Computational Art, Dematerialisation and Embodiment

Résumé

Computational art often explores dematerialisation and immateriality through works that are more grounded on information and causal processes than on formal features or physical materials. Digital computation is substrate independent and so too tend to be those artworks that centre their aesthetic experience on computation. These artworks share several traits with conceptual art, one of them being the challenging of traditional notions of objecthood. Dematerialisation is therefore a recurring strategy in computational art; however, this paper will argue that the hermeneutical processes triggered by computational artworks conversely lead to an ultimate embodiment of artworks, not in physical artefacts, computers, or computational systems, but rather on the readers’ own minds and in processes that are developed from and by the artworks themselves.