Trópos

Introduction

Alice Iacobone — 2023-11-15

Introduction

Œuvres achéiropoïètes.

Gaetano Chiurazzi — 2023-11-15

Taking as a pretext the painting, exhibited in 1910 in Paris, that was signed by J.-R. Boronali but in fact painted by the donkey Lolo, this text aims to discuss the possibility that art can be made by non-human beings. The question is renewed today in the case of Artificial Intelligence, which also is supposed to paint and make art without human intervention. This strange coincidence of artistic production involving animals and Artificial Intelligence is then compared to the issue concerning acheiropoietic images, i.e. images that “have not been painted by human hand”, discussed during the Middle Ages. Like these icons, the works of animals and artificial intelligence enjoy an almost divine status, as they are believed not to have been made by any human being. The thesis supported here is that it is still the human being the one who, in any case, produces works of art, however mediated the process leading to the final product may be. Art is the work of the human, i.e. it is “made by human hand”.

Ein Streifzug durch die Abstraktionsebenen digitaler Formen

Katharina D. Martin — 2023-11-15

The binary system as presented by Leibniz owes its metaphysical appeal to a mathematical universality which is also often incorrectly attributed to digital operationality. The article draws on Friedrich Kittler and Umberto Eco to remind us that digital functionality is based on the conjunction of the binary system and mathematical logic. Strictly speaking, digital machines are part of a complex information technology, based on translation processes and dependent on a code (Joseph Weizenbaum). However, this essay not only explains the underlying operational principle of digital machines, but also introduces digital forms (Yuk Hui) that are existentially linked to our discourses, our way of thinking, and our modes of behaviour. The article does not answer the ontological question of whether the binary/logical machines develop creatively and intellectually – a notion that Dieter Mersch clearly contradicts – but gives us a form-theoretical investigation that visualises digital productivity.

Immagini, materia e oggetti

Andrea Osti — 2023-11-15

This paper delves into an examination of the relationship between images, materiality, and objects, employing diverse approaches to critically engage with this nexus. Drawing upon the phenomenology of images articulated by Husserl and Sartre, the study explores the transformative shifts and prominent historical paradigms shaping the conceptualization and interaction with images and their corresponding desires – spanning from idols to icons and artistic works. Expanding upon Benjamin’s thesis, it advances a framework to comprehend the evolving status of “technical” images through the concept of “cleavage” between the image’s support and the image-object, aligning this perspective with derealization theories that construe the proliferation of images as a loss of reality. Ultimately, the paper provides an interpretation of the distinctive phenomenon of digital images and their potential object status, contextualized within emerging practices, advocating for a stance in favor of digital materialism.

La recherche du visage parfait dans le numérique.

Massimo Leone — 2023-11-15

The article provides a critical examination of the cultural semiotics of mathematics, recognizing it as a language rooted in human cognition. It posits that mathematics frequently transcends its role as a mere structural tool of reality, morphing instead into a form of biased rhetoric. This shift imbues various human domains, inherently unstructured and swayed by ideological biases, with a misleading sense of commensurability, precision, and accuracy. A key focus of the study is the mathematical measurement of the body, particularly the head and face. The practice of bodily measurements was pivotal in advancing ancient medicine into a modern science and practice. Nonetheless, these methods have progressively been appropriated as instruments of biopolitical control. The essay delves into the specific practice of “facial mensuration” originating in the Enlightenment era. This practice was based on thepremise that measuring heads, skulls, and faces could yield objective insights into beauty, intelligence, morality, and an individual’s position within a natural evolutionary hierarchy. However, a cultural semiotic analysis of this practice uncovers its use of facial mathematics as a tool for masking and objectifying racist prejudices. Importantly, the analysis highlights that the inherent biases do not lie in the measurements themselves but rather in the underlying decision to employ these measurements.

Parasites at Work.

