New Aesthetic Directions In The 21st Century: Is Modern Technology Directing Current Aesthetic Thinking

Aesthetics has been primarily concerned about beauty. But this aspect changed as it became related first to the philosophical understanding of art and then due to forces of commerce into a spectacle. The current era is dominated by a manipulative digital technology, its varied artifacts and its autonomy. It has led to changing relations between man and technology, where technology provides whatever mankind desires. It has led to two distinct aesthetic trends attitudinal and the technological. Both are related and caused by each other. Alter Modern and New Aesthetic are terms that have been used to describe the aesthetic attitudes and art works of this time, where both are the same and different at the same time. This paper investigates the developments in aesthetics and suggests that our 21st century architecture too is a manifestation of these aesthetic trends.