Kalliopi S. Koundouri
University of the Aegean

Beauty: The Forgotten Criterion Re-Emerges
Are We Driven by Our Nature to Strive for Order Because We Fear That Beyond the Boundary of Legitimacy Lies Outright Rejection?

Keywords: Beauty, art and technology, digital art, digital aesthetics

There are well-known and well-justified objections to the criteria of interpretation and value judgment applied to works of modern art. I shall mention briefly the contemporary inherent difficulty in constructing a system of criteria due to the fission of 'meaning' and the centrifugal powers leading from it, the ideological-economic restrictive factor of defining criteria in a specific era, the vast number of artists and variations of artistic expression that make it imperative to redefine criteria at least every decade, the inability to impose a gnostic system, and so on.

Surely, criteria are formulated through the tectonic activity of ever-shifting society structures. Given the weakening of the criteria that define 'good' or 'bad' art, other criteria of economic and authoritarian content are on the rise, a fact that most certainly confuses even further the state of art in our times. Crumbling criteria are not sufficient reason for their substitution with (art-related) reflections that leave unanswered questions. The way in which criteria are expressed is historic, but the fact that we are able to express them appears ahistoric; this is if we can safely assume that criteria are connected with "basic aspects of human cognitive experience." ¹

The attempt to formulate value judgments becomes more difficult in the case of digital art and its variations. ² There is a pervasive peculiar absurdity for this type of art to be viewed even today (after almost four decades since its first appearance) as 'painting' and the screen of the computer as 'canvas'. The demand for new criteria that will represent the ontological and morphological characteristics and the dual identity of digital art is not a novel thing. It is indeed difficult today to distinguish between creative processes in art and those in the area of technology. It seems that we have accepted, albeit with caution, the established reciprocity between these two, perhaps most important, creative expressions of man.

We are witnessing an amazing enlargement full of "redeeming possibilities", as it has been well observed by Abruzzese,³ and dynamic and qualitative transformations not known until recently. Science is being reconnected with culture, also through the arts, even if the transition to digitality has not been psychologically smooth for society. Technology, in turn, with its constant request for action, was driven to over-achievement and to the verge of satiation, thus making more intense the confusion in relation to progress and what is really novel. Let us remember Baudrilliard underlining that "by having an over-realised novelty, the over-reality turns against novelty".⁴ For this and many other reasons, a painful complexity ensues. We must not confuse complexity with progress or we risk creating a new kind of unfamiliarity and voluntary self-blinding in front of the challenge of looking pensively at the roots of our thoughts and opinions.

Surely, as far as digital art is concerned, there is a shift in our sensitivities, which in the best of cases end up in aesthetic differentials, and thus re-definitions of relevant aesthetic opinions. The recognition of a work of art was always based on a structured vocabulary, known and drawn on the nexus of our experiences, achievements and expectations. A distinguishing element, which, I think, may for the first time lay claim to the aesthetic judgment is that the artistic creation should be judged not only on the result, but on the medium (digital technology) as well. Historically, the digit can be named as the most 'charged' medium (despite my reservations about the term 'medium') not only of artistic creation, but also gradually, of the shift of a universal model.

Therefore, before any discussion about 'new' criteria, generally before each definition, there must be some form of ontology, in our case of the digital work of art. The first thought coming to our minds is the pseudo-dualism and the Manichean struggle between what we define as 'reality', 'real' and 'virtual'. I will not go over supposedly over-imaginative renderings of the Platonic view of reality and simplistic aphorisms. I accept Plato's shadow weighing heavily over the philosophy and the life of Western civilisation.

