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Beyond the Algorithm. Ethical and aesthetic challenges of AI in music
Full text linkThis paper explores the intersection of music and artificial intelligence (AI). The document discusses significant projects like Sony\u27s Flow Machines and AIVA, highlighting how AI is utilized in the musical domain as an assistive tool (e.g., in activities like editing), an analytical instrument (for understanding musical language, for instance, in musicological research), for profiling (for targeting purposes and beyond), and for generating music.
The paper lists several open questions, such as issues related to the attribution of works, the originality of AI-generated music and copyright law and it also delves into the legal and ethical implications, particularly regarding copyright and the potential for AI to commit plagiarism or create derivative works.Key challenges and considerations in AI-generated music are addressed, including autonomy, creativity, and intentionality. While AI\u27s capacity for creativity is still evolving, the need for human intervention in training and refining AI outputs is still crucial. The intentionality behind AI-created music and the integration of human values are critical in ensuring that the produced music is meaningful and resonates with human audiences. Finally, this study examines whether AI can be considered a creative entity or if it functions merely as an advanced tool for human composers, analyzing the aesthetic and functional transformations brought about by AI in the realm of music creation.
This paper explores the intersection of music and artificial intelligence (AI). The document discusses significant projects like Sony\u27s Flow Machines and AIVA, highlighting how AI is utilized in the musical domain as an assistive tool (e.g., in activities like editing), an analytical instrument (for understanding musical language, for instance, in musicological research), for profiling (for targeting purposes and beyond), and for generating music.
The paper lists several open questions, such as issues related to the attribution of works, the originality of AI-generated music and copyright law and it also delves into the legal and ethical implications, particularly regarding copyright and the potential for AI to commit plagiarism or create derivative works.Key challenges and considerations in AI-generated music are addressed, including autonomy, creativity, and intentionality. While AI\u27s capacity for creativity is still evolving, the need for human intervention in training and refining AI outputs is still crucial. The intentionality behind AI-created music and the integration of human values are critical in ensuring that the produced music is meaningful and resonates with human audiences. Finally, this study examines whether AI can be considered a creative entity or if it functions merely as an advanced tool for human composers, analyzing the aesthetic and functional transformations brought about by AI in the realm of music creation
Il disgustoso spettacolo della sofferenza. Problemi e cortocircuiti dell’immagine estetizzata
Full text linkAt its core, documentary photography is characterized by its value as a document and a testimony that also carries expressive and aesthetic significance. Specifically, these as- pects are in concordance when depicting situations characterized by suffering and social distress (e.g. poverty). In these contexts, the choices made in regards to the positioning and distance of the observing gaze involve a mutual interplay between ethics and aesthet- ics. This article proposes a critical evaluation of the showcasing distress – which is also a focal point of a recent period of cinematographic critique in Europe –, and provides an outline for an “aesthetic of boundaries” through theoretical and field-based contributions.At its core, documentary photography is characterized by its value as a document and a testimony that also carries expressive and aesthetic significance. Specifically, these as- pects are in concordance when depicting situations characterized by suffering and social distress (e.g. poverty). In these contexts, the choices made in regards to the positioning and distance of the observing gaze involve a mutual interplay between ethics and aesthet- ics. This article proposes a critical evaluation of the showcasing distress – which is also a focal point of a recent period of cinematographic critique in Europe –, and provides an outline for an “aesthetic of boundaries” through theoretical and field-based contributions
Digital restitution of expropriated heritage: technological modes of experience
