Philosophy Commons^™

Melodramatic Joy In Ibrahim Nasrallah’S Trilogy Of The Bells, Adam V. Spanos

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This essay argues that absurdist humor, so often theorized as a challenge to metaphysical and identitarian claims, in fact supports such claims within the context of anticolonial nationalist melodrama. In his Trilogy of the Bells [2019], Palestinian writer Ibrahim Nasrallah uses the conventions of melodrama to make an epistemological claim specific to Palestinian experience. Confronting a regime that has been largely successful in determining the internationally accepted common sense about the conflict, Nasrallah aims to present the external world with a narrative of Palestinian history, experience, and aspirations. The Manichean distinctions, spectacular displays of pathos, and manifestations of suppressed secrets …

Introduction, Gioia Laura Iannilli, Ossi Naukkarinen, Enrico Glerean

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Preserving Meaning In An Age Of Algorithms And Ai, David L. Hildebrand

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

New technologies not only surveil and collect data about us, they also change and alter the way we make or preserve meaning, including aesthetic meaning. Accordingly, the ways we consider, research, and educate aesthetics will have to adapt, at least insofar as it keeps a new range of technological dimensions in mind. To help imagine such dimensions, this paper examines the opportunities and challenges of technologies offering new ways of creating things while also nudging and “hypernudging” our actions. Such developments may initially seem trivial but they are changing our relationships with one another and with ourselves. After a brief, …

Human And Ai Perspectives On Academic Aesthetics, Gioia Laura Iannilli, Ossi Naukkarinen

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The purpose of this article is to examine how current AI tools can be used in aesthetics research and teaching. We focus in particular on one theme: how traditional ways of describing the field of aesthetics as a whole could relate to descriptions made with the help of artificial intelligence. Describing the field and its main questions is unavoidable when we teach and research aesthetics; our question is, how can AI be used for that? Starting from a new meta-aesthetic tripartite model of aesthetics that we introduce, we raise a set of questions to pave the way to a more …

Anticipation And Aesthetics After Automation, Tanya Ravn Ag

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper explores generative technology’s ongoing aesthetic evolution through the lens of anticipation. It proposes anticipation as an alternative perspective to automation to understand the implications of generative technology in relation to aesthetic production and evolution. By focusing on anticipation, the discussion shifts from merely considering AI’s impact on aesthetics as instrumental to creative production to examining the anticipative behaviors and affective responses these technologies develop, engage, and cultivate through our interactions with them. Understanding generative technology as anticipatory highlights how deeply human and cultural expectations influence the design, recursive adaptation, and future anticipations of AI systems. Viewing our engagements …

Aesthetics In The Age Of Ai: A Methodological Self-Delineation, Anne Virginia Meindl

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Current debates on AI entering aesthetic practices often take on a normative stance by evaluating the artistic status of AI art. This article seeks to develop a different perspective by referring back to the original descriptive meaning of ‘aisthesis’ and also to the origins of aesthetics as discourse on the senses and art. Introducing a Hegelian understanding of the artistic medium—as formally modeling a certain structure of consciousness rather than just as a neutral means of representation—this article provides a methodological starting point of an aesthetically engaged critique of AI’s implicit subject model. Rather than operating with abstract definitions of …

An Agent Or A Tool? Artificial Intelligence, Heidegger’S Robot And The Ignorant’S Toaster, David Holtgrave

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Be it in art, aesthetics, or anywhere in or beyond academia, artificial intelligence, or AI, often is said to do a lot of stuff formerly done by humans. In this essay, I will argue that this line of thinking is to some extent misleading. On my account, it is still humans that do the same stuff, only by different means. Taking its employment and discussion in the arts as an example, I will set up and discuss what I call the ‘agent view’ of AI and show how, for those cases in which we typically attribute agency to AI, this …

The Mimesis Of Difference: A Deleuzian Study Of Generative Ai In Artistic Production, Jakub Mácha

