When is an artwork complete? Most hold that the correct answer to this question is psychological in nature. A work is said to be complete just in case the artist regards it as complete or is appropriately disposed to act as if he or she did. Even though this view seems strongly supported by metaphysical, epistemological, and normative considerations, this article argues that such psychologism about completeness is mistaken, fundamentally, because it cannot make sense of the artist's own perspective on (...) his or her work. For the artist, the question is not about his or her own psychology, but about the character of the work and the context in which he or she works. A nonpsychological account of completeness, on which completeness is a question of whether the work satisfies the conditions implicit in the artist's plan, avoids this problem and is equally or better able to explain the metaphysical, epistemic, and normative phenomena which appeared to support psychologism. (shrink)

There are a number of recent discussions on the question of when an artwork is complete. While it has been observed that a work might be complete in one way and not in another, the impact of this observation has been minimal. Discussion has been continued as if there is only one real sense of completion that matters. I argue that this is a mistake. Even if there were only one (or one most important) kind of completion, extant theories of (...) completion would be bad candidates for that one kind. The best explanation of the failure of extant theories is that there are many kinds of completion, many corresponding senses of “completion,” and no kind of artwork completion is objectively more important than any other. We have a good reason to think that this is the case given the disparate interests we have when we ask completion questions. Once we have realized that those concerns track properties that are often unrelated, the question for theorists to answer becomes, “In how many ways can an artwork be complete?”. (shrink)

I argue that sometimes a group can author a work of art without the work being either co-authored or multiply-authored. Sometimes the group, itself, is an author, rather than any of its members alone or together. I argue that when a group is an author like this, it has mental properties that no individual member of the group possesses. For example, we can consider the groups that authored digital remixes based on a film titled #INTRODUCTIONS created by the artists LaBeouf, (...) Rönkkö & Turner. YouTubers posted their digital remixes online, and the question is: Who authored those remixes? I contend that many digital remixes are authored by groups that are capable of cognition. (shrink)

How can artists create works of computer art or Internet art in which audience members become genuine artists and collaborate with the original artists on the self-same work that they began? To answer this question, this essay will reflect on the work of philosophers who focus on questions concerning art completion and the ontology of computer art. This essay will also reflect on the artistic work of the trio LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner, whose artwork can serve as a model for (...) creating collaborative, digital art. (shrink)