Full text linkFor more than a century now, Western museological institutions have been exhibiting expropriated heritage across their museum spaces, curating displays which conveyed prescriptive epistemic paradigms, informed by a rigidly imposed notion of primitive aesthetic. As the restitution of physical heritage is at the center of the international political debate, both museums and artists have started to employ digital technologies to engage with the looted heritage, envisioning new paths for access and experience, through projects which aspire to question traditional narratives. Interestingly, digital technologies offer the opportunity to mobilize a very rigid state of affairs, overcoming diplomatic stances and shifting the debate towards questions of identity, values and aesthetics. This paper intercepts the digital repatriation phenomenon, analyzing two case studies which relate to the Benin Bronzes: the international cooperative institutional programme Digital Benin and the AI generated work Igùn (2020) by artist Minne Atairu. These two projects, in their own media specific ways, create new modes of experience to interact with the Benin Kingdom heritage, operating at the intersection between research, display, creativity and meaning making. As the digital restitution debate becomes more and more pressing in the current scenario, the research offers an analysis of how digital technologies can be used to foster new paths to engage with expropriated heritage, overcoming rigid definitions of knowledge.For more than a century now, Western museological institutions have been exhibiting expropriated heritage across their museum spaces, curating displays which conveyed prescriptive epistemic paradigms, informed by a rigidly imposed notion of primitive aesthetic. As the restitution of physical heritage is at the center of the international political debate, both museums and artists have started to employ digital technologies to engage with the looted heritage, envisioning new paths for access and experience, through projects which aspire to question traditional narratives. Interestingly, digital technologies offer the opportunity to mobilize a very rigid state of affairs, overcoming diplomatic stances and shifting the debate towards questions of identity, values and aesthetics. This paper intercepts the digital repatriation phenomenon, analyzing two case studies which relate to the Benin Bronzes: the international cooperative institutional programme Digital Benin and the AI generated work Igùn (2020) by artist Minne Atairu. These two projects, in their own media specific ways, create new modes of experience to interact with the Benin Kingdom heritage, operating at the intersection between research, display, creativity and meaning making. As the digital restitution debate becomes more and more pressing in the current scenario, the research offers an analysis of how digital technologies can be used to foster new paths to engage with expropriated heritage, overcoming rigid definitions of knowledge
Abitudine, contingenza, oralità: per una letteratura “viva” a partire da Leopardi
Full text linkWhat is the relationship between habit and literary creativity? What role does the notion of habit play in the process of composition and, in general, in artistic productivity and the aesthetic experience? How do the terms habit and improvisation, habituation and contingency relate to each other? To answer these questions, crucial for aesthetics, this essay moves from the discussion of some significant passages in Giacomo Leopardi’s Zibaldone. On the one hand, the notions of habit and habituation will be discussed, understood – in the specific case of their application to poetry – as the poetic work of giving oneself a form; on the other hand, I shall analyze the notion of environmental or contextual contingency as the input that activates the poetic composition, in terms of a so-called “deliberate improvisation”. Against the background of these interconnected concepts the issues of the relationship between book and orality, performativity and recitation, lowbrow culture and highbrow culture will emerge, in a dense web of cross-references that defines, at least in its general lines, one of the axes of Leopardi\u27s theoretical thinking around the 1820s.What is the relationship between habit and literary creativity? What role does the notion of habit play in the process of composition and, in general, in artistic productivity and the aesthetic experience? How do the terms habit and improvisation, habituation and contingency relate to each other? To answer these questions, crucial for aesthetics, this essay moves from the discussion of some significant passages in Giacomo Leopardi’s Zibaldone. On the one hand, the notions of habit and habituation will be discussed, understood – in the specific case of their application to poetry – as the poetic work of giving oneself a form; on the other hand, I shall analyze the notion of environmental or contextual contingency as the input that activates the poetic composition, in terms of a so-called “deliberate improvisation”. Against the background of these interconnected concepts the issues of the relationship between book and orality, performativity and recitation, lowbrow culture and highbrow culture will emerge, in a dense web of cross-references that defines, at least in its general lines, one of the axes of Leopardi\u27s theoretical thinking around the 1820s
Stadi sul cammino della mimesis: Kierkegaard e la dialettica tra introflessione ed estroflessione