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This study uses the traditional concept of mimesis, reframed by Deleuze as a repetition of difference, to investigate art created by large language models (LLMs) or generative pretrained transformers (GPTs). The current rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is intensifying the mimetic repetition of the different. An AI system repeats carefully selected elements from its extensive training dataset. Rearranging these elements introduces differences in the mimetic repetition. Since the training dataset is updated over longer time frames, it is analogous to a static Platonic universe. Once AI can update its static elements with each repetition, it will become the true Dionysian …

Is Generative Ai In Aesthetics Really New?: The Visualist Perspective, Michalle Gal

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The concept of AI in aesthetics is encountering interest as new algorithmic machines now generate visual works alongside philosophical discourse, sparking both enthusiasm and concern. Yet, this idea has deep roots, reflected in longstanding debates within the discipline. These discussions, which are similar to the new ones, have examined issues like the illusion of an image or object’s ontological stability; the nature of function and user control; distinctions between the natural and artificial, authenticity and forgery; the divide between handmade and mass-produced items; the challenges of readymade and indiscernibility in art; and the potential of ekphrasis. As a result, skepticism …

On Deepfakes And Dog Whistles: Thinking Aesthetically About Generative Ai, Maja Bak Herrie

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This article focuses on the aesthetic dimensions of contemporary media created with generative AI, challenging traditional dichotomies of truth and falsehood, real and fake. It draws upon diverse examples including Samsung’s “Space Zoom” images of the moon, AI-driven political imagery, and the randomized aesthetics of Google’s Gemini. Additionally, it examines two artistic projects by Elisa Giardina Papa and Trevor Paglen. The article argues for an aesthetic analysis that goes beyond debates over authenticity, highlighting instead the inherent complexity and weirdness of these digital artifacts by exploring how AI reshapes perceptions of reality. By invoking, among other things, theories of agnotology, …

Prompting Aesthetic Ideologies Of Generative Text-To-Image Ai, Lotte Philipsen

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In generative AI, text-to-image prompting has gained popularity, which calls for image theoretical attention. This article evokes critical image theory, developed by Norman Bryson and W. J. Thomas Mitchell in the 1980s and 1990s, which offers important, relevant nuances when analyzing contemporary AI image-tools. By investigating specific cases of text-to-image AI through this theoretical filter, the article demonstrates how certain aesthetic ideologies—especially perceptualism, the idea of natural images, and splitting and hierarchization of text and image—govern generative AI.

Beauty And The Bit: Ai-Driven Philosophical Aesthetics, Stefano De Giorgis, Aldo Gangemi

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper presents a novel computational framework for formalizing and analyzing philosophical aesthetics discourse through the integration of knowledge representation techniques and large language models (LLMs). The framework introduces a structure based on four elements combining source texts, core ontology, knowledge graphs, and interpretative mappings to systematically capture both explicit content and implicit semantic relationships in aesthetics texts. Through a case study analyzing works by Dewey, Danto, and Sibley, we demonstrate how this approach enables the systematic reverse engineering of aesthetic analytical methods while maintaining semantic stability and interpretative clarity. The framework leverages human expert annotation alongside LLM capabilities to …

Appraiset: Discussions On A New Art Dataset, Thomas Şerban Von Davier, Max Van Kleek, Nigel Shadbolt Frs, Freng, Fbcs

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Artificial intelligence (AI) applications in the arts have gained significant attention, particularly with the advent of generative AI. Researchers have explored AI’s capability to create art autonomously or in collaboration with artists, and AI’s role in curating, classifying, and applying aesthetic metrics to artwork. However, the opaque nature of proprietary algorithms used in these applications presents challenges for understanding AI’s influence on aesthetics. To address this, open-source data and code are essential for investigating how AI can develop its own aesthetic language. This paper introduces AppraiSet, an open art dataset containing evaluative metadata designed to support the field of …

Data Mining And Ai Visualization Of Key Terms From U.S. Supreme Court Cases From 1789 To 2022, Kory Blose, Heidi Biggs, Robbie Fraleigh, Luke Meeken, Eduardo Navas

