Call for Papers

Digital Aesthetics
Itinera #28
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/itinera/cfp

Edited by Giulia Andreini and Renato Boccali (IULM University)

Submission deadline: July 31, 2024

In 1936, Walter Benjamin addressed the great change triggered by the technical reproduction of images. At that time, new media such as photography and cinema were transforming not only the forms of art but also the way people perceived the world through new forms of collective innervation. In fact, it was the way humans looked at things that were profoundly changed. Through these new technologies, humans were learning to come closer to objects and play with their images. Like never before, these new media brought “optics” and “touch” to become closely interwoven, deeply affecting the arrangement of the human sensorium.

Today, the idea of an essential change in the way we perceive the world has become true in a way that largely exceeds Benjamin’s expectations. Digital technologies have become more than just mere instruments. These have either taken the form of three-dimensional computer-generated responsive environments in which users interact through their bodies (like virtual reality) or have been deeply integrated into the environment and into human’s bodily self, permeating and shaping his everyday experience (as AI and augmented or mixed reality). Providing us with a broad spectrum of experiences ranging from total and solitary immersion (Grau 2003) or absorption (Geniusas 2022), to shared digital experiences of co-presence (Schroeder 2006) and prosthetic enhancements of the body beyond its physical limitations and capabilities (Idhe 1993; Verbeek 2008), digital technologies trigger new senses of presence (Wiesing 2010; Slater and Sanchez-Vives 2016), and of embodiment (Kilteni et al. 2012) through avatars (Gonzales-Franco and Peck 2018), as well as new forms of participative actor-spectatorship (Ljungar-Chapelon 2009; Bishop 2012).

This issue therefore welcomes contributions that address the new challenges that aesthetics, as a philosophical investigation of sensible knowledge (Baumgarten), must face to properly seize the experiences provided by digital technologies. In fact, the digital reproduction, creation, transformation, and circulation of images, videos, texts, and sounds affect not only the domain of art (with the origin of new forms such as Virtual Art, Digital Photography, and AI Art), but also, more broadly, aesthesis as our habitual relationship with the world.

Encouraging an interdisciplinary dialogue, the call addresses the challenges that aesthetics as a discipline must face when dealing with digital media experience, prompting a critical reflection if not even a renewal of its main categories. Furthermore, the issue aims at collecting the works related to the Summer School on Digital Aesthetics, organized by the University of Milan in collaboration with the European Seminar of Aesthetics and with the Milano Painting Academy, which took place in Como from May 29 to June 1st, 2023.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of topics of interest to the issue regarding digital aesthetics:

1. PHENOMENOLOGIES OF THE DIGITAL. Digital technologies are setting new modes and new rhythms of fruition, prompting the reconfiguration of the human sensorium (Montani 2020) and shaping the range of both actual and possible experiences. An applied approach to phenomenology (Lanfredini 2004; Kozel 2008), inquiring about the eidetic structures of the wide range of human experience can offer a rigorous method for the development of an aesthetic understanding of the digital. In return, such an analysis may prompt a reconsideration of both the phenomenological method and some of the theoretical constructs through which it seizes experience. Yet, to date, few studies have gone in the direction of a phenomenology of the digital (Champion 2019; O’Shiel 2022; Geniusas 2022). Which modality of consciousness is actualized in the interaction with digital media? Is the relation with digital images to be considered as a form of image consciousness, or does it also relate to phantasy, perception, or illusion (Husserl 2005) and what consequences does it entail for phenomenology? Is it possible to draw an omni-comprehensive taxonomy of digital experiences, highlighting proximities and differences? What are the phenomenological implications of a body incorporating prosthetic devices and interacting with software? And can digital media encourage new modes of being with the other?
2. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY. At its origins, photography has often been considered not so much as art, but rather as a reproduction of reality. Nevertheless, photographers have utilized this technology as an extraordinary means also to express content in an original way as well as to bring into visibility a world hidden to the human eye (Solnit 2003). With digital photography, the transformative power of pictures has become even more evident. Digital photographs can be manipulated at every step: colors, lights and even subjects can be changed and adapted to express the author’s intentions (Lipkin 2005). Can digital images still be considered as “photographs”? What is their relationship to reality? How can digital photographs tell the truth or convey true values (Mitchell 1994)? How does the spread of deepfakes affect the documental value of photography (Kalpokas and Kalpokiene 2022)?
3. DIGITAL AESTHETICS AND VALUES. Digital images and texts have become an expression of values, shared by many subjects. Such values don’t originate from a propositional process, rather, they are primarily felt (Husserl 1983). For this reason, it is essential to investigate how values can be created, transformed, and communicated through digital content. Can digital content convey a true or authentic experience of values (Rozzoni and Conceiçao 2021)? Can the transformative power of digital technologies help to keep values alive? Or is it bound to bury them under a great quantity of fakes instead? How does the development of AI and deepfake affect value transmission?
4. ART AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. A very challenging type of art that emerged recently is certainly that made through AI. Can artificial intelligence be creative or does the “creativity” category only apply to human beings (Boden 2004; Colton and Wiggins 2012)? Is AI to be considered the author of these works, or is it still the human artist (Miller 2019; Barale 2020)? What does this type of art have to say about the new presence that AI represents in our society?

