Artificial Aesthetics: Generative AI, Art and Visual Media
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Artificial Aesthetics: Generative AI, Art and Visual Media (PDF)
Each chapter was released online as soon as it was completed during 2021-2024 on manovich.net and academia.edu. This PDF combines the final edited versions of all chapters. Published 01/15/2025.
To cite this book
APA (7th ed.): Manovich, L., & Arielli, E. (2024). Artificial aesthetics. https://manovich.net/index.php/projects/artificial-aesthetics
Chicago (17th ed.): Manovich, Lev, and Emanuele Arielli. "Artificial Aesthetics." 2024. https://manovich.net/index.php/projects/artificial-aesthetics.
Translations
Spanish: Estética artificial. Ediciones Akal, 2025.
Italian: Estetica artificiale. Luca Sossella Editore, 2026.
Chinese: 人工美学. Communication Univ. of China, 2026 (forthcoming).
Japanese and Korean: forthcoming.
Desciption
Our book explores how generative AI is transforming our understanding of aesthetics, creativity, design, and art appreciation. It uses approaches from six fields. Emanuele brings perspectives from aesthetics, philosophy of art, and psychology of art. Lev contributes perspectives from media theory, digital culture studies, and computer science, as well as his four decades of experience as an artist creating digital media, including recent work with generative AI. This is the first time all these different perspectives have been combined to analyze cultural AI.
We started working on the book in the summer of 2019, exchanging many messages, commenting on each other's ideas, and sharing section drafts. While each chapter is written by a single author, it incorporates our ongoing discussions.
Given the rapid evolution of generative AI and its wide-reaching impact on art and culture, we made the decision to release each chapter online as soon as it was finished. The first chapter was released in December 2021, and the last one in September 2024. After all chapters were completed, we did some further editing and released the final version as a single PDF.
-- Lev Manovich and Emanuele Arielli, November 2021 – October 2024.
Separate Book Chapters (earlier versions)
Arielli, 12/15/2021.
1. Even an AI Could Do That
Manovich, 01/18/2022.
2. Who is an Artist in AI Era?
Arielli, 03/28/2022.
3. Chapter 3 - Techno-animism and the Pygmalion Effect.
Manovich, 05/18/2022.
4. Chapter 4 - AI and Myths of Creativity.
Manovich, 04/20/2023.
5. Chapter 5 - Seven Arguments about AI Images and Generative Media
Arielli, 01/15/2024.
6. Chapter 6 - Human Perception and The Artificial Gaze
Manovich, 03/27/2024.
7. Chapter 7 - Separate and Reassemble: Generative AI and Media History
Arielli. 09/24/2024.
8. Chapter 8 - From Tools to Authors
Arielli, 09/27/2024.