In this essay, I will explore the role of aesthetics in the virtual, drawing upon my understanding and operationalization of the concept and its relevance to my research on technofrontiers and the politics of digital spaces. I will argue that aesthetics is a fundamental aspect of how perceptions, experiences, and meaning-making processes are shaped and structured in relation to the world. In the context of the digital and virtual, aesthetics takes on particular significance as it shapes the distribution of the sensible within these hybrid spaces, determining which images, narratives, and forms are made accessible or obscured, visible and invisible, audible and inaudible, thinkable and unthinkable.
To support my argument, I will first delve into the concept of aesthetics, highlighting its political dimensions and its relevance to the virtual. I will then explore the reality of the virtual, challenging the false dichotomy between the digital and the physical and emphasizing the ways in which the virtual shapes our lived experiences and social relations. Finally, I will examine specific examples of how aesthetics operates within the virtual, from the distribution of the sensible in surveillance technologies to the concealment and revelation of exploitation in high-tech industries.
By engaging with these ideas and examples, I aim to demonstrate the central role of aesthetics in determining the transformative potential of virtual spaces, which are capable of opening up new possibilities for collective experience, expression, and resistance. Ultimately, I suggest that a critical engagement with aesthetics is essential for navigating the complex terrain of the virtual and for imagining alternative futures beyond the dominant narratives of technological progress and capitalist expansion.
Aesthetics plays a central role in my work, serving as a lens through which I examine the relationship between the virtual and the physical, the digital and the material. In particular, I am interested in how aesthetics operates within the context of diverse spatialities, particularly the points of inflection between the digital and nondigital realms, and the ways in which it both reflects and shapes the power dynamics that underpin these spaces.
The work of Jacques Rancière (2004) is particularly instructive in this regard. Rancière argues that aesthetics is fundamentally about the sharing of sensible experience and the creation of common worlds. It is a way of organizing and distributing what can be seen, heard, thought, and done within a given social order. In this sense, Rancière maintains that aesthetics is deeply political, as it shapes the very conditions of possibility for shared experience and collective action.
At the heart of Rancière's theory is the idea of the "distribution of the sensible" (le partage du sensible), which refers to the way in which the sensible world is divided up and shared among different individuals and groups. This distribution determines who has the ability to see and be seen, to speak and be heard, to think and be thought of as a legitimate subject of political action. In other words, it sets the boundaries of what is visible, audible, and thinkable within a given social order.
For Rancière, politics is essentially about challenging and reconfiguring this distribution of the sensible. It is about creating new forms of shared experience and new ways of being together that disrupt the existing social order and open up new possibilities for collective life. In this sense, politics is inherently aesthetic, as it involves a struggle over the very terms of our sensory experience and the creation of new common worlds.
However, Rancière also emphasizes that the ability to participate in this sharing of the sensible is not evenly distributed. There are always those who are excluded or marginalized from the realm of common experience, those who are denied the ability to see, speak, and be heard on equal terms. These are the "part of those who have no part" (la part des sans-part), the uncounted and the unrepresented who are left out of the official distribution of the sensible.
The task of politics, then, is to challenge this exclusion and to create new forms of shared experience that include those who have been left out. This is what Rancière calls the "redistribution of the sensible" (le redistribution du sensible), a process of reconfiguring the boundaries of what can be seen, heard, and thought in order to create a more inclusive and egalitarian common world.
In this way, aesthetics and politics are intimately intertwined. Aesthetics is about the creation of common worlds, but these worlds are always shaped by power relations and social hierarchies. Politics, in turn, is about challenging these hierarchies and creating new forms of shared experience that are more inclusive and egalitarian. It is about redistributing the sensible in order to create a world in which everyone has an equal ability to see, speak, and be heard.
This understanding of the relationship between aesthetics and politics has important implications for how we think about art, culture, and social change. It suggests that art is not simply a matter of individual expression or aesthetic pleasure, but rather a way of intervening in the distribution of the sensible and creating new forms of shared experience.
At the same time, it is important to recognize the need to move beyond some of the limitations of earlier aesthetic theories, particularly those that rely on notions of authenticity or originality –Benjamin’s (2010) “aura”, for example– that are increasingly difficult to sustain in the age of digital reproduction and circulation.
Ultimately, my understanding of aesthetics is grounded in a commitment to critical inquiry and a desire to uncover the ways in which the aesthetic dimensions of our world are entangled with questions of power, politics, and social change. By attending to the aesthetics of the virtual and the digital, I seek to open up new spaces for reflection, critique, and imagination, and to contribute to the ongoing project of building more just and equitable futures.