Returning to my subject, digital art is evergreen. On a first level, "… behind each art there is always a technology […], behind each technique there is an inspiration and a sensitivity…". ⁵ Behind the introduction of cutting-edge technology in the aesthetic process, a secret hope might have been hidden; that - as man once believed that by changing his environment, he would change himself - something similar could be achieved in his art. The issue is vast and I shall confine myself to a few observations. The real material of art was the physical substance of man. That, albeit unconsciously, functioned as a limit in the realisation of the artistic product, and, up to a point, in the quest itself. We are embodied in a machine (virtual reality). The reality recognised until then is under attack. Questions have been asked, why should only what we accumulated as experience in the past be considered 'real'? The ontological issue resulting in the demand for a new identity immediately emerges. A possible suggestion to this knotty issue could be that the digital work 'exists' on a different ontological level in relation to reality. For instance, a work of virtual reality consists of many aspects of reality (sound, picture, speech) in a 'natural' way. The work, of course, is not living. Generalising, one could say, that a work of digital art consists (in the best case so far) of what the represented real could be. We are therefore moving in the realm of possibilities.

The main task of technology in the context of this mutual relationship is to unite successfully the "temporary identities of the senses"⁶ as dominant models of representation with those of simulation. In this way, we, as society, renegotiate our rules and relationships in haste. There are many fears. Which of those will emerge as the principal factor in the now symbiotic relationship of art and technology? Established hierarchical models do not survive. They slide and slip on the virtual ground. The fears remain: In a virtual environment, will art be able to declare its individuality or will it submit to the will of the system? Greater than the fear that 'reality' will dissolve in its 'virtual' counterpart (something that is over-simplistic) must be the problem of transparency of reality. Multi-dimensional forms of prejudice against technology surface constantly as products of hypocrisy and fear. Visions of generations, not only artistic, become reality today. The real fear should be born out of the realisation, that - while it seemed that we were contesting the Platonic-originated conceptualisation of reality - what it came to be was the realisation of imagination through multiple factors, mostly through technology. The 'authentic' and the non-'authentic' constitute a possible pseudo-duality. 'Being' and 'seeming' are not interchangeable, but rather influence each other, and the environment of the conditions under which this mutual influence is achieved is therefore of immense importance.

To recapitulate, it must be said that the digital work of art, different ontologically, protean in form, interactive most of the time, with its genetic characteristics untraceable in relation to the contribution of one or the other 'parent' (art, technology) may not be 'different', but rather special, since additionally it forms special relationships with both parts that structure it and the major sectors of human nature, intellect and activity (sense, fantasy, moral dimension). It is claimed that there is a radically different experience (mainly on the levels of intensification of the senses and 'alternative' reality). It is therefore legitimised, in conjunction with the promise of future access to unmapped areas of empirical and aesthetic processes, to demand correspondingly innovative expressions of aesthetic assessments. I would accept this demand without reservation, mainly if a fundamental requirement was fulfilled, i.e. that the immaterial was fully realised. I suggest in turn transitional criteria in harmony with the newly-emerged parameters of the digital work of art and mainly to the antinomic ones, such as epistemological character and pleasure.

Our reservations should be directed elsewhere. There is not and there should not be a magical rendering of the properties of technology in art and vice versa. For example, the 'neutrality' that appears 'inherent' to the computer program, which is charged with the task of producing the work of art, is not meant to be transferred to it (the work) nor will it correspond to some analogous criterion. This would certainly be a fallacy.

Accordingly, the new situations - positions reserved for the work of art in a digital environment, which it would not possess under conventional conditions, should not lead us to confusion, or conflation of technological and aesthetic criteria, at least not now. I shall mention, as an indication, the 'criterion' of best possible performance. We recognise that in a work with two principal actors, one of which is technology, there are additional constraints of technical character. Occasionally the work of art may not 'run' revealing in a painful way to the art critics 'who really runs the show'. If we accept that the property of the digital work of art to 'run' suffices to be elevated to the position of an aesthetic criterion, we overlook the fact that behind the technical constraints lie mechanical patterns of behaviour for their overcoming. I suggest in turn, generally obeying the genetic idiosyncrasy of the digital work, to cite in detail its technological characteristics, which in their turn, I believe must be taken into consideration per se and within the general context of an old criterion, namely that of whether the work is 'well-made' or not.

In this way, the aesthetic judgment becomes necessarily wider and, partly, scientific. It is not just the new artist who is a researcher. Similar education is also required from the art critic. The process of finding ways to assess and incorporate the possible impact of the work of art on the beholder's senses, albeit not so much as a measurable quantity, is a further challenge to both imagination and science.

