Aesthetics
Last revised 9/2/2014. Return to Major concepts. See also art, canon.
At a time when "beauty" is a forbidden word in the world of art, is it possible to build any aesthetics for digital art?
Rigau and al. Examples of works analyses according to Birkoff's aesthetics.
Digital evaluation of aesthetics
Is beauty measurable? Or, more exactly, how far can it be evaluated by algorithms? We have dealt with at length in our communication à Laval Virtual 2013, Aesthetics and algorithms, the uncanny peak, which you can read online, and includes a substantial bibliography. Shortly, we say that:
- like it or not, we are everyday using beauty evaluation automata, from the aufocus or our cameras to the Google ranking,
- the most general criterium is a balance between disturbance/chaos and harmony/order; originality is an aspect of "disturbance"
- the most interesting track to open would be a measurement of emotion/meaning, not only in Shannonian terms but in human mind (soul?) modeling and validation by experience.
Some references:
- Functions and Processing code in Roxame
- Théorie de la "prédiction". L'intelligible connaissance esthétique , by Louis-José Lestocart, online.
- Art, algorithmes, autonomie, programmer l'imprévisible. Communication by Pierre Berger at Afig 2009.
- Simplicity theory. by Jean-Louis Dessalles. Online.
- Conceptualizing Birkhoff's aesthetic measure using Shannon entropy and Kolmogorov complexity. by Jaume Rigau, Miquel Feixas and Mateu Sbert. Online. - A measure of beauty. by Ivar Peterson, Math Trek. Online.
- Le calcul de la beauté: le principe de Pinocchio. by Frédéric Drouillon , for proceedings 2003 of STP. Online.
- Computer models for criticism & design in the Arts. by George Stiny and James Gips. University of California Press.... 1978! See grammar.
- The works of Abraham Moles (1970's).
Aesthetic computing, computational aesthetics
- Conference "Computational Aesthetics". In 2011, held in Vancouver, colocated with Siggraph.
- Beautiful Architecture, Leading Thinkers Reveal the Hidden Beauty in Software Design ed. by Diomidis Spinellis and Georgios Gousios. O'Reilly 2011.
- Aesthetic computing. by Paul Fishwick (ed.). Leonardo, MIT Press 2006. [ Fishwick 2013]
< De la programmation considérée comme un des beaux-arts.
by Pierre Lévy (La Découverte, 1992). Rather out of the subject, in spite of the title.
- See programming, and the Computational Aesthetics conference.
Experimental aesthetics.
- L'esthétique expérimentale. by Renée Bouveresse. Ellipses 1999. A state of the art at that date. Rather disappointing, at the end of the day. We can note at least that the golden section is nearly universally appreciated, and that the public likes an "average" complexity.
- Ends and means of experimental Aesthetics. by D.E. Berlyne. University of Toronto. Revue Canadienne de Psychologie. 1972. The chief author on this domain (on line, but not free).
- Founde of the discipliner: Gustav Fechner, Wikipedia. Summary by McManus.
Aesthetics in general
- Esthétique relationnelle. by Nicolas Bourriaud. Les presses du réel, 1998. Beautiful title. Very abstract content.
- About aesthetics in general [Michaud]
[Kemp].
- Beauty in effectors modeling. Interview of Emile Louis SH No 35.
< Que peut la peinture pour l'esthétique? by Gilbert Kieffer Paris, Petra 2003.
- Eléments d'esthétique cognitiviste by Marcin Sbieszczanski. L'Harmattan 2000. Very "French theory".
- Machine Beauty, Elegance and the heart of technology, by David Gelerntner.
Basic Books 1998. Not digital at all.
About the market's criteria, see [Robertson]-
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