Speculative aesthetics

Documenting and expanding upon aROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONon the ramifications of Speculative Realism for aesthetics, this discussion ranges from contemporary art's relation to the aesthetic, to accelerationism and abstraction, logic and design. From varied perspectives of philosophy, art and design, participants examine the new technological mediations between the human sensorium and the massive planetary media network within which it now exists, and consider how the aesthetic enables new modes of knowledge by processing sensory data through symbolic formalisms and technological devices. Speculative Aestheticsanticipates the possibility of a theory and practice no longer invested in the otherworldly promise of the aesthetic, but acknowledging the real force and traction of images in the world today, experimentally employing techniques of modelling, formalisation, and presentation so as to simultaneously engineer new domains of experience and map them through a recon gured aesthetics that is indissociable from sociotechnical conditions