Full text linkThe aim of this paper is to explore some existential possibilities that the concept of mimesis has in Kierkegaard. To this end, mimesis will be analyzed in two moments of his: in the life of the aesthete in Either-Or, where mimesis is related to the notions of poetry and fantasy, and in relation to the figures of the lily in the field and the bird in the sky. Two different notions of mimesis will then be studied in their dialectic between introspection and alienation. The aesthetic stage of mimesis will reveal the paradox of aesthetic life: on the one hand, the aesthete is apparently introflected, living in a world constructed of mimetic phantasms in his own image, but on the other hand, trapped in these reflections, he is unable to grasp his own self as a real possibility and is thus hopelessly alienated from himself. The opposite happens in the religious stage of mimesis, in which it is revealed that only in the apparent extroversion of imitating the absolute other is it possible to grasp one’s own self.The aim of this paper is to explore some existential possibilities that the concept of mimesis has in Kierkegaard. To this end, mimesis will be analyzed in two moments of his: in the life of the aesthete in Either-Or, where mimesis is related to the notions of poetry and fantasy, and in relation to the figures of the lily in the field and the bird in the sky. Two different notions of mimesis will then be studied in their dialectic between introspection and alienation. The aesthetic stage of mimesis will reveal the paradox of aesthetic life: on the one hand, the aesthete is apparently introflected, living in a world constructed of mimetic phantasms in his own image, but on the other hand, trapped in these reflections, he is unable to grasp his own self as a real possibility and is thus hopelessly alienated from himself. The opposite happens in the religious stage of mimesis, in which it is revealed that only in the apparent extroversion of imitating the absolute other is it possible to grasp one’s own self
Sulla continuità tra arte e gioco: mimesi e finzione tra Gombrich e Walton
Full text linkMimesis is a key concept in the debate that led to the dawn of analytic aesthetics, namely that of the ontology of art. In particular, Kendall Walton\u27s reading of mimesis follows Ernst Gombrich\u27s insights, and it radicalizes the line of continuity between art and play. Walton identifies a cross–cutting form of representationality which is common to many practices, such as play, art, and sports. The purpose of this essay is to highlight the divergences between Walton and Gombrich on the object of representation. Besides, the aim of the paper is also to investigate whether Walton\u27s claim that representationality in games and artworks is identical and not merely analogous may underlie artistic practice.Mimesis is a key concept in the debate that led to the dawn of analytic aesthetics, namely that of the ontology of art. In particular, Kendall Walton\u27s reading of mimesis follows Ernst Gombrich\u27s insights, and it radicalizes the line of continuity between art and play. Walton identifies a cross–cutting form of representationality which is common to many practices, such as play, art, and sports. The purpose of this essay is to highlight the divergences between Walton and Gombrich on the object of representation. Besides, the aim of the paper is also to investigate whether Walton\u27s claim that representationality in games and artworks is identical and not merely analogous may underlie artistic practice
Il ruolo dell’abitudine nella costruzione dell’identità morale in The Mill on the Floss e Middlemarch di George Eliot
Full text linkWhat is the boundary between unconscious habits and conscious actions? This is the question that drives all of George Eliot’s poetics centered on the importance of habit in the construction of her characters’ moral identity. The aim of this article is to analyze the author’s answers in this regard through two of her formidable novels: The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch. In the first work, recovering the image, of philosophical- psychological origin, of the mind as a channel and making use of the analogies between animal and human behavior, Eliot proposes imaginative experience as a means of developing new cognitive capacities. But it is in Middlemarch that Eliot adds a further piece: unhinging the misogynistic prejudices attached to the concept of habit typical of the strongly patriarchal culture of the Victorian age. Pointing her satirical pen at the habits of her characters, Eliot invites readers to a critical attitude toward their own habits. Reading thus becomes an opportunity to reflect on our pervasive habits and achieve that gradual change towards the construction of a more mature and conscious moral identity.What is the boundary between unconscious habits and conscious actions? This is the question that drives all of George Eliot’s poetics centered on the importance of habit in the construction of her characters’ moral identity. The aim of this article is to analyze the author’s answers in this regard through two of her formidable novels: The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch. In the first work, recovering the image, of philosophical- psychological origin, of the mind as a channel and making use of the analogies between animal and human behavior, Eliot proposes imaginative experience as a means of developing new cognitive capacities. But it is in Middlemarch that Eliot adds a further piece: unhinging the misogynistic prejudices attached to the concept of habit typical of the strongly patriarchal culture of the Victorian age. Pointing her satirical pen at the habits of her characters, Eliot invites readers to a critical attitude toward their own habits. Reading thus becomes an opportunity to reflect on our pervasive habits and achieve that gradual change towards the construction of a more mature and conscious moral identity
Editoriale
