Digital Ontology and Appreciation

Abstract

This chapter takes up the aesthetic implications of images belonging to digital schemes. I consider how the most basic feature of digital scheme types—namely, their inherent replicability—properly conditions appreciation of digital artworks. Returning to the art examples from chapter 1, I show that the inherent replicability of digital imagery does not guarantee the multiple instantiability of digital image-based works. In the digital age artists face a choice as to whether to limit their works to a particular exhibition space, or make their works universally available on the screens of networked computers. I explore the interpretive significance of this choice and the way such significance rests on recognition of the underlying digital structure of an artwork.