Artistic Intentionality, Exclusive Heritage of the Living

The germ of invention as described by Simondon, just like the faculty of anticipation discussed by Stiegler, resides in the living, here the human: it could not be otherwise for the artistic intentionality that aims at the achievement of the work. The machine, for its part, as a non-living entity, cannot have intentions¹. There may be an agency of the machine, of the medium, of matter, but it could not organize sequences of events in a strategy aimed at particular goals.

This hypothesis has nothing to do with anthropocentrism, for nothing prevents attributing forms of intentionality – including artistic ones – to non-human entities belonging to the great family of the living². Hence, if there is operation, there is necessarily an operator, and, when it comes to the computer, the fundamental importance of the role of the human “behind” the machine must not be downplayed.

Attributing intentionality exclusively to the living in the human-machine relation does, on the other hand, presuppose adhering to the great division of the real proposed by Henri Bergson: that of the living in relation to the non-living, of the organic in relation to the inorganic³.

As far as artistic intention is concerned, as we have understood, it will not be a Platonic “Idea” seeking to impose itself on a passive matter. On the contrary, it is an initial impetus that sets off the creative process, but whose nature and potential must be constructed during the experience with the materiality of the world. In order to preserve a proximity with the notion of image-system discussed in Simondon in the preceding paragraphs, we will call this at once humble and complex conception of artistic intentionality, the starting point of the creative process, the intention-image. The intention-image, more or less blurred, must assert its plasticity: it will have to be sublimated by experience during a creative process in which the affective-sensible predominates.

1. It can certainly, as already mentioned, crystallize human intentions, which have been programmed, intentionally or not, into the structure of the machine.↩︎

2. The courtship displays of Goldie’s bird-of-paradise, a bird species living in New Guinea, are very telling in this respect. The males of this species, seeking to attract a female, perform choreographies that take place in a space they have decorated themselves, with care, demonstrating a bodily engagement on the sensible and symbolic levels, while bearing witness to a keen sense of visual composition. The sub-discipline of aesthetics recently established under the name of bioaesthetics envisages and studies aesthetic behaviors in animals. See on this subject Gesche Westphal-Fitch and W. Tecumseh Fitch, «Bioaesthetics: The evolution of aesthetic cognition in humans and other animals ». dans : Progress in Brain Research [en ligne]. [s. l.] : Elsevier, 2018, p. 3–24. [consulté le 18 July 2025], or Bernd Heinrich, «The Biological Roots of Aesthetics and Art ». Evolutionary Psychology [en ligne]. SAGE Publications, July 2013, vol. 11, n° 3, p. 743–761.↩︎

3. Gilbert Simondon situates his reflection on individuation within the same fundamental division of the real, individuation being considered by Simondon as a process that occurs in different ways depending on whether it concerns the living or the domain he calls “physical” (which refers, for example, to the process of crystallization). See on this subject Gilbert Simondon, L’individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d’information, op. cit., p. 27-28.↩︎