Full text linkThe environmental and social crisis that confront our century calls to a quest for new scenarios and landscapes and a reflection on such challenge. In this issue, the question of landscape is approached from a variety of viewpoints, ranging from the more philosophical to the strictly urbanistic. Some of the essays also focus on technology and geography. It is clear that, from engineers to biologists, from architects to the players of the art world, there is a strong interest to imagine future landscapes able to generate forms of life in which one can recognize oneself, and as such more sustainable.The environmental and social crisis that confront our century calls to a quest for new scenarios and landscapes and a reflection on such challenge. In this issue, the question of landscape is approached from a variety of viewpoints, ranging from the more philosophical to the strictly urbanistic. Some of the essays also focus on technology and geography. It is clear that, from engineers to biologists, from architects to the players of the art world, there is a strong interest to imagine future landscapes able to generate forms of life in which one can recognize oneself, and as such more sustainable
Un’urbanistica relazionale
Full text linkThe failure of contemporary Urbanism to cope with Climate Collapse has to do with its own approach to reality, which moves between imagination and the materialisation of human landscapes. As an answer to this weakness, two major Urbanism trends are, on the one hand, the exasperation of a hyper-technological and geo-engineering attitude and, on the other, the reframing of the nature and city relation. A paradigm shift that confronts climate emergency on a both planetary and territorial level.
The traces of nature-city paradigm shift are at least three, recounted in the essay through some cases and research: the end of production and the emergence of a pluriversal “industrial nature”; the ecological turn and the urgency of “greening” strategies for cities; the failure of the traditional idea of “nature” and the need to reformulate the territorial project.
What emerges is the possibility of a Relational Urbanism, in which the focus is mainly on the ways in which human and non-human actors interact, and not only on the ancestral debate on human rights and social control. Far from being a green utopia, the relational dimension of the project imposes itself as a collective intellectual risk and a necessary ethical commitment.The failure of contemporary Urbanism to cope with Climate Collapse has to do with its own approach to reality, which moves between imagination and the materialisation of human landscapes. As an answer to this weakness, two major Urbanism trends are, on the one hand, the exasperation of a hyper-technological and geo-engineering attitude and, on the other, the reframing of the nature and city relation. A paradigm shift that confronts climate emergency on a both planetary and territorial level.
The traces of nature-city paradigm shift are at least three, recounted in the essay through some cases and research: the end of production and the emergence of a pluriversal “industrial nature”; the ecological turn and the urgency of “greening” strategies for cities; the failure of the traditional idea of “nature” and the need to reformulate the territorial project.
What emerges is the possibility of a Relational Urbanism, in which the focus is mainly on the ways in which human and non-human actors interact, and not only on the ancestral debate on human rights and social control. Far from being a green utopia, the relational dimension of the project imposes itself as a collective intellectual risk and a necessary ethical commitment
Towards an Experience-Based Aesthetics of Virtual Reality: A Case Study on Fear
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When developing an aesthetics of VR, it is essential that it remains anchored to concrete objects and actual users’ inclinations and practices. This article provides an example of an “experience-based” aesthetics of VR, presenting the results of a pilot empirical study on fear in VR and discussing it in aesthetic terms. More in particular, the article ventures into two important debates in the field: that around the “paradox of fiction”, and that concerning aesthetic distance. By doing so, the article highlights the fruitfulness of investigating a difficult object like VR, which eludes standard conceptualizations from image and media theory. At the same time, it illustrates how developing a specific aesthetics of VR can contribute in turn to indicate new pathways into long-standing issues in aesthetics as a whole. When developing an aesthetics of VR, it is essential that it remains anchored to concrete objects and actual users’ inclinations and practices. This article provides an example of an “experience-based” aesthetics of VR, presenting the results of a pilot empirical study on fear in VR and discussing it in aesthetic terms. More in particular, the article ventures into two important debates in the field: that around the “paradox of fiction”, and that concerning aesthetic distance. By doing so, the article highlights the fruitfulness of investigating a difficult object like VR, which eludes standard conceptualizations from image and media theory. At the same time, it illustrates how developing a specific aesthetics of VR can contribute in turn to indicate new pathways into long-standing issues in aesthetics as a whole