Information Aesthetics: An heroic experiment

Information Aesthetics was a short-lived but influential attempt to establish a mathematically rigorous aesthetic theory without subjective elements. It was based on information theory, semiotics and communication theory. It was mainly developed in Germany and France during the 1960s. It not only gained some influence among designers and artists, but also among teachers of art. Its concepts turned out to be reductionist and schematic, which we argue led to its eventual disappearance, if not failure. We provide a retrospective of its assumptions and results, and draw conclusions for current attempts at algorithmically evaluating the aesthetic merits of a work of art.