ABSTRACT
Nowadays aesthetics and the notion of beauty play an increasingly significant role in interactive art and design products, and consequently in scientific research in these fields. This paper outlines a rudimentary theory of the notion of beauty in interactive artifacts. My argument takes as its starting point Kant's definition of the sentiment of beauty as an act of judgment. This judgment unfolds at two very different but interrelated levels. The first level consists of the participant's physiological aesthetic judgment of the digital system's output. This judgment determines the participant's next (inter-)action and is the basis for performative 'flow'. At the second level beauty is seen as an emergent phenomenon that manifests itself as a reflective sentiment, i.e. as a result of the interplay between already experienced 'flow' and the idea of the interactive artifact's potentiality. The idea of potentiality is on the one hand an intrinsic part of the artificial interaction system (an interactive artifact), but on the other hand is experienced as a transcendental phenomenon that appears to overcome the rigid limits of algorithmic systems. The present paper concretizes my theoretical findings by analyzing two very different interactive artifacts: David Rokeby's Very Nervous System from the early days of digital interactive art and the online community 'Second Life' as an example of a virtual meeting place.
- Adorno, Theodor, Ästhetische Theorie, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M., 1973Google Scholar
- Baumgarten, Alexander Theoretische Ästhetik Meiner Verlag, Hamburg, 1988Google Scholar
- Berlyne, Daniel Aesthetics and Psychobiology Appelton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1971Google Scholar
- Bertelsen, Olav Criticism as an Approach to Interface Aesthetics NordiCHI'04, Tampere, Finland, Copyright 2004 ACM Google ScholarDigital Library
- Cassirer, Ernst: An Essay on Man; Yale University Press 1992;Google Scholar
- Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Harper and Row, New York, 1990Google Scholar
- Deleuze, Gilles, Repetition and Difference, Columbia University Press, New York, 1994Google Scholar
- Heinrich, Falk Transiente Kommunikationsystemer dissertation, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, 2005Google Scholar
- Kant, Immanuel Kritik der Urteilskraft Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M., 1979Google Scholar
- Luhmann, Niklas Soziale Systeme Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1984Google Scholar
- Massumi, Brian, Parables for the virtual, Duke University Press, Durham&London, 2002Google Scholar
- Norman, Donald Emotional Design Basic Books, New York, 2004Google Scholar
- Rokeby, David The Construction of Experience: Interface as Content i Dodsworth, Clark "Digital Illusion: entertaining the Future with High Technology", ACM, 1998 Google Scholar
- Schaeffer, Jean-Marie Art of the Modern Age, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2000Google Scholar
- Shusterman, Richard Somaesthetics: A Disciplinary Proposal published in: 'Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism' no. 57, 1999Google Scholar
- Turkles, Sherry Life on the Screen Simon & Schuster, New York, 1995Google Scholar
- Zeki, Kawabata 2004 Neural Correlates of Beauty Journal for Neurophysioly 91, 2004Google Scholar
- Welsch, Wolfgang Undoing Aesthetics SAGE Publication, 1997Google Scholar
- Wright, Peter; McCarthy, John Technology as Experience MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004 Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- The aesthetics of interactive artifacts: thoughts on performative beauty
Recommendations
Beyond Beauty: Towards a Deeper Understanding of Aesthetics in HCI
CHI EA '21: Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsThe word aesthetics, as used in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), tends to refer to visual characteristics of an interface. Furthermore, it is broadly taken to mean beauty, which, while a significant aspect of aesthetics, is not its only concern. ...
The use of aesthetics in HCI systems
CHI EA '07: CHI '07 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing SystemsAs computing expands its domain from workplace to pervasive and domestic environments, interest in aesthetics for designing is increasing in HCI. HCI literatures in aesthetics provide wide variety of theoretical foundations for how aesthetics might be ...
Facets of visual aesthetics
Visual aesthetics has been shown to critically affect a variety of constructs such as perceived usability, satisfaction, and pleasure. Given the importance of visual aesthetics in human-computer interaction, it is vital that it is adequately assessed. ...
Comments