ISSN 2360-7998
The emergence of generative video technologies has introduced a computational sublime within contemporary aesthetics, transforming artistic production, spectatorship, and the ontology of visual creativity. This paper interrogates the philosophical implications of generative video through the lens of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgement, particularly his conception of aesthetic judgement as disinterested pleasure, purposiveness without purpose, and the free harmony between imagination and understanding. This study argues that generative video constitutes a “computational sublime", a new aesthetic category wherein algorithmic complexity produces forms exceeding immediate cognitive mastery, thereby provoking both fascination and epistemic unease. The paper adopted conceptual analysis and critical hermeneutics as methodology, bringing Kantian aesthetics into dialogue with contemporary debates on artificial creativity, digital ontology, and posthuman art theory. The study is justified by a gap in current scholarship: although AI-generated art has received increasing attention, there remains limited integration between classical aesthetic theory and computational media. The significance of this research lies in extending Kantian aesthetics into contemporary digital contexts, thereby contributing to debates in philosophy of technology, aesthetics, and artificial creativity. The study concludes that Kant’s aesthetics remains philosophically fertile for understanding AI-mediated visual culture but requires reinterpretation to account for distributed creativity and synthetic image production.
Keywords: Computational sublime; generative video; Kantian aesthetics; computational sublime; artificial creativity; digital ontology; reflective judgment.