Art and Cosmotechnics

2020
Author:

Yuk Hui

In light of current discourses on AI and robotics, what do the various experiences of art contribute to the rethinking of technology today?

Charting a course through Greek tragic thought, cybernetic logic, and the aesthetics of Chinese landscape painting (山水, shanshui— mountain and water painting), Art and Cosmotechnics addresses the challenge to art and philosophy posed by contemporary technological transformation. How might a renewed understanding of the varieties of experience of art be possible in the face of discourses surrounding artificial intelligence and robotics? Departing from Hegel’s thesis on the end of art and Heidegger’s assertion of the end of philosophy, Art and Cosmotechnics travels an unfamiliar trajectory of thought to arrive at a new relation between art and technology.

This book opens the way to rethinking technology beyond Gestell, by exploring the obscure paths of the experience of art.

Augustin Berque, author of Thinking Through Landscape

Charting a course through Greek tragic thought, cybernetic logic, and the aesthetics of Chinese landscape painting (山水, shanshui— mountain and water painting), Art and Cosmotechnics addresses the challenge to art and philosophy posed by contemporary technological transformation. How might a renewed understanding of the varieties of experience of art be possible in the face of discourses surrounding artificial intelligence and robotics? Departing from Hegel’s thesis on the end of art and Heidegger’s assertion of the end of philosophy, Art and Cosmotechnics travels an unfamiliar trajectory of thought to arrive at a new relation between art and technology.

Yuk Hui is author of On the Existence of Digital Objects (Minnesota, 2016), The Question Concerning Technology in China: An Essay in Cosmotechnics, and Recursivity and Contingency. He teaches at the City University of Hong Kong.

This book opens the way to rethinking technology beyond Gestell, by exploring the obscure paths of the experience of art.

Augustin Berque, author of Thinking Through Landscape

Art and Cosmotechnics is a must-read, especially for Westerners, to unlock the transformative potential of art vis-à-vis technologies.

Neural

Yuk Hui has played a key role in creating a framework within which current art-historical discourse regarding this vital subject can thrive.

Leonardo Reviews

Contents

PREFACE

Introduction. On the Education of Sensibility

§1. THE HISTORICAL PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRAGIC COSMOS

§2. THE RECURSIVE LOGIC OF TRAGIC ART

§3. VARIETIES OF EXPERIENCE OF ART

§4. DAOIST VS. TRAGIST COSMOTECHNICS

§5. THE OVERTAKING OF RECURSIVE MACHINES

§6. AFTER EUROPE, ART AND PHILOSOPHY

Chapter 1. World and Earth

§7. ART AFTER THE END OF PHILOSOPHY

§8. THE OTHER BEGINNING THROUGH ART

§9. TRUTH IN THE ARTIFICIAL

§10. THINKING AND PAINTING

§11. ART AND THE COSMIC

§12. EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE UNKNOWN

Chapter 2. Mountain and Water

§13. VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE: NOTES ON PHENOMENOLOGY

§14. FIRST ATTEMPT CONCERNING SHANSHUI: LOGIC

§14.1. THE CONCEPT OF XIANG AND XING

§14.2. THE LOGIC OF XUAN: OPPOSITIONAL CONTINUITY

§14.3. THE RECURSIVITY OF XUAN: OPPOSITIONAL UNITY

§14.4. THE COSMIC AND THE MORAL

§15. THE REALM OF THE NOUMENON

§16. SENSING AND RESONATING

Chapter 3. Art and Automation

§17. THE STATUS OF MACHINE INTELLIGENCE TODAY

§18. THE LIMIT OF ORGANICISM

§19. THE INCOMPUTABLE AND THE INCALCULABLE

§20. INTELLIGENCE, REASON, AND INTUITION

§21. SECOND ATTEMPT CONCERNING SHANSHUI: PLACE

§21.1. THE BASHO OF SHANSHUI

§21.2. EMPLACING IN BASHO AS RESITUATING

§21.3. SPACE AND PLACE

§22. ART AS EPISTEMIC REVOLUTION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX