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The Silent Animals. Loving and Staging Animals in Jean Baudrillard’s Thought
Full text linkIn this paper, George P. Pefanis discusses the presence of animals on stage from the perspective of French philosopher Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard examines animality in relation to reason and the division between humans and non-humans. He presents four broad categories based on their relationship to humans. This article analyses the Baudrillardian concept of ‘somatisation’, which includes both the corporeality and physical vulnerability of animals, as well as certain psychic traits. The article explores the sentimentality projected onto animals and the implied superiority of humans in such sentimentality. Additionally, it enquires how the principles of ‘love for animals’ can be integrated into a performance featuring animals on stage from an ethical and ontological perspective. To support this discussion, the paper examines two examples of performances: ‘Embracing Animal’ by American artist Kathy High and ‘The Other’ by American artist Rachel Rosenthal.In this paper, George P. Pefanis discusses the presence of animals on stage from the perspective of French philosopher Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard examines animality in relation to reason and the division between humans and non-humans. He presents four broad categories based on their relationship to humans. This article analyses the Baudrillardian concept of ‘somatisation’, which includes both the corporeality and physical vulnerability of animals, as well as certain psychic traits. The article explores the sentimentality projected onto animals and the implied superiority of humans in such sentimentality. Additionally, it enquires how the principles of ‘love for animals’ can be integrated into a performance featuring animals on stage from an ethical and ontological perspective. To support this discussion, the paper examines two examples of performances: ‘Embracing Animal’ by American artist Kathy High and ‘The Other’ by American artist Rachel Rosenthal
What is My Value? Digital Questions in Aesthetic Education: the Case of Video Game
Full text linkNew generations are born and raised within a digital ecosystem that is becoming increasingly pervasive and sophisticated for profit. Examining the reasons and effects of this early and prolonged exposure to mediation and seduction processes operated by electronic devices is fundamental not only from pedagogical and philosophical perspectives, but also from ethical and political ones. At stake is the very possibility of aisthesis: that intimate and free encounter, with self and other, which is as cognitively as it is emotionally connoted, but above all embodied. The article addresses this issue by examining the case of the video game, an object within one of the most flourishing markets, that absorbs a large part of the everyday life of children and teenagers. By interweaving different disciplinary perspectives, the aim is to reflect on the perception of value that massive consumption of this simulation may entail. The thesis proposed here is twofold: on the one hand, the fiction of the video game tends to present itself as true, on the other, it shapes the perception on the predominant capitalist model, i.e. that of productivity, addiction, competition, and acceleration. Only an aesthetic education that allows children and young people to experience this complexity while simultaneously enabling them to grasp the breadth and power of their own potential is able to preserve the possibility of a free and conscious learning and development
Presentazione: Forme ed estetiche del disgusto
No full textThe present issue of Itinera collects the results and in-depth elaborations of the papers that were presented during the Graduate Conference Forms and Aesthetics of Disgust, held on 12 and 13 December 2023 at the University of L\u27Aquila, organised by a group of PhD students from the PhD programme in Literature, Arts and Media: Transcoding. During the conference, the notion of disgust was framed in its rich complexity and transversality, sifted through aesthetic-philosophical terms and those of representation and representability.The present issue of Itinera collects the results and in-depth elaborations of the papers that were presented during the Graduate Conference Forms and Aesthetics of Disgust, held on 12 and 13 December 2023 at the University of L\u27Aquila, organised by a group of PhD students from the PhD programme in Literature, Arts and Media: Transcoding. During the conference, the notion of disgust was framed in its rich complexity and transversality, sifted through aesthetic-philosophical terms and those of representation and representability
Take and Eat. Creation and Disgust in mother! by Darren Aronofsky
Full text linkIn 2017, at the end of the screening for the 74th Venice International Film Festival, the audience left the cinema reacting to mother! by Darren Aronofsky with whistles and ex- pressions of outrage. The film is embedded in the members of the audience through the choice of a semi-subjective protagonist, mother, closing them inside the house from which she herself is unable to leave. Her husband, a poet in creative crisis, regulates the narra- tive. The house, the world, the womb: a pure environment intimately related to the body of the mother and her maternal function, principle and nature of everything. This symbolic and sacred order will be progressively deconstructed by an escalation of impurities and invasion: the violence induced by the human beings themselves, will cause an ineffable fall into abjection made of disturbing esoteric calls, mixtures of flesh and matter. Ever greater degrees of abomination erupt in what we realize to be an allegory of the biblical creation in its primary concept of origin, genesis of life on Earth. Relying on the analysis that Julia Kristeva makes of the semiotics of biblical abomination, we can see in mother! a mixture of blood and promise of fecundation that Aronofsky uses to reveal the evil, the tendency to murder and the death drive of humanity. These are degenerative and devour- ing elements that will culminate in infanticidal theophagy, unleashing the phantasmatic force of the mother, abused and emptied, until the total decay of a vengeful destruction. Unlike an apocalyptic cinema that hopes for a new beginning after the end of things, we are witnessing monstrous resignation – mixed with attraction and repulsion – for a limit that, once crossed, can no longer be traced. Cinema acts by forcing us to look in a mirror, revealing the disgusting animality inherent in the human.In 2017, at the end of the screening for the 74th Venice International Film Festival, the audience left the cinema reacting to mother! by Darren Aronofsky with whistles and ex- pressions of outrage. The film is embedded in the members of the audience through the choice of a semi-subjective protagonist, mother, closing them inside the house from which she herself is unable to leave. Her husband, a poet in creative crisis, regulates the narra- tive. The house, the world, the womb: a pure environment intimately related to the body of the mother and her maternal function, principle and nature of everything. This symbolic and sacred order will be progressively deconstructed by an escalation of impurities and invasion: the violence induced by the human beings themselves, will cause an ineffable fall into abjection made of disturbing esoteric calls, mixtures of flesh and matter. Ever greater degrees of abomination erupt in what we realize to be an allegory of the biblical creation in its primary concept of origin, genesis of life on Earth. Relying on the analysis that Julia Kristeva makes of the semiotics of biblical abomination, we can see in mother! a mixture of blood and promise of fecundation that Aronofsky uses to reveal the evil, the tendency to murder and the death drive of humanity. These are degenerative and devour- ing elements that will culminate in infanticidal theophagy, unleashing the phantasmatic force of the mother, abused and emptied, until the total decay of a vengeful destruction. Unlike an apocalyptic cinema that hopes for a new beginning after the end of things, we are witnessing monstrous resignation – mixed with attraction and repulsion – for a limit that, once crossed, can no longer be traced. Cinema acts by forcing us to look in a mirror, revealing the disgusting animality inherent in the human
Text-to-image technologies. The Aesthetic implications of AI-generated images.
Full text linkSynthography, a term that describes images generated by Text-to-Image (TTI) technologies such as DALL·E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, enables the creation of images generated through software that involve linguistic prompts. Such prompts are processed by encoded semantic systems, able to capture compositional aspects of arbitrary language text inputs. By drawing on the emerging aesthetic theories on AI-generated images, this contribution aims at discussing the European AI-Act, published in March 2024.
Firstly, it analyzes the Act\u27s perspective on synthographies, highlighting how it interprets generative AI within the paradigm of copying and technical reproducibility. Secondly, the paper discusses the regulatory challenges posed by AI-generated content, which blurs the line between original works and replicas, raising concerns about copyright and the authenticity of creative outputs. Third, the study explores the Act\u27s paragraph regarding AI systems that produce content resembling existing images, as it concerns the testimonial value of images. Finally, this contribution examines the possible contribution offered by AI-generated images in the field of the visual art.Synthography, a term that describes images generated by Text-to-Image (TTI) technologies such as DALL·E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, enables the creation of images generated through software that involve linguistic prompts. Such prompts are processed by encoded semantic systems, able to capture compositional aspects of arbitrary language text inputs. By drawing on the emerging aesthetic theories on AI-generated images, this contribution aims at discussing the European AI-Act, published in March 2024.
Firstly, it analyzes the Act\u27s perspective on synthographies, highlighting how it interprets generative AI within the paradigm of copying and technical reproducibility. Secondly, the paper discusses the regulatory challenges posed by AI-generated content, which blurs the line between original works and replicas, raising concerns about copyright and the authenticity of creative outputs. Third, the study explores the Act\u27s paragraph regarding AI systems that produce content resembling existing images, as it concerns the testimonial value of images. Finally, this contribution examines the possible contribution offered by AI-generated images in the field of the visual art
Tre variazioni senza tema intorno a Proust e Beethoven
Full text linkProust’s Recherche has been, and still is, an inexhaustible source of inspiration for literary and philosophical studies. This essay aims to outline the network of relationships, some- times unexpected, that emerged from the intellectual environment of these studies, especially around the BCDEs, and their mutual influences from and on other fields of human thought and arts, even beyond the boundaries of literature and philosophy. A specific case study will be considered: a monographic issue of the French magazine L’Arc published in BCDE and dedicated to the bicentenary of Beethoven’s birth