In conclusion, the criterion is a product of judgment. Logically it belongs to the latter and forms with it a relationship of reciprocity; on the one hand, it comes out of the core of judgment, while on the other, it returns to influence the next judgment to be formed, even though it has been created later in time in relation to the judgment process. This is its strength and its weakness, the source of whatever authority it carries, as well as its self-destructive yet useful relativity, which as a rule reflects upon the judgment itself. The process of judgment, however, is inescapable. And so is its ensuing action of evaluation, no matter how controversial. Even the works of Duchamp, which attempted to obliterate all tracing back to a 'content', suggest a special need for the moral criteria to transform into aesthetic ones. A criterion can be as new as the judgment that produced it and the potential 'content' of that judgment. It cannot be easily separated from the moral imperative carried by whoever exercises judgment. Nonetheless, it itself also produces 'morals'. The less relative moral dimension of judgment originates from the sense of responsibility of the person exercising it. For example, the connection between the terms 'interactivity' and 'interactive aesthetics' encompasses a reserved optimism for their potential impact on the wider socio-economic demand for democratisation.

We should not deny the fact that we have placed a substantial part of our hopes on art by re-approaching the world in dialectic way, and vice versa, in the successful partnership between art and technology. And this may be the most precarious bet ever placed in the history of the arts. By re-examining, with the help of digital technology, our relationships to the 'real' and 'fake' (or better the 'artificial') and by realising that the 'idea' is of the greatest importance in our world, we also review the kind of relationships we form with art and the world of human beings.

The legitimisation for the formulation of a new charter of criteria goes again through the relationship of the 'idea' and its realisation more than ever. "Art, in order to exist, submits to laws" ⁷, and subsequently to criteria, although surely there is neither a single aspect nor a pure direction in art (e.g. only the aesthetic one). We do not stop here though. The relationship between the audience and the artist is not influenced only by the criteria, but also by the creation of relationships inside and outside the work. In this field, that of the creation of relationships, digital art is and will be tested.

The change in aesthetic values definitely sweeps away former criteria of beauty. An object of adoration for all kinds of idealism and classicism, a punch bag for all the variations of materialism and a study in rhetoric for neo-conservatism, it can hardly be claimed that beauty has been the crux for art for several decades now. Eaten away by productivity, it is often positioned as a reminding leftover of naturality. It is the pattern of a flower on a sewing machine, as Mumford ⁸ poignantly puts it. Beauty traditionally implies harmonising relationships with whatever is happening in the world and demands that time be experienced as the 'ecstatic viewing' of an inner 'landscape' where memory sets the rules. Beauty was never uniform, but it was often treated as an all-encompassing property. From the 'disinterested pleasure' of the Kantian beauty to the revolutionary qualities attached to it by the Marxist theory of art, beauty assumed, in one way or the other, a privileged position by ascribing meaningfulness to existence and enriching its gnostic part with the presence of pleasure and communication.

For historic, socio-economic as well as philosophical reasons, beauty is being overlooked. The spotlight is falling in turn on other forms of sensitivity that appeared on the scene. Even the prospect of the re-establishment of beauty as a value in the empirical and theoretic quests of the world of digital art may seem absurd. The main argument in relation to the suggested re-examination of the ontology and function of beauty revolves, I believe, around an almost axiomatic formulation that pertains to all art forms, on which the machine intervenes radically. If the function of an artistic product dictates its form, then is there any room for beauty? Many more issues accompany this speculation that is born out of the controversial and arbitrary nature of virtual aesthetics: the relationship between beauty and memory, the danger threatening the qualities of an artwork being supplanted by those of a mechanical product, our inability of tracing to trace back and connect to a central planning of meaning, and last but not least, the re-negotiation of what is considered 'real', and therefore 'true', as well as the terms with which this re-examination acquires a wider meaning. It is attempted with the assistance of high technology to settle this dichotomy between morality and aesthetics, which is today the historical continuation of how we decide on 'right' or 'wrong' based on what we perceive as 'real' and 'true'.

