Journal of Dharma

From Rasa to Algorithms: A Philosafari Through Technology, Art and Creativity

2026-04-09T10:25:58+00:00

Art has always flourished along the pathways of imagination and invention. Every epoch of human civilization has expressed its aesthetic vision through the technological possibilities available to it. The chisel once shaped the world of sculpture; the printing press and photography transformed literature and visual representation; cinema expanded narrative imagination in ways previously unimaginable. In the twenty-first century, however, a technologically driven metanoia propelled by artificial intelligence, digital networks, immersive media and algorithmic systems reconfigures not only the tools of artistic production but also the very understanding of creativity itself. What, then, is creativity? It may be described as the capacity to reformulate the familiar into novel and meaningful forms. If this is so, it becomes fitting to examine how art is being transformed under technological influence. This inquiry unfolds as what the Journal of Dharma calls a Philosafari: a reflective journey into the inner caves of thought and imagination

The Role of Technology in Plant-Inspired Art and Creativity

2026-04-09T10:34:21+00:00

This article investigates the relationship between technology, plant life, and artistic creativity within the emerging field of plant humanities. Employing a qualitative interpretive methodology grounded in ecocriticism, post humanist theory, and environmental aesthetics, the study analyses contemporary techno-botanical artistic practices including biosensing installations, augmented reality applications, and immersive digital environments. The article proposes a three-stage conceptual framework—disconnection, reconciliation, and balance—to explain how digital technologies reshape contemporary human–plant relationships. Through critical analysis of selected digital artworks and environmental media, the study demonstrates that technological mediation can both distance humans from ecological experience and create new forms of multispecies awareness. The findings suggest that technology need not be inherently opposed to environmental consciousness; rather, when ethically and creatively applied, it can foster deeper ecological perception and engagement with plant life. The article therefore contributes to plant humanities by offering a conceptual model for analyzing techno-botanical aesthetics in the Anthropocene.

The Agogô in the Technological Age: Ethical and Cultural Transformations Among the Ika Society

2026-04-09T10:40:36+00:00

The Agogô is a traditional musical instrument of the Ika people of Delta State, Nigeria, performed during festivals, ceremonies, dances and storytelling. It sustains rhythm while deepening the spiritual and cultural texture of community events. In the technological age, however, the creativity and expression surrounding the Agogô are being reshaped in ways that raise ethical and religious concerns. This article examines how technological interventions affect the artistic life of the Agogô. Using philosophical analysis, the authors argue that technology has aided documentation, dissemination and preservation of the instrument, while simultaneously contributing to cultural dilution and commodification. Safeguarding the Agogô, therefore, requires frameworks that hold innovation accountable to cultural heritage and promote inclusive, culturally grounded development of digital tools and artistic practices for the common good. The article concludes that a native-centric ethical approach, rooted in community values and cultural respect, is essential for addressing technological impacts and protecting the integrity of this heritage.

The Algorithmic Gaze: AI and the Synthetic A Priori of Beauty

2026-04-09T10:46:52+00:00

This article examines the Kantian account of aesthetic judgment amid the generation and circulation of images through computational systems. Building on Immanuel Kant’s view that judgments of beauty depend on an a priori structure of reflective judgment, the paper advances two related theses. First, contemporary generative models can produce outputs that reliably elicit human experiences of beauty; yet they do so without the subjective purposiveness and intentional directedness that Kant associates with artistic genius. Their operations follow statistical inference and pattern optimization rather than reflective intention. Second, a more consequential transformation occurs at the level of reception: recommendation systems and platform feeds reorganize which forms become visible, repeatable and culturally normative, thereby shaping the dispositions through which aesthetic judgments arise. What appears beautiful is increasingly conditioned by infrastructures that predict, rank, and circulate images at scale. By placing Kant in dialogue with debates on intentionality, media theory and neuroaesthetics, and by drawing on empirical research on algorithmic curation in music streaming and social platforms, the article proposes understanding the aesthetic a priori as technogenetic—historically plastic and increasingly externalized into systems of prediction, optimization and digital mediation. Beauty, therefore, does not disappear but is judged and shared under reconfigured conditions.

Digital Music in Contemporary China: Cultural Transmission, Identity Formation and Social Cohesion

2026-04-09T10:54:56+00:00

This article examines the development of China’s digital music industry, focusing on how technological change, institutional responses and platform ecosystems shape the sector. Through careful analysis from multiple perspectives, it clarifies the challenges faced in the digital transformation of cultural industries. As stakeholders respond to rapid shifts, questions of local cultural identity and global reach become central. The author focuses on continued research and dialogue to harness digital change while protecting the rich diversity of China’s musical heritage.

