reading required f or algorit hmic approaches t o inf ormat ion. To illust rat e,
books are a great example of a media f orm t hat uses t ypographic devices f or aiding
cognit ion f or close reading: chapt ers, paragraphs, serif f ont s, avoiding t ext ual 'rivers'
and whit e space. Most not ably, t hese were inst ant iat ed int o prof essional t ypographic
pract ices t hat are t hemselves now under st ress f rom comput at ional algorit hmic
approaches t o t ypeset t ing and product ion. Close reading devices required a deep
sense of awareness in relat ion t o t he reader as a part icular conscious and act ive
subject : aut onomous, linear, narrat ivised, and capable of f eat s of memory and
cognit ive processing. Devices, meanwhile, were associat ed wit h a const ellat ion of
pract ices t hat were surrounded around t he concept of t he aut hor.
We want t o ext end t his observat ion and consider how neoliberalism and comput at ion
complement each ot her, but where nonet heless t his complement arit y opens f olds f or
crit ically t hinking t hrough t he issues and quest ions t hat are raised bot h by t he new
aest het ic and t he new anxiet ies it appears t o int roduce. Crucially, Foucault 's
perspect ive on crit icalit y, int roduced at t he st art of t his chapt er, suggest s t he
possibilit y of a subject manif est ed wit hin arrangement s of power, whilst nonet heless
capable of drawing limit s, capable of being a line-of -f light wit hin comput at ionalit y.
Here, as Schect er not es,
Crit ical t hinking can deconst ruct t he visible harmony bet ween casual
seeing and inst rument al reason... in cont rast wit h monolit hic appearances,
surf aces are charact erised by st rat a and f olds t hat can inf lect power t o
creat e new t rut hs, desires and f orms of experience (Schect er 2010: 175).
This link bet ween percept ion (not just visualit y) and power raises t he quest ion of an
aest het ic it self deployed t owards int elligibilit y. Tumblrs, and relat ed collect ion-orient ed
comput at ional syst ems cert ainly cont ribut e t o visualizing f orms of underst anding,
t hrough t he generat ion of geomet ric and phot ographic t rut hs manif est ed in paint ed
62
screens and surf aces. However, t here is st ill import ant crit ical and creat ive work t o be
done t o f ully conf ront t his realit y of 21st cent ury visual cult ure, one t hat is
comput at ionally mediat ed and sat urat ed wit h consumerism and market s. Indeed, we
would argue t hat t he quest ion remains not one of f inding t he represent at ional New
Aest het ic, but t he conscious and act ive cult ivat ion of new aesthetics (plural).
63
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13. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
By it s very nat ure, a booksprint is an int ense experience: t hree and a half days of
int ense writ ing and collaborat ive t hinking. To pull somet hing like t his of f requires a lot
of help on many levels.
First and f oremost , t hanks t o Adam Hyde f or his guidance, support and f acilit at ion
over t he t hree and a half days. His expert f acilit at ion and t he Bookt ype sof t ware
made t his book possible.
We would like t o t hank t he wonderf ul st af f and associat es of V2_ Inst it ut e f or t he
Unst able Media, Rot t erdam. There are almost t oo many t oo list , but Arie Alt ena, Joris
van Ballegooijen, Sof ia Bust orf f , Roxanne Duart e da Cruz, and Wilco Tuinman
deserve special ment ion. Also t hanks t o our designer Arjen de Jong of BURO duplex
f or t he f ront cover of t his book and also f or generat ing t he designs f or t he booksprint
event .
The exact shape of t his book was not clear at t he st art : t he init ial provocat ion t o t he
aut hors was ent it led Fiddling While Rome Burns? and cent red around beaut y,
aest het ics, and economic crisis. It was wide open at t he beginning but once we were
all in t he same room, quickly t he phenomenon of t he New Aest het ic became cent ral t o
our discussions. We wish t o ext end t hanks t o James Bridle f or st art ing t he Tumblr and
init iat ing debat e around t he New Aest het ic.
The init ial responses t o James Bridle's present at ion of t he New Aest het ic were also of
course very int erest ing. We were inspired by Bruce St erling, Marius Wat z, Mez
Breeze, Christ iane Paul, and many, many ot hers.
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