I shall claim that beauty can contribute to the above mentioned re-negotiation, dictated by the socio-historical necessities of our times. It has to be noted that beauty in its turn regains preferential access to technological means, capable of promoting an exemplary settlement of 'inherent' and non-inherent antinomies, antinomies in relation to other sectors of human activity, which were intensified and magnified by the categorical segregation of beauty from the pulsing human overall experience, and from which capitalism has greatly benefited (e.g. through the disruption of our self-image and the misuse of the power of art).

Taking into consideration all the factors that make the emergence of beauty in digital art difficult, and with the realisation that we are at the beginning of the deployment of the potential of digital art, I shall show possible embodiments of beauty in a digital environment by making the necessary generalisation.

In the future, beauty will be dictated by the form and quality of its creatively expressed relationships with most instances of human experience using as the means of transcendence towards the direction of new, unseen conquests the quest for harmonisation and not harmony as in the past, i.e. beauty will assume the form of an aesthetic action of wide empirical background that will predict dynamic interactions - a 'system' of beauty may be created and activated by open and liberated relationships. The ultimate goal, if there can be one, will be a sense of wholeness that will educate the recipients of beauty to finally lay claim to an "unsurpassed feeling of wholeness that constitutes for us the definition of real". ⁹

Thus, beauty can establish revealing associations with things, with 'being' and 'seeming'. The formerly pursued calm gazing as a means of accessing the properties of beauty is becoming more intense. Beauty is re-baptised by choice. While there is a choice, it retains and even magnifies its inherent function of pleasure, since - whether it is of the senses, or the mind, or both - it is founded on the studied choices, an undertaking of definite difficulty if we consider the first-encountered widening of the senses that the multi-spectacled and multi-sensory work of art promises and in part realises.

When we think of beauty in terms of digital forms of art, we talk more about a beauty of the mind, an abstract 'mechanism' of beauty in its best possible form, meaning 'essential' and 'highly necessary'. If beauty aimed mostly at pleasure, whereas knowledge aimed at decision, then the beauty of today's and tomorrow's art 'decides' on pleasure. Thus, it is possible to settle an antinomy of beauty dating from Plato's times, namely that the contribution of technology (e.g. the computer program, the attraction of algorithms, and their so-called 'essential neutrality', etc.) also meets with pleasure. This potential conjunction produces a unified form of beauty, which is followed by the decoding of the functions of imagination, since the more we decode imagination, the more claims that the artist must strive for the absolute are vanquished. With the boost given by the presence of gnostic terms, beauty is endowed with a sense of security, because it makes possible that Art refers to both the mind and behaviour.

Therefore, we may hope that beauty will forge effective and mutually beneficial relationships with other expressions for civilisation as well. To achieve this, a necessary requirement, among others, is the restoration of the image and the regaining of lost respectability, becomes valid again. The image is constantly shifting and changing. It usually serves the new models of access and participates in the formation of readable schemata for the masses. In this context, Terry Eagleton ironically testifies, "truth is lie; morality stinks; beauty is shit. And of course they are right." The individual experience of fundamental values (including beauty, a primary vehicle for such an experience) are in the hands of them. Beauty, with a critical spirit that will be formed into original strategies favoured by the inherent capabilities of technical means, along with irony, a rich symbolic language and imagination as an ally, may encourage us to fight for the restoration of the image. With its uniting presence, which becomes more powerful thanks to its symbolic arsenal, beauty has the power to renew, albeit not so much with mechanical realisations, our interest in the basic human needs.

The image, one way or the other, is multifaceted and this fact must be remembered constantly and not only when we transform it into a tool for power. We have to become aware again of the incredible complexity of the image. The rich potential for interaction through new technologies creates favourable situations for the reception of beauty as well. We look to technology for the liberation and not the restriction of the rich meaning of the image. For this rich meaning to be understood and maybe later put to good use, we must keep in mind that half (schematically) of what beauty stands for is determined by the public. At this point, the issue of aesthetic and technological education of the public has to be put forward. I will repeat the well-known and commonly accepted wording: there can be no substantial enjoyment of the goods that ensue and will ensue from the prolific collaboration between Art and Technology as long as there are info-rich and info-poor in the same dramatic ratio as today.

