@article{ART003362094},
author={Eun-Kwang Park},
title={How Generative AI Governs Images: The Apparatus, Prompter Subjectivation, and the Possibility of Counter-Aesthetics},
journal={The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art},
issn={1229-0246},
year={2026},
volume={78},
pages={166-184}
TY - JOUR
AU - Eun-Kwang Park
TI - How Generative AI Governs Images: The Apparatus, Prompter Subjectivation, and the Possibility of Counter-Aesthetics
JO - The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art
PY - 2026
VL - 78
IS - null
PB - 한국미학예술학회
SP - 166
EP - 184
SN - 1229-0246
AB - This study critically examines the ontological shift in visual media and the crisis of prompter subjectivity brought about by generative AI while exploring counter-aesthetic practices. It dialectically integrates Giorgio Agamben’s “apparatus” theory with Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and N. Katherine Hayles’s cognitive theory.
Generative AI operates as an opaque apparatus that replaces photographic “indexicality” with statistical probabilities within a “latent space.” By funneling interactions through the narrow “obligatory passage point (OPP)” of the prompt, the apparatus conceals a hybrid network of algorithms and data labor. Consequently, human “embodied cognition” is asymmetrically subordinated to the machine‘s “nonconscious cognition.” The sovereign creator is thereby reduced to a desubjectified “man without content,” abandoning poiesis to merely “select” among probable illusions.
This study reveals that the aesthetic issue of generative AI images lies not merely in their authenticity or creator rights but in the governmental structure that organizes human senses and choices within the platform apparatus. Therefore, counter-aesthetics in the generative AI era must be understood as a practice of visualizing the data labor, algorithmic predictions and selection structures that enable these outcomes, thereby restoring them to the realm of common use.
KW - Actor-Network Theory;apparatus;generative AI;latent space;profanation;subjectivation
DO -
UR -
ER -
Eun-Kwang Park. (2026). How Generative AI Governs Images: The Apparatus, Prompter Subjectivation, and the Possibility of Counter-Aesthetics. The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art, 78, 166-184.
Eun-Kwang Park. 2026, "How Generative AI Governs Images: The Apparatus, Prompter Subjectivation, and the Possibility of Counter-Aesthetics", The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art, vol.78, pp.166-184.
Eun-Kwang Park "How Generative AI Governs Images: The Apparatus, Prompter Subjectivation, and the Possibility of Counter-Aesthetics" The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art 78 pp.166-184 (2026) : 166.
Eun-Kwang Park. How Generative AI Governs Images: The Apparatus, Prompter Subjectivation, and the Possibility of Counter-Aesthetics. 2026; 78 166-184.
Eun-Kwang Park. "How Generative AI Governs Images: The Apparatus, Prompter Subjectivation, and the Possibility of Counter-Aesthetics" The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art 78(2026) : 166-184.
Eun-Kwang Park. How Generative AI Governs Images: The Apparatus, Prompter Subjectivation, and the Possibility of Counter-Aesthetics. The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art, 78, 166-184.
Eun-Kwang Park. How Generative AI Governs Images: The Apparatus, Prompter Subjectivation, and the Possibility of Counter-Aesthetics. The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art. 2026; 78 166-184.
Eun-Kwang Park. How Generative AI Governs Images: The Apparatus, Prompter Subjectivation, and the Possibility of Counter-Aesthetics. 2026; 78 166-184.
Eun-Kwang Park. "How Generative AI Governs Images: The Apparatus, Prompter Subjectivation, and the Possibility of Counter-Aesthetics" The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art 78(2026) : 166-184.