The digital realm has deeply affected the way we perceive and interact within reality. These media possesses unique intrinsic capabilities that offer diverse opportunities for expression, cognition, and interaction. The virtual stretches beyond computer-generated environments and algorithmically mediated subjectivities. It seeps into our reality, influencing our perception, thoughts, and actions. In this sense, the virtual becomes a realm of potentiality, a dynamic continuum that has a particular relation with the physical world in creating our lived experiences. This perspective is influenced by philosophical notions, such as those proposed by Gilles Deleuze (1994), where the virtual is not opposed to the real, but to the actual -the virtual is fully real in so far as it is virtual, in other words, it encompasses possibilities, potentials, and virtualities that are not yet actualized but have the capacity to become real.
Similarly, Žižek (2004) states that the virtual is not a realm separate from reality and goes beyond reproducing in a digital ‘artificial’ medium our experience of reality but is deeply intertwined with it. He argues that the virtual is not simply an illusion or a mere simulation of reality, but it has its own ontological status. The reality of the virtual, for Žižek, is a dimension that structures our perception and understanding of reality itself, “real effects produced by something which does not yet fully exists, which is not yet fully actual”.
Žižek uses the term “virtual” to denote the symbolic and imaginary structures that shape our perception and experience of reality. In his view, these symbolic and imaginary structures have a virtual existence in that they're not physically tangible yet exert real effects on the world. For example, ideologies or cultural norms may not have a physical existence, but it profoundly shapes individual behavior and social relations.
Central to this understanding of the virtual is the concept of aesthetics, which plays a crucial role in determining the distribution of the sensible within these hybrid spaces. It is a way of organizing and distributing what can be seen, heard, thought, and done within a given social order. In this sense, aesthetics is deeply political, as it shapes the very conditions of possibility for shared experience and collective action.
In the context of the virtual, aesthetics takes on a particular significance, as it structures the boundaries of what is visible, audible, and thinkable within these spaces. The imagining of virtual environments, the algorithms that govern online interactions, and the interfaces that mediate our engagement with digital content all have an aesthetic dimension that shapes the distribution of the sensible. They determine what is valorized and what is marginalized, what is amplified and what is silenced.
At the same time, the virtual also offers new possibilities for aesthetic intervention and transformation. As a space of simulation and experimentation, the virtual allows for the creation of alternative worlds and experiences that can challenge and disrupt dominant modes of perception and understanding. Through immersive technologies, interactive narratives, and participatory platforms, we can create new forms of aesthetic encounter that open up new ways of seeing, feeling, and knowing. These interventions can serve to redistribute the sensible, to make visible what was previously unseen, to give voice to the unheard, and to imagine new forms of collectivity and solidarity.
This transformative potential of the virtual is closely tied to the notion of the commons - the shared resources, spaces, and experiences that belong to everyone and serve as the foundation for collective life. In the digital age, the commons faces new challenges as the virtual --and digital– realms are colonized by private interests and subject to the logic of commodification and control. The aesthetics of the virtual, then, must also be an aesthetics of the commons, focused on creating and defending shared spaces of imagination, creativity, and resistance.
Here, the concept of mediascapes, as theorized by Arjun Appadurai (1996), becomes particularly relevant. Mediascapes are characterized by the distribution of electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information across an array of media. They act as symbolic and imaginary structures, creating narratives, images, and ideological spaces that inform and shape our realities. In this sense, mediascapes can be understood as vectors of the virtual, not just because they operate in a digital, non-physical environment, but because they act as conduits for the possible, disseminating narratives, images, and ideologies that represent multiple potential realities.
The shaping power of mediascapes operates at manifold scales, from individual behavior to societal structures, collective consciousnesses, and memories. The narratives, ideologies, and images flowing through mediascapes underline the virtual's "reality," and in that sense, mediascapes can be seen as landscapes of the virtual. However, as scholars like Shoshana Zuboff (2019) have argued, these landscapes are also contested sites where economic interests, power dynamics, and personal agency clash and negotiate, as user data and attention are increasingly commodified and exploited for profit.
In navigating this complex terrain, the role of aesthetics becomes even more crucial. Aesthetics can help us to make sense of the flood of visual data that characterizes the contemporary mediascape, to critically examine the algorithms and interfaces that structure our online experiences, and to create new forms of meaning and connection. This requires a critical and politically engaged approach to aesthetics, one that recognizes the ways in which the virtual is always already imbricated with questions of power, difference, and exclusion.
Ultimately, the aesthetics of the virtual is not simply about reflecting or representing our reality, but about actively shaping and transforming it. By attending to the distribution of the sensible within the virtual, and by creating new forms of aesthetic encounter and experience, we can begin to unlock the transformative potential of this realm of potentialities. This requires a commitment to the commons –and the negative commons– to the creation and defense of shared spaces of imagination and resistance.
Having established the political dimensions of aesthetics and its role in shaping the virtual, it is crucial to examine how this understanding informs the transformative potential of the virtual. As a realm of potentialities, the virtual offers new possibilities for aesthetic intervention and the reconfiguration of the sensible.
Through the use and leverage of the tools usually associated with “new media” and by the creation of immersive environments, interactive narratives, and participatory platforms, we challenge dominant modes of perception and create new forms of aesthetic experience that open up alternative ways of seeing, feeling, and knowing. These interventions serve to redistribute the sensible, making visible what was previously unseen, giving voice to the marginalized, and fostering new forms of collective engagement and solidarity.
Moreover, the virtual as a shared space of imagination and creativity is intimately connected to the notion of the commons. In an age where digital platforms are increasingly privatized and commodified, an aesthetics of the virtual must also be an aesthetics of the commons, focused on creating and defending open, accessible, and inclusive spaces for collaboration, experimentation, and resistance.
This transformative potential extends beyond the realm of art and culture, encompassing the broader ways in which we perceive, navigate, and make sense of the world. As our lives become increasingly mediated by digital technologies, an aesthetic approach to the virtual becomes a vital tool for critically engaging with the images, narratives, and interfaces that shape our reality.
By cultivating a critical aesthetics of the virtual, within the framework of media literacy, we can interrogate the hidden biases and power structures embedded in the algorithms and platforms that mediate our social relations, challenge the commodification of our attention and affect, and reimagine the virtual as a space for collective empowerment and emancipation.
In the context of my work, the virtual extends to encompass cognitive and emotional dimensions, including our imaginative capacities, subjective perceptions, and shared cultural meanings. It also includes our mediated experiences through digital technologies that are capable of amplifying, augmenting, or radically transforming our sense of reality. Here, the term virtual encapsulates the interplay between digitally mediated experiences and the subjective, embodied experiences of individuals.
Therefore, and to answer the question, the virtual for me is not just a simulated reality created by computer technologies, but also the fluid, multi-dimensional space in which embodied, emotional, and imagined realities intersect with digital environments. It is within this expansive virtual realm that I aim to investigate the co-creative processes of reality and virtuality.
By operationalizing the definition of the virtual, I hope to encompass the complexities of our experiences and perceptions in our contemporary age, offering a more nuanced and capacious lens to understand its intricate interplay within the worlds of atoms and bytes (Negroponte 1995).
In this essay, I have argued for the centrality of aesthetics in understanding and navigating the complex terrain of the virtual. Drawing on the work of theorists such as Jacques Rancière, I have shown how aesthetics, as the distribution of the sensible, is deeply political, shaping the conditions of possibility for shared experience and collective action.
I have also explored how the virtual, as a realm of potentialities and actualization, is not separate from but deeply intertwined with our lived reality. An aesthetic approach to the virtual, therefore, is not merely a question of artistic expression or cultural critique but a fundamental way of engaging with the world and reimagining our place within it.
Ultimately, the transformative potential of aesthetics in the virtual lies in its capacity to redistribute the sensible, to create new forms of common experience and to open up spaces of resistance and alternatives. As we navigate the increasingly complex and contested terrain of the virtual, an aesthetic sensibility and a commitment to the commons will be essential for realizing the emancipatory potential of these new frontiers.
By attending to the aesthetics of the virtual, we can develop new ways of seeing, feeling, and knowing that challenge dominant paradigms and create openings for collective transformation.
Works cited
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. University of Minnesota Press.
Benjamin, W. (2010). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Prism Key Press. Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and Repetition. Columbia University Press.
n/a (Director). (n.d.). Jacques Rancière | Is it possible to realize the ideals of democracy? Retrieved June 5, 2024, from https://www.thegreatminds.com/mod/vod/view.php?id=107
Negroponte, N. (1995). Being digital (1st ed.). Knopf.
Rancière, J. (2019). Distributions of the Sensible: Rancière, between Aesthetics and Politics. Northwestern University Press.
Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power (First edition.). PublicAffairs.
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