The dissertation explains the internet as an aesthetic medium, authorship in the medium and platforms’ influence on the medium’s aesthetic function. This is achieved by analysing the actual art that uses the internet as an aesthetic medium. The aesthetic function of the internet as a medium is different from its informative and communicative function. It entails manipulation of the medium defined by the permanent and instant interconnectedness of the digitalised instances or representations of people, things, artificial intelligence and information to (...) achieve a specific aesthetic aim. Internet as a medium, similarly to comics and film, allows for different kinds of authorship. A typical example of art that uses the internet as a medium is a meme. This is because memes involve meta-level discussions and group authorship, elements that are most easily facilitated by the internet as a medium. Art that uses the internet as an aesthetic medium can be single-authored if the sole author manipulates digital interconnectedness in an aesthetically significant way. Besides this general level of how the internet is characterised as a medium, there is a practical level that includes platforms on which artwork is made. These two levels are necessarily connected. Even though platforms also manipulate digitalised interconnectedness, they do not erase the internet’s potential as an aesthetic medium because artists manipulate this already manipulated content. (shrink)

Visual artists and scientists frequently employ the labour of assistants and technicians, however these workers generally receive little recognition for their contribution to the production of artistic and scientific work. They are effectively “invisible”. This invisible status however, comes at the cost of a better understanding of artistic and scientific work, and improvements in artistic and scientific practice. To enhance understanding of artistic and scientific work, and these practices more broadly, it is vital to discern the nature of an assistant (...) or technician’s contribution to the production of a work, which is difficult as it is uncommon to discuss these workers. To address this, I investigate how different kinds of parallel working arrangements in collective artistic and scientific practices affect the creative potential of individuals involved. Different working arrangements permit different degrees of autonomy for individuals involved in these practices. Significantly, a lack of autonomy precludes the opportunity to act spontaneously and so exercise, what I term, “creative agency”. Evaluating the contribution of an assistant or technician based on the degree of autonomy that they are granted in the production of a work is an approach that I show can be used to precisely determine the nature of their contribution to the production of a work and accordingly, what kind of recognition an agent should receive for this. Importantly, this approach has the advantage of explaining the artistic and epistemic significance of different kinds of contribution to the production of artistic and scientific work. (shrink)

Artifacts are often characterized as intentional products of human activities, suggesting that they must have authors. However, contrary to this common characterization, I argue that there exist novel examples of artifacts that lack authors. This novelty arises directly from the emergence of generative artificial intelligence applications. I provide several examples of such authorless artifacts and address potential objections to their existence.