Strata and Aesthetic Categories of Digital Art

Abstract

The aim of this article is to offer an account of the digital work of art based on Nicolai Hartmann’s ontological and aesthetic ideas regarding the strata, categories, and values that constitute the realm of art. This approach is embraced here as a contribution to ongoing academic debates about the aesthetics of the virtual world. The method advanced is an ontological hermeneutics. Starting from Hartmann’s philosophical framework I outline an account of the aesthetic strata of digital art (material, logicial, orectic, and virtual) and of their corresponding categorial domains. The result is to be understood as a partial component of a more encompassing aesthetic theory of art in the realm of digital virtuality.