Yuk Hui

  • YUK HUI
  • SYMPOSIUMS
    • Cybernetics for the 21st Century 2: Cybernetics to Come
    • Cybernetics for the 21st Century 1: Epistemological Reconstruction
    • Dialogues on Philosophy and Technology Research Seminars
    • Postmoderns and After? -40 Years after The Postmodern Condition
    • Towards a Techno-Ecology of Participation
    • 30 years after Les Immatériaux
    • Simondon and Digital Culture
  • TECH PROJECTS
  • ARTICLES
  • Books
    • Monographs
    • Anthologies
    • Edited Volumes
  • Media
    • Interviews
    • Press
  • English
    • English
    • 中文 (香港)

Yuk Hui

Deduction, Induction and Transduction – On Digital Objects and Media Aesthetics

April 26, 2013
Digital Objects/Metadata/Metaphysics/Philosophy/Simondon

Deduktion, Induktion und Transduktion. Über Medienästhetik und digitale Objekte

in Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft/Heft 8 ed. E. Hörl & M. Hansen

Dieser Aufsatz beschäftigt sich mit der Medienästhetik digitaler Objekte und regt in diesem Zusammenhang zu einem Rückgriff auf die Kant’sche transzendentale Ästhetik an. Den Beginn bildet eine grundlegende Reflexion zur Definition von Daten und Objekten und es wird die Frage aufgeworfen, was der neue Status und damit auch die neue Ästhetik von Objekten in der Folge ihrer Digitalisierung sein könnten. Das rasche Anwachsen strukturierter Datenmengen und die Objektwerdung digitaler Entitäten in Folge der Entwicklungen in der KI-Forschung und zuletzt in den jüngeren Ansätzen zu einem semantischen Netz führen uns auf alte philosophische Fragestellungen zu den Existenzweisen von Objekten zurück. Der Aufsatz unternimmt den Versuch, die vorgeschlagene Ästhetik digitaler Objekte mithilfe dreier Verfahren zu analysieren: Induktion, Deduktion und Transduktion, und er tut dies mit Bezugnahme auf die Theorien Humes, Kants und Simondons sowie auf die Theorien der erweiterten Kognition und des exteriorisierten Gedächtnisses. Den Abschluss bildet die Darstellung eines transzendentalen Empirismus als Synthese, die zu einem Verständnis der Ästhetik digitaler Objekte beitragen kann.

This article looks at the media aesthetics of digital objects by proposing to go back to Kant’s transcendental aesthetics. It starts with reflecting on the definition of data and objects and asks what would be the new status of objects after digitisation, and hence their aesthetics. The proliferation of structured data and objectification of digital entities, following the movement in AI and more recently the Semantic Web, brings us back to the old philosophical questions concerning the modes of existence of objects. This article attempts to analyse the proposed aesthetics by three processes: induction, deduction and transduction, in correspondence with the theories of Hume, Kant and Simondon and the theories of extended cognitions and external memories. The article concludes by identifying a transcendental empiricism as synthesis to understand the aesthetics of digital objects.

Download article | Link to journal

Share this
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Whatsapp
  • Email

Recent Events

Miki Kiyoshi Memorial Lecture, Kyoto University, 9 January 2026

Keynote, Digital Cosmos Symposium, Amsterdam, 22 November 2025

Book Conversation on Post-Europe, London School of Economics, 14 October, 2025

Post-West Symposium, National Taiwan University, 19 May 2025

Creativity and Organology, Taipei National University of the Arts, 15-16 May 2025

Theory Colloquium, Department of Comparative Literature, Cornell University, 18 April 2025

ICCIT Annual Lecture 2025, University of Toronto, 16 April 2025

Public Lecture, University of Glasgow, 13 March 2025

Seminar, Scottish Centre for Continental Philosophy/Dundee University, 12 March 2025

Lecture/Symposium, Congreso Futuro, Santiago de Chile, 13-18 January 2025

Public Lecture, University of Chile, 13 January 2025

Keynote Lecture, International Social Sciences Congress of the Faculty of Letters, University of Istanbul, 18-20 December 2024

Keynote Lecture, Annual Conference of East Asian Philosophy, Fukuoka University, 14-15 December 2024.

Symposium, University of Tokyo, 29-30 November 2024

Public Lecture, School of Art, Pekin University Beijing, 26 November 2024

Lectures,  Department of History of Science, Tsinghua University Beijing, 25 November 2024

Keynote Lecture, Simondon Conference, University of Lisbon, 11-13 November 2024

Symposium Derrida Studies in Asia, University of Tokyo, 28-29 September 2024

Public Lecture, Leeum Museum Seoul, 26 September 2024

Keynote Lecture, IV International City and Philosophy Congress, Jesuit University Ignatianum, 19-20 September 2024

Public Lecture, World Philosophy Congress/Filosofie sotto le stelle, 5 August 2024

Categories

Research Network for Philosophy and Technology

You might be interested in

Rhythm and Technics: On Heidegger’s Commentary on Rimbaud

Latest from Blog

Publication of Anthology in Russian Фрагментация будущего

The Moscow based publisher Ad Marginem recently published an anthology of Yuk Hui titled Фрагментация будущего

Publication of Chinese translation of Post-Europe (Guangxi: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2026)

The Chinese publisher Guangxi Normal University Press has published a translation of Post-Europe (Guiling: Guangxi Normal

Yuk Hui ranked #40 in ArtReview’s Power 100

Yuk Hui is ranked #40 ArtReview’s Power 100 list—an annual ranking of the most influential people

Publication of Jenseits von West und Ost: Gespräch über Technik und Philosophie (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2025)

German publication Jenseits von West und Ost: Gespräch über Technik und Philosophie will be published on

Japanese translation of Post-Europe (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2025)

The Japanese publisher Iwanami Shoten has published a translation of Post-Europe: https://www.iwanami.co.jp/book/b10146259.html  日本語版へのまえがき まえがき 前 奏 故郷喪失的立場 第一節 惑星化と故郷喪失

© 2020 - Digital Milieu | Yuk Hui. All Right Reserved.
Site Design by ein doughnut studio

  • YUK HUI
  • SYMPOSIUMS
    • Cybernetics for the 21st Century 2: Cybernetics to Come
    • Cybernetics for the 21st Century 1: Epistemological Reconstruction
    • Dialogues on Philosophy and Technology Research Seminars
    • Postmoderns and After? -40 Years after The Postmodern Condition
    • Towards a Techno-Ecology of Participation
    • 30 years after Les Immatériaux
    • Simondon and Digital Culture
  • TECH PROJECTS
  • ARTICLES
  • Books
    • Monographs
    • Anthologies
    • Edited Volumes
  • Media
    • Interviews
    • Press
  • English
    • English
    • 中文 (香港)

REVIEW / TRANSLATION / PUBLICATIONS / EVENTS