Art and Cosmotechnics

by Yuk Hui

In light of current discourses on AI and robotics, what do the various experiences of art contribute to the rethinking of technology today?

Art and Cosmotechnics addresses the challenge of technology to the existence of art and traditional thought, especially in light of current discourses on artificial intelligence and robotics. It carries out an attempt on the cosmotechnics of Chinese landscape painting in order to address this question, and further asks: What is the significance of shanshui (mountain and water) in face of the new challenges brought about by the current technological transformation? Thinking art and cosmotechnics together is an attempt to look into the varieties of experiences of art and to ask what these experiences might contribute to the rethinking of technology today.

Genres: Philosophy, Art, Nonfiction, Technology, History, Theory

240 pages, Paperback

Published May 26, 2020

About the author

Yuk Hui studied Computer Engineering and Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong and Goldsmiths College in London, with a focus on philosophy of technology. He currently teaches at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. Between 2012 and 2018 he taught at the institute of philosophy and art (IPK) and Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media of the Leuphana University Lüneburg where he wrote his habilitation thesis. He is also a visiting professor at the China Academy of Art where he teaches a master class with Bernard Stiegler every spring. Since 2019 he is Visiting Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media of City University in Hong Kong. Previous to that, he was a research associate at the Institute for Culture and Aesthetics of Media (ICAM), postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Research and Innovation of the Centre Pompidou in Paris and a visiting scientist at the Deutsche Telekom Laboratories in Berlin. He is initiator of the Research Network for Philosophy and Technology, an international network which facilitates researches and collaborations on philosophy and technology. Hui has published on philosophy of technology and media in periodicals such as Research in Phenomenology, Metaphilosophy, Parrhesia, Angelaki, Theory Culture and Society, Cahiers Simondon, Deleuze Studies, Intellectica, Krisis, Implications Philosophiques, Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie, Techné, Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft, Appareil, New Formations,Parallax, etc. He is editor (with Andreas Broeckmann) of 30 Years after Les Immatériaux: Art, Science and Theory (2015), and author of On the Existence of Digital Objects (prefaced by Bernard Stiegler, University of Minnesota Press, March 2016), The Question Concerning Technology in China. An Essay in Cosmotechnics (Urbanomic, December 2016), and Recursivity and Contingency (Rowman & Littlefield International, February 2019). His writings have been translated into a dozen languages.

Reviews

[Gerhard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book was the result of rabbit-holing AI ethics. Instead, when I began, it was only to discover it is about aesthetics. That is really not my cup of tea; I prefer something more grounded like decolonial theory, so this was a bit of a heavy, but fascinating slog. Best to let Hui himself explain:

This book takes up aesthetics as its subject; instead of treating it as an inferior faculty of cognition, it transposes it to the realm of logic. In juxtaposition to the recursivity of tragist logic and cybernetic logic explored in this work, it also endeavors to sketch out the recursivity in Daoist thinking, which I call Daoist logic.

That is complicated, to say the least, but eminently interesting. Less interesting for me is Hui’s pivot to addressing “the relation between art and such philosophy yet to come by reopening the question of art and its varieties of experience, to ask how aesthetic thinking could contribute to our inquiry.”

Hui adds that the book began as a ‘mediation’ (I initially read that as ‘meditation’) on shanshui (literally mountain and water) painting. But then we (finally) reach ‘Chapter 3: Art and Automation’. It has fascinating sections like ‘The Status of Machine Intelligence Today’. Phew, that is more like it. Except the chapter begins with a looong discussion of Heidegger, whom I had no idea “was indeed a careful reader of cybernetics”. Hui comments:

The miserable view of technological development we have today identifies technology with a definite and narrow vision. For example, the transhumanist ideology excludes other imaginations and understandings of technology in favor of a new social class of enhanced humans or a relentless capitalist conquest of standing reserves.

This is an argument that sits comfortably in decolonial theory. It does make for a bit of an odd duck of a book though. Hui goes on:

But first let’s ask: What is the significance of artificial intelligence for art today? Artificial intelligence, insofar as it is artificial, is prone to mutation, meaning that it carries the possibility of deviating from all norms. As for intelligence, we cannot say what it is, since paradoxically any definition tends to limit intelligence itself. Understanding it in this way, the future remains both formally and ontologically open for us.

That’s what happens when you rabbit-hole: ontology becomes the pluriverse. Or is it the other way around?

