## Editorial

Which challenges do new computational technologies pose for current aesthetic theory and the concept of aesthetics? This question guides the thematic section of the present issue of The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics originating  from  the  conference Aesthetics  Re-Loaded held  at  Aarhus University December 11-13, 2012. The purpose of the conference was to advance and exchange basic research on aesthetics within the field of new technology, addressing issues such as the aesthetic implications and potentials of contemporary practices that make use of new technology (e.g.  mobile  and  social  media,  apps,  touchscreens,  DNA-manipulation etc.) and the significance of what takes place 'behind' the monitor - in the code, the protocols, the hardware, etc. The thematic section comprises articles by the keynotes Bernard Stiegler, Mark B. N. Hansen, and Olga Goriunova as well as an article by Andrea Virginás.

In  continuation  of  the  third  volume  of  his Technics  and  Time and Jacques Derrida's concept of archi-writing, Stiegler argues in 'Organology  of  Dreams  and  Archi-Cinema'  that  the  dream  is  the  primordial form of an archi-cinema. The archi-cinema of consciousness is the projection that results from what Stiegler, in his development of Husserl's theory of primary and secondary retentions, calls tertiary retentions, i.e. the mnemotechnical traces of conscious and unconscious life. With reference to the films of among others Fellini, Godard, and Kiarostami, Stiegler claims that archi-cinema is historically conditioned by the history of tertiary retentions, and that there is an organology of dreams. In a similar (post-)phenomenological vein Hansen, in the article 'The Operational Present of Sensibility', makes the observation that contemporary digital technologies give access to levels of temporal experience, which until now have been closed to the scope of human attention. This access is established through a human-machine assemblage that supplements perception by systemically co-relating it with a technical operationality whose 'content' is inaccessible to human perception. Hansen applies this indirect model of the temporal expansion of human agency in an investigation of contemporary micro-computational expansion of sensibility, both as it informs data capitalism and the critique thereof.

Drawing upon parts of the same theories, most notably Gilbert Simondon's theory of individuation and transindividuation, supplemented by Mikhail Bakhtin, Goriunova, in the article 'The Force of Digital Aesthetics: On Memes, Hacking, and Individuation', explores the phenomenon of memes , i.e. digital artefacts that acquire a viral character and reach global popularity. Firstly, the memes are regarded as aesthetic objects mediating transindividuation of the self, the collective and the technical. Secondly, Goriunova analyses the technical architecture of the memes, which is connected to relatively few different platforms. This limited number of human-technical structures, she shows, in turn informs the creation of new platforms  for  generating  memes,  networked  expressions,  and  aesthetic practice. The fourth and last article of the thematic section, 'Screens 'as representation' and screens 'as simulation' in mainstream cinema detection: between Blade Runner (1982) and Splice (2009)' by Virginás returns to the medium of film. Virginás shows how views of computer screens with digitally stored and retrieved traces to a large extent have replaced views of active human bodies entering in interaction and dialogue in contemporary detection films. This shift towards (re)presentation of detection work as a process that takes place on the human-computer interface, on screen, is analysed in relation to Blade Runner , Gattaca , Minority Report , The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo , and Splice with particular focus on diegesis, concepts of screen, and allegorical structures.

After the thematic section on the aesthetics of technology and new media follows a piece on object-oriented ontology by Graham Harman and a response to Harman by Robert Jackson. In the article 'Materialism is  Not the Solution: On Matter, Form, and Mimesis' Harman defends a new sense of formalism against recent materialist theories, claiming that form has three key opposite terms: matter, function, and content. He proceeds in three moves. First, he problematizes Jane Bennett's critique of object-oriented philosophy for prioritizing objects over relations in favour of a unified matter-energy. Then, he argues that the form/function dualism in architecture is not doing justice to the issue of form, because of the relationality of the terms. Finally, he argues against Greenberg, Heidegger, and McLuhan that content cannot be belittled in favour of deeper form, and concludes with a conception of mimesis as performance, claiming that it is the spectator that provides the form underlying any work's content. In his response, 'If Materialism Is Not the Solution, Then What Was the Problem? A Response to Harman', Jackson discusses Harman's object-oriented thinking in relation to formalism and the aesthetic theories of among others Nicolas Bourriaud and Michael Fried.

Asking what it means that the author is increasingly becoming more of a commodity, Anders Johansson's article 'Commodification and Subjectivization: Toward a Critique of the Authorship Discourse' is a discussion of the academic responses to this tendency, which according to Johansson even though they try to rethink authorship implicitly reinforce the traditional notion of the author, whereby they actually take part in the commodification. This, Johansson claims, is due to an unclear conception of subjectivity within the discourse on authorship. Also, on a general level, the commodification can be considered as a symptom of a crisis of subjectivity, as a response to a more extensive desubjectivisation. With reference to Adorno and Rancière Johansson argues that we need to develop a more dynamic concept of subjectivity in order to grasp the creative forces behind a literary work.

The issue closes with two reviews: Mathias Pirholt on Kunst und Erfahrung. Beiträge zu einer philosophischen Kontroverse edited  by  Stefan Deines, Jasper Liptow and Martin Seel, and Max Ryynänen on three recent volumes on and by Richard Shusterman: Dorota Koczanowicz and Wojciech Małecki, Shusterman's Pragmatism: Between Literature and Somaesthetics ;  Wojciech Małecki, Embodying Pragmatism: Richard Shusterman's Philosophy and Literary Theory ; and Richard Shusterman, Thinking Through the Body: Essays in Somaesthetics .

Lotte Philipsen and Jacob Lund