This issue will host only contributions written in English. The papers, written following Itinera ’s editorial standards (https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/itinera/norme), will be between 25.000 and 40.000 characters.

Articles should be sent to Giulia Andreini (giuliandreini.94@gmail.com) and Renato Boccali (renato.boccali@iulm.it)

• Submission Deadline: July 31, 2024
• Expected Release: December 2024

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Itinera is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access e-journal. Itinera aims at being a forum for international debate on Aesthetics and philosophical investigations on arts and theatre. A space is dedicated also to questions in which aesthetic and moral aspects are intertwined.

Itinera has been recognized as a class A journal in the fields of cinema, music, performing arts, television and media studies (10/C1) and Germanic languages, literatures and cultures (10/M1).

Itinera is indexed in SCOPUS, BASE, DOAJ, ERIH Plus, SHERPA/RoMEO, ROAD.

REFERENCES

Barale, A. (ed.), Arte e intelligenza artificiale. Be My Gan, Jaca Book, Milano 2022.

Bishop, C., Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, Verso, London-New York 2012

Boden, M. A., The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms (1990), Routledge, London-New York 2004.

Champion, E., The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places, Routledge, London-New York 2019.

Colton, S., Wiggins, G. A., Computational Creativity: The Final Frontier?, in “Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications”, 242, 2012, pp. 21-26.

Geniusas, S., What Is Immersion? Towards a Phenomenology of Virtual Reality, in “Journal of Phenomenological Psychology”, 53 (1), 2022, pp. 1-24.

Gonzales-Franco, M., Peck, T. C., Avatar Embodiment. Towards a Standardized Questionnaire, in “Frontiers in Robotics and AI”, 5, 2018.

Grau, O., Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion, The MIT Press, Boston 2003.

Husserl, E., Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology (1913), translated in English by F. Kersten, Martinus Nijhoff 1983.

Husserl, E, Phantasy, Image Consciousness, and Memory (1898-1925) (1980), translated in English by J. B. Brough, Springer, Dordrecht 2005.

Idhe, D., Philosophy of Technology. An Introduction, Paragon House Publishers, St. Paul (Minnesota) 1993.

Kalpokas, I., Kalpokiene, J., Deepfakes. A Realistic Assessment of Potentials, Risks, and Policy Regulation, Springer, Dordrecht 2022.

Kilteni, K., Groten, R., Slater, M., The Sense of Embodiment in Virtual Reality, in “Presence”, 21 (4), 2012, pp. 373-387.

Kozel, S., Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology, The MIT Press, Boston 2008.

Lanfredini, R. (ed.), Fenomenologia applicata. Esempi di analisi descrittiva,  Guerini e Associati, Milano 2004.

Lipkin, J., Photography Reborn: Image Making in the Digital Era, Harry N. Abrams, New York 2005.

Ljungar-Chapelon, M., Actor-Spectator in a Virtual Reality Arts Play, Doctoral Thesis, University of Gothenburg 2009.

Miller, A. I., The Artist in The Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity, The MIT Press, Boston 2019.

Mitchell, W. T. J., Picture Theory. Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1994.

Montani, P., Emozioni dell’intelligenza. Un percorso nel sensorio digitale, Meltemi Editore, Roma 2020.

O’Shiel, D., The Phenomenology of Virtual Technology. Perception and Imagination in a Digital Age, Bloomsbury Publishing, London 2022.

Rozzoni, C., Conceiçao, N. (eds.), Aesthetics and Values: Contemporary Perspectives, Mimesis International, Milano 2021.

Schroeder, R., Being There Together and the Future of Connected Presence, in “Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments”, 15 (4), 2006, pp. 438-454.

Slater, M., Sanchez-Vives, M. V., Enhancing our Lives with Immersive Virtual Reality, in “Frontiers in Robotics and AI”, 3 (74), 2016.

Solnit, R., Rivers of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, Penguins Books, New York 2003.

Verbeek, P. -P., Cyborg Intentionality: Rethinking the Phenomenology of Human-Technology Relations, in “Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences”, 7 (3), 2008, pp. 387-395.

Wiesing, L., Artificial Presence. Philosophical Studies in Image Theory, Standford University Press, Stanford 2010.