Description of Project

The e Decision is a media literacy book that examines the relationships between aesthetics, ethics, and new media art. The book provides no documentation of actual new media artworks, nor does it propose what is good or bad art. Instead, it explores the process of aesthetic judgement by discussing how people decide that particular artworks are good, the influences of their aesthetic judgements, and the consequences of their judgements. The book is intended primarily for students and artists of new media art, but it may be of interest to designers, artists, theorists, or curators working in any medium.

The e Decision presents an observational approach to aesthetics as it discusses actual practices in the art world. Much of the book's content is based on interviews with new media curators and theoreticians from Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Japan, Slovakia, and USA. Other content is derived from the fields of art, new media, psychology, philosophy and aesthetics, and from my twenty years of experience as an artist, educator, and designer.

Since 2003, the ideas within this unfinished text have been formally presented to hundreds of art students, artists, and curators in North America and Europe. The purpose of this web site is to share the major ideas of the book with whomever is interested and also to invite feedback. The text presented within these web pages are excerpts from the book or condensed summaries. Please send email if you want to provide any comments or criticism,

Don Ritter
March 5, 2008

email: dr(at)amachinery(dot)net