Abstract
A digital artefact, by conventional standards, is even less authentic and original than a mechanically-reproduced one; a true simulation, a mathematical model of the real it has no original, and is therefore often ‘not even’ a copy. Furthermore, not only is the digital artefact accessible by the masses, it is very often interactive, i.e. shaped by audience input; a product of ‘the mass’ itself. Yet these material factors should not inhibit an academic discussion of the aesthetics of interactivity. An aesthetic value is always established by the consensus of an elite. In media studies for example, textual analysis of televisual artefacts clearly demonstrates that, whilst television might appear generally accessible and understood by everyone, there is quite clearly a relative, yet elaborate, aesthetic code operating within a wider, still elite, cultural context.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | ‘Digital Visual Culture, Theory and Practice’ |
| Subtitle of host publication | CHArt Yearbook 2007 Computers & The History of Art |
| Volume | 3 |
| Publication status | Published - 2008 |