Alice Iacobone — 2023-11-15

The paper considers the field of glitch art and aims to analyze it historically and theoretically. In the first section, the glitch is addressed in its general features, i.e., as a minor malfunction that calls into question the ordinary functioning of both technical and socio-political machines. Then (section 2), I sketch a history of the ways in which the glitch has circulated across different artistic media and genres. The third section draws attention to an often-overlooked aspect of glitching dynamics, i.e., the fact that the glitch differs logically and practically from the bug that generates it. While these three sections are also intended as a critical survey on the existing literature, the fourth section aims to outline an original proposal for an aesthetics of glitch art. Such account unfolds as an aesthetics of parasitism, where the bug plays the role of the parasite (the material and yet invisible element that perturbs the artwork’s digital code) and the glitch plays the role of the symptom (the artwork’s hyper-visible, disturbing phenomenal appearance).

DeepDream Aesthetics.

Gregorio Tenti — 2023-11-15

DeepDream is a computer vision program designed to make associations starting from a given image; these associations are based on its training, that is its recognition “habits”. The aim of this article is to analyze DeepDream’s specific functioning as an example of non-human imaginative behavior endowed with its own visual style (par. 1). This claim is substantiated by a non-anthropocentric perspective on style (par. 2) and creativity (par. 3). Style is conceptualized as an encounter between different factors (such as function, form, context and materials) occurring within a problematic field; creativity, on the other hand, is referred to the systemic capacity of entering a process of self-organization resulting in an act of individuation.

Processus de forme.

Claudia Blümle — 2023-11-15

The Hungarian artist Vera Molnar, living in Paris, is considered a pioneer in computer art. At first glance, her plotter drawings from the 1960s and 1970s seem to stand out as chaotic images, but upon closer inspection they let some structures appear. The series make visible the transformations resulting from her algorithmic instructions combined with a random generator, producing multiple configurations. The interest was to push the study of forms to disorder and discover structures within it. The computer images rising at the time were investigated by Georg Nees in his doctoral dissertation, supervised by philosopher Max Bense. The paper brings together Molnar’s early works and Nees’s information aesthetics, which analyzes the metric, statistical, and topological structures of computer images, in order to discuss their implications for philosophical aesthetics in relation to the complexity of computer graphics as openness to form processes.

Von Naturphänomenen zu digitaler Materie.

Babette Werner — 2023-11-15

This paper proposes an art historical critical review of (re-)staging analog process-based art at the intersection of technology and ecology in digital spaces. It highlights contemporary artistic practices such as experience design and collaborative worldbuilding as strategies of (re-)staging and (re-)documenting process-based art in contemporary video game and social media platforms (par. 1-2). The paper analyzes the role of video games as spaces for cultural practice and protest (par. 3). The focus is put on earthworks and performance art and the process of their transformation from natural phenomena to digital matter (part. 4-5). Shing Yin Khor’s transfer of Robert Smithson’s earthwork icon Spiral Jetty (Great Salt Lake, Utah, 1970) into the digital landscape of the video game Animal Crossing. New Horizons in 2020 is looked at closely, as well as Khor’s digital (re-)performance of Marina Abramović’s The Artist is Present (MoMA, New York, 2010). I argue that the (re-)staging of ephemeral process-based art such as earthworks and performances represents an artistic strategy of research and knowledge transfer at the intersection of imagination and memory, which can be made useful for archival and curatorial practices – both in analog and digital spaces.

Space as Time.

Evan S. Raskob — 2023-11-15

This paper reviews some of my work in experience-based computational sculpture, using a technique which I call Interactive 3D Printing, an amalgamation of generative art, livecoding, and sculpture. I3DP draws on a rich history of iterative revision and aesthetic refinement in the computational arts. This work foregrounds the time-based experience of digitally fabricating objects by describing them using only terms for time and rhythm (beats, beats-per-minute, duration, musical notes) following Paul Klee’s observation that “space itself is a temporal concept”. It explores the liminal state between finished/unfinished objects inside a manufacturing process by incorporating the sound of the manufacturing process into the experience of its products. I discuss how this work can be understood as both an improvised livecoding performance and a work of generative art where each iteration (or “instantiation”) has the potential to self-actualise and change over time according to the intrinsic nature of both computational and improvisational works of art.