[Shannon Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ugggggghhhhffddgdgsgsss

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelente. Una deriva filosófica que va de Kant, Heidegger y Benjamin hasta gran parte del pensamiento taoísta chino. Yuk continúa analizando la posibilidad de una tecnodiversidad a partir de la exploración del arte como ámbito donde puede producirse una ruptura epistémica que de lugar a una nueva cosmotécnica. El análisis de la pintura shanshui como eje del pensamiento oriental organicista (contrapartida de la tragedia griega en la filosofía occidental) es brillante.

Ojalá se traduzca al español.

[Lluna · Rating 2 out of 5]

dos coma cinc, poc inspirador, mal lligat, dispers

[Daniel Beg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book if you’re looking for an introduction to both Heidegger and Daoist artistic thought. Yuk Hui is very clear in his argument and is careful to explain the basis of his argument to a fairly accessible level. I was impacted by his framing of Daoism as a recursive logic which accepts the unknowable as a given, but also gains it’s strength from it. By accepting the unknown, it gets out of a more classical view of “tragist” or tragic logic of the Greeks which essentially treats the unknown as a force which is only reckoned with in tragedy. He unlocks a new way of thinking about cybernetics as a revolution which should change our view of art, and must change our approach to it, but is far from making the human practice of art irrelevant. A good read for those seeking to break down some fears about artificial intelligence and get to reframing their creative practices in the 21st Century!

[Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd book; a bit of a montage, of connected topics; China meets Europe, philosophically, and in the visual arts. Technology, isn't mentioned too much. An odd book. Brings back a lot of memories. Shanshui Hua, is something I still, have a deep interest in exploring.

[Rafael Borrego · Rating 2 out of 5]

Arte y cosmotécnica de Yuk Hui es un ambicioso ensayo que intenta articular una nueva relación entre tecnología, arte y pensamiento filosófico desde una perspectiva intercultural. Me han resultado especialmente sugerentes sus referencias a la filosofía occidental —Aristóteles, Schelling, Hegel, Heidegger— y el modo en que se articulan cuestiones como la techné, la tragedia o el origen del arte. Sin embargo, el libro tiende a dispersarse al combinar filosofía, arte, inteligencia artificial, Taoísmo y tecnología, en un enfoque que a veces resulta excesivamente abarcador. Los apartados dedicados a la filosofía oriental me han parecido menos sólidos y menos integrados con el resto del discurso. Si bien Hui propone una "cosmotécnica" como alternativa al pensamiento tecnológico occidental, el resultado es un texto densamente especulativo, más provocador que sistemático. Es una obra para lectores interesados en la encrucijada entre estética, ontología y tecnociencia, pero que exige una lectura paciente y crítica.

[D. Lázaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

La cosmotécnica alternativa de Yuk Hui tiene una implantación política muy difícil, en comparación con el materialismo político. Sin embargo, el mero hecho de apuntar a que la técnica tiene presupuestos ontológicos, epistemológicos y cosmológicos; es decir, una "filosofía de base", abre la puerta a la esperanza. Necesitamos encontrar una alternativa al futuro inmediato catastrófico al que nos conduce la razón económica del lucro y la competencia.

[Renée · Rating 5 out of 5]

a very rich and syncretic use of the foundation established in 'recursivity and contingency'. hui takes variations in organic thinking (as conceived by its predecessor) to be the primary source of individuation in cultures, using the relations of man to the cosmos within greek tragedy and shanshui paintaing as his examples. this is taken as a more effective means of understanding cultures than the more specific notion of "religion", and crucially as the starting point for any serious departure from the western european logic that governs much of the contemporary world, since it provides a basis for aesthetic thinking, which itself influences technological development in a reciprocal relationship. i was surprised by how illuminating it was for me even with how much foreign conceptual ground it covers. i'll probably do a second pass and corresponding review edit soon since it is so dense; this review only covers the takeaway that i found to be the most important.

[Philippe · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinarily rich read that allows me to reconceptualise my own research as a form of 'cosmotechnics' that unifies cosmic order (dao) and technical practice (qi) in a recursive, historical and place-based relationship. I want to spend more time with Hui. To be continued.

[Channdavel · Rating 4 out of 5]

good daoist intro with a worthwhile aesthetic look into the intersection of art and technology

[danielle; ▵ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, good book if you find yourself at the intersection of art and technology and don’t know which way to run, but my favorite idea in it is that the phrase ~a [noun] [noun]s (where [noun]s is a verb, as agreement indicates) is recursive.