Towards an Aesthetics of Heterogenesis

Abstract

We are currently witnessing the beginnings of a critical debate about digital media art and its aesthetic and practical specificities. It is becoming evident that art theory will have to develop a new instrumentarium for tackling the particular conditions of production and reception of digital media art, based on the particularities of digital technologies. The present essay will first discuss some examples of contemporary digital media art practices and will then suggest elements of an aesthetics of digital media art. It will focus on the notion of 'heterogenesis', of making different, and will point to forms of subjectification which are specific to the dispositive of digital media. In the conclusion, the concept of the 'war machine' (Deleuze/Guattari 1) is brought into play as a possible model for describing the specific form of machinic agency that is made possible by the use of digital media. The suggestions of this essay are prescriptive insofar as I feel there is a need to work towards a more critical understanding of the way in which media art intervenes in existing cultural and social processes.