I should like to bring to the reader's attention a mostly unrefined concept that is still in its infancy. Thus I dare only render its outline.

We accept that the old models of confrontation cannot be transferred successfully in a space where the models of simulation are in force. As far as aesthetics are concerned, the above confirmation is transformed in the sense that in that 'space' categories of confrontation collapse. Digital art seems to go beyond style and taste, since the digital space abolishes, for many, judgments of merit. A possible repercussion of this could be the loosening of the so far strictly defined boundaries between beauty and the sublime that have been in place since at least the times of Kant. Let us suppose that an aspect of the digital sublime is connected with the fear of ineffective function of the program and the agony for the unknown outcome of the application of diverse technological models, no matter how controlled they appear. If the redeeming affirmation encapsulated in the phrase "It works!" reveals the value of the process for the painful birth of techno-artistic 'being' (to paraphrase Lyotard, something is born out of almost nothing) could it be that we are faced with an analogy to the mostly "aesthetic process when the subject comes painfully into being"? ¹⁰ I have already hinted that maybe the difference between what art and what technology contribute to the digital work is more about form than essence.

I have already argued that if (mechanical) beauty in the age of massive industrial production meant a 'promise' of function, then in the future beauty, more than ever, will be connected to a 'process' of promises for the realisation of thought. Beauty will be, as already guessed, more active and, because of that, probably clearer. By establishing, in the best of cases, free and dynamic relationships with a newly encountered sensory, empirical and gnostic spectrum, beauty seems to declare that something is happening, something actually emerges and is revealed, which will eventually please and benefit, move and be moved. The promise of realisation of thought, despite the ambivalence surrounding it, is composed, or seems to be composed without the clear distinction of both beauty and the sublime: Perhaps the aforementioned collaboration between beauty and the sublime can pave the way for the return of moral thought in Art. Maybe in the future, an ideal reciprocity between art and technology can be achieved, if a free relationship between challenge and response is formed, in order for the boundaries of essence between them to fade to the point where the integrity and the individuality of each is not offended to the point of abolition.

Why does the direct adoption of any novelty or controversial innovation of technology by the Arts demonstrate corrosive conformism rather than limitless freedom? In the last few years, we have been given the impression that the Arts are almost forced to incorporate aspects of the new technologies. Let us not forget that the qualities attributed to technology when creatively interwoven with art are defined by values, human values. A focal aim for the future sciences (of a possibly hybrid type of art-science or science catering specifically for artistic purposes) will be the enlargement of the current space occupied by the human personality, thus allowing the artist-researcher to exert more control than today. A very favourable condition for the realisation of beauty will be the elevation of technique to virtuosity. And if mechanical beauty was once defined in terms of 'promise of function', the unified beauty of the future will assert its metaphoric function in the communicating fields of fundamental human needs and ambitions. Here, the sense of purpose, a sense, which follows the affirmation of our choices, can function as a balancing factor, and thus, increase the possibilities of making meaningful art. Maybe this way the bitter remark made by Max Frisch, that "technology is the talent of arranging the world, so that we do not have to experience it" ¹¹ will be refuted.

September 2000

Notes

1. Crowther, P.: The Language of 20th Century Art (Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1997), p. 11.

2. It will be necessary to examine them together within the restraints of this general presentation.

3. Mentioned in: Vitale, N.: [Tele-Fascism], trans. by T. Rocchi (Eleftheriaki Kultura, Athens 1996), p. 22.

4. Mentioned in: Papayannidis, A. (ed.): [The Shine of Ideas] (Terzo Books, Athens 1999), p. 245.

5. Tassios, T.: 'Interview,' Eleftheros Typos, 28 July 2000.

6. Vitale, op.cit., p. 47.

7. Kolokotronis, Y.: [Art in Transition] (Nireas, Athens 2000), p. 45.

8. Mumford, L.: [Art and Techniques] , trans. V. Tomanas (Nisides, Athens 1997), p. 32.

9. Christodoulidis, P. (ed.): [Aesthetics and Theory of Art] (Kardamitsas, Athens 1994), p. 51.

10. Christodoulidis, op.cit., p. 78.

11. Papayannidis, op.cit., p. 76.