Semi-Aura and the Politics of Seeing: From Data Aesthetics to the Unveiling of Algorithmic Biases

Following the re-examination of the relationship between craft and code in contemporary art (Paper I: From the Weaver’s Hand to the Loop of Code) and the ontological inquiry into the artwork in the age of co-creation (Paper II: From Aura to Semi-Aura), this paper turns to the “politics of seeing” embedded within algorithms. Drawing on the concept of “semi-aura” and employing an analytical-critical approach, this study investigates how artificial intelligence algorithms not only generate images but also reproduce and reinforce particular ways of seeing. The central argument is that every algorithm carries historical, gendered, racial, and class biases inherited from its training data, and that art criticism in the age of co-creation must expose these biases and the politics of seeing they enact. Through case studies of co-creative art, the paper demonstrates how semi-aura can serve as a tool for revealing structures of power and for resisting them. The ultimate contribution of this research is a framework for a “political-ethical critique of algorithmic art”—a critique in which the boundaries between aesthetics, politics, and ethics are permanently dissolved. Keywords: Semi-Aura, Politics of Seeing, Algorithmic Bias, AI Art, Posthuman Critique, Ethics of Co-Creation.