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In this paper, we take on the question of the potential risks of AI in aesthetics: What kind of risks does AI pose? To engage with this question, we focus on how generative AI models’ results consist of decontextualized content that does not always correspond with its historical context. From this standpoint, bias and misinterpretation pose major challenges in academic aesthetics because AI can be used both as a tool to make research more specific and precise and also for quick results that avoid in-depth research and on the surface may appear decisive and accurate. We set out to expose …

"Inspiring Empathy": A Descriptive Review Of A Musical Composition, Garo Saraydarian

Educational Studies Dissertations

This study explored the experiences of college professors using an assessment approach, descriptive review, to assess undergraduate music compositions. College professors, and educators in general, often debate best practices around assessing student work. A literature review showed a debate amongst music educators over approaches to assessing student compositions, with rubrics being especially controversial. Descriptive review uses collective discussion and a series of non-judgmental exercises that aim for participants to become more intimate with a student and their work. As an assessment technique that had been used to look at student artwork, albeit at the elementary grade level, descriptive review has …

Unframing Spatial Presence And Resonating Aesthetic Presence : A “Continuous Interaction” Of Visitor Engagement With Chinese Art, Yi Zhu

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

Digital technologies, as a prevalent method of display in museums, has been widely used in the presentation and creation of Chinese art, such as software, hardware, and interactive installations in exhibitions. According to Peng Feng (2022), digital technologies can effectively disseminate Chinese classical artworks while enriching visitors’ experience, enhancing their perceptions of aesthetic concepts and facilitating their understanding of the artworks. However, current studies are primarily focused on the social and cultural background information conveyed by the objects, rather than the visitor experiences in the process of interaction with the artworks. Digital technologies can engage visitors through active interaction with …

Arts-Based Sustainability: From New York To Malawi, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Recognizing that libraries serve multiple constituencies and subject areas, this chapter documents and advocates for development of transdisciplinary arts-based research (ABR) and culture-related projects linked to environmental challenges. Libraries contribute collections and spaces, as well as the research of library and information scientists. Libraries are currently among invisible contributors to sustainability planning and services. The chapter will link this invisibility to the value of what visual arts refer to as negative space elements in subjects ranging from traditional ecological knowledge to environmental science. Library collections, projects, and research contribute to education for sustainable development (ESD) as required to achieve the …

Returning Into The Deep Forest--A Methodological Practice Around Memory, Asianness, And Speech, Yu Ye

Masters Theses

">">The title of this thesis is borrowed from the Tang dynasty poem Deer Enclosure by Wang Wei: “Empty mountain, no one in sight—only the echo of voices. Returning sunlight slips into the deep forest, shining once more on moss.” I feel like my essay is responding to this kind of sensation: light does not shine head-on, but folds back, glancing sideways through dense branches, illuminating what is often overlooked. In that gesture of return—quiet, angled, persistent. This thesis unfolds in three chapters, each following a distinct path—image (Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes), movement (The Rings of Saturn by …

Gust, Stroll, Veil, Jungeun Park

Masters Theses

I witness the unsettling and chaotic moments of everyday life:

blood clots in fried eggs, a dead rat on my porch, mites crawling on our skin . . .

These quiet tragedies exist with almost brutal indifference!

We eat, digest, excrete. We menstruate. We parasitize. We coexist.

I seek the intersection of repulsion and wonder in my daily experience and body sensations, visualizing unseen stimuli. I employ veil as a strategy. It conceals yet reveals. Sometimes, it acts as a transparent layer, sharpening what lies beneath. Other times, it blurs colors and forms, rendering them ambiguous. Veil transforms, entices, and …

The Portals: Jewelry As A Site Of Escape And Solace, Jung Ki Min

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates jewelry as a medium for emotional escape and psychological refuge, offering multisensory alternative forms of escapism. Rooted in personal experiences of continuous change and instability, the work explores how imagined spaces—constructed through AI-generated and digitally assisted visuals and layered material processes—can serve as intimate sanctuaries. Drawing from psychological theories, surrealism, and escapism, the study positions jewelry as a portable interface that enables temporary retreat without full detachment from reality. The series of work, which integrates transparent acrylic, visual layering, and subtle dimensionality, materializes these imagined spaces into wearable forms. These pieces invite reflective engagement, allowing wearers to …