The Onto-Aesthetics of Code: Art, Technology and the Question of the Real

2026-04-09T11:00:51+00:00

The rapid expansion of algorithmic systems, artificial intelligence, and immersive media has fundamentally reconfigured the relationship between art, technology, and reality. This article develops the concept of the onto-aesthetics of code to examine how digital systems no longer merely mediate artistic production but actively constitute the conditions of aesthetic experience and being. Drawing on the philosophical frameworks of Heidegger, Baudrillard, and Stiegler, the author argues that code operates as an ontological structure that reshapes perception, authorship, and materiality in contemporary culture. Through a critical analysis of generative art, virtual reality, and AI-generated imagery, this research demonstrates how digital aesthetics displace traditional categories such as aura, originality, and embodiment, replacing them with processual, recursive, and interactive forms of engagement. Rather than marking the end of aesthetic philosophy, these developments demand its renewal and transformation. The article concludes that digital art inaugurates a new ontological regime in which simulation, affect, algorithmic processes, and computational environments redefine the nature of the real and expand the possibilities of artistic creation today.

Evolving Creativity Dynamics and Rethinking Art in the Era of Generative AI

2026-04-09T11:10:13+00:00

The rise of AI systems has shifted art making from manual execution to prompt-based orchestration, raising new questions about authorship, agency, originality, labour, and ethical responsibility. Using a comparative framework that engages Kant, Heidegger, Benjamin, McLuhan and Floridi, the authors argue that generative AI lacks the intentionality, genius and purposiveness required for creativity in the strong philosophical sense. Nevertheless, it can participate in a distributed, relational mode of co-creativity in which the human user remains the primary source of intention and judgment. The article makes three contributions: it distinguishes apparent from genuine creativity in AI art; it explains how AI reshapes labour, temporality, materiality and authorship through prompt-creativity and creative parasitism; and it offers an ethical critique, emphasizing human agency, dataset transparency, and fair compensation within the evolving infosphere.

Technological Mediation and Musical Creativity: Contemporary Chinese Music in Social Movements and Political Discourse

2026-04-09T11:16:34+00:00

This article examines how technological mediation reshapes musical creativity in contemporary China and its role in cultural identity, social movements, and political discourse under globalization and state regulation. Drawing on ethnomusicology, cultural studies, and political sociology, it analyzes how digital production, circulation, and performance negotiate tensions between tradition and innovation, expression and censorship, and local identity and global flows. Attention is given to Chinese hip-hop and artists such as Higher Brothers, whose multilingual styles exemplify mediated cultural revival and transnational exchange. The author argues that technologically mediated music becomes a space for indirect political expression and identity formation, alongside broader artistic interventions by figures like Ai Weiwei.

Creativity in Art, Design and Technology

2026-04-09T11:26:19+00:00

How does creativity evolve in an increasingly technological world? Creativity in Art, Design and Technology edited by Susan Liggett, Rae Earnshaw and Jill Townsley examine how art, design, and technology reconfigure creative practice and social responsibility within the context of emerging technologies. Through interdisciplinary case studies, ranging from painting and virtual reality to AI, climate engagement, and community art, the contributors argue that technology can extend human imagination while reshaping authorship, collaboration, and social responsibility. The book’s strength lies in its accessible examples and its insistence that creativity today is often collective, technologically mediated and socially responsive. The book highlights collaborative models between artists, designers, and technologists, while raising philosophical and ethical questions about authorship, temporality, and social impact.

The Art of Useless: Fashion, Media and Consumer Culture in Contemporary China

2026-04-09T11:30:41+00:00

This review examines Calvin Hui’s The Art of Useless, a cultural study of fashion, media, and consumer culture in contemporary China from the Cultural Revolution to the globalized present. Hui reads fashion objects and their cinematic representations as archives of social memory, class formation, labor, gender, and political economy. Moving across documentary, fiction film, popular literature, exhibitions, and ethnographic materials, the book argues that fashion is a privileged site for mapping the contradictions of socialist history, post-socialist reforms, and neoliberal globalization. By placing cultural texts in dialogue with Western Marxism, psychoanalysis, and cultural theory, Hui shows how consumption, production, and waste reveal the political unconscious of contemporary China. The review highlights the book’s interdisciplinary method, theoretical richness, and contribution to Chinese cultural studies, while noting the limited comparative engagement beyond China.

Modern Art for a Modern China: The Chinese Intellectual Debate 1900 – 1930

2026-04-09T11:37:52+00:00

Yiyan Wang’s Modern Art for a Modern China: The Chinese Intellectual Debate 1900–1930 offers an interdisciplinary account of how art reform became integral to China’s cultural, political and educational transformation in the early twentieth century. Focusing on debates among artists, poets, writers, critics and educators, Wang shows how Chinese intellectuals integrated art reform and aesthetic movements with broader initiatives of modernization, nationalism and cosmopolitanism. The book highlights pivotal figures such as Cai Yuanpei, Lu Xun and Xu Zhimo, emphasizing their contributions to aesthetic education, art institutions, exhibitions, international cultural exchange and the relationship between modern Chinese literature and visual art. It also challenges Western historiographies that understate Chinese agency under semi-colonial conditions, foregrounding intellectual self-fashioning and cultural regeneration.