Call for Book Chapters

Aesthetics, Digitalization, And Artificial Intelligence
For “Philosophia Digitalis” series by Brill / mentis-Verlag

Deadline for submission of abstracts: March 30, 2024

The digital revolution affects all areas of our lives and does not stop at art, artistic creation, and aesthetic experience. The German art magazine “Monopol” ranked artificial intelligence (AI) second on its annual list of the 100 most influential figures in the art world in 2023. For five months of 2023, American screenwriters went on strike to change their precarious working conditions and to obtain regulation for the use of AI in the (re)writing of screenplays. Several works generated with the help of AI have already won art prizes. In 2023, Boris Eldagsen’s “The Electrician” received the Sony World Photography award, and Jason Allen’s “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” won first place at the Colorado State Fair in 2022. The transformation of the art world is not solely attributable to AI, however, as digital art predates its involvement. And virtual realities emerge from digital media, presenting spaces for aesthetic experiences.

Consequently, the way we create and appreciate art and the types of art produced are evolving due to digital technologies, especially AI. The full extent and specific outcomes of these changes remain uncertain. The normative status of digital art is also controversial: does it open up new and valuable aesthetic forms of expression and worlds of experience, or does it mean a decline in art, artistic skills, and aesthetic sensibilities?

Questions such as these are increasingly becoming central to philosophical and aesthetic discussions, as evident in works by authors such as Crowther (2008), du Sautoy (2019), Dotzler/Karpat (2021), Noller (2022), Misselhorn (2023), and Winter (2023). The anthology “Aesthetics, Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence” aims to present and deepen current philosophical research, perspectives, and discussions at the intersection of aesthetics, digitalization, and artificial intelligence.

We invite submissions of abstracts for the anthology that clearly articulate a thesis and argument. Contribution topics may include, but are not limited to:

1. Aesthetic experiences of the digital
2. (Medial) digital art and AI-generated art
3. Interfaces and differences between analog and digital art
4. AI as artist and author
5. AI, creativity, and originality
6. Evaluation, interpretation, and experience of digital and AI-generated works
7. Ethics of digital and AI-generated art
8. Aestheticization and beautification in digital and social media
9. Aesthetics of computer games and virtual reality

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

ABSTRACTS:

Please submit an abstract (maximum 300 words) by March 30, 2024. The abstract should include your research question, methodology, and preliminary results. You can write in German or English.

Abstracts should be submitted as Word or PDF files.

Send submissions with the subject “Aesthetics, Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence” to lisa.schmalzried@uni-hamburg.de.

NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE:

By the end of April 2024, we will inform you about the acceptance of the abstract and invite you to submit full papers.

We give authors of accepted abstracts the opportunity to discuss their theses with each other and in front of a larger audience at a Zoom conference at the end of July 2024. We will announce the exact date in due time.

FULL PAPERS:

After acceptance of the abstract, we ask the authors to submit their full papers by September 30, 2024.

Full papers should be at most 6,000 characters (including bibliography). Papers can be written in German or English.

We will communicate further guidelines for submitting full papers to the authors after acceptance of the abstract.

PUBLICATION:

We expect to publish the anthology in early 2025 in the “Philosophia Digitalis” series by Brill / mentis-Verlag.

We are looking forward to your contributions. If you have any questions, please contact lisa.schmalzried@uni-hamburg.de.

EDITORS

Prof. Dr. Catrin Misselhorn, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
PD Dr. Lisa Schmalzried, Universität Hamburg