Aesthetiography

Aesthetiography : The Next Milestone in the Confluence of Media

Presented at the 18th International Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology
ISEG, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal July 4-6, 2013
Theme: Technology in the Age of Information

Full Article at HAL Archives : View PDF


Jayesh S. Pillai, Simon Richir and Colin Schmidt

Abstract:

Art and technology always evolved simultaneously, often inspiring and complimenting each other. This can be observed at every point in the history of media technologies. We suggest that the evolution of media has always been looking forward to an ultimate form of representation of reality that one could experience - a perfect Simulated Reality. Over the years the forms of media have been evolving and improving in order to create stronger perceptual as well as psychological illusions. Today virtual reality and associated technologies help evoke illusion of reality strong enough to make one believe to be entirely immersed and present in an artificial world. Observing these developments, we believe that the distinct goal of tomorrow’s media would be to create a perfect experience of perceptual illusion with the help of multisensory mediation. In this pursuit of an ultimate representational media, different media technologies will converge. This meeting point of cinema, virtual reality and associated new-media technologies in the near future, is what we would like to refer to as ‘Aesthetiography’ - the art and science of capturing (or creating) and reproducing an absolute perceptual experience. We propose that it would be the next milestone in the confluence of media. (Aesthetiography is derived from the Greek aisthēsis "sensation" and -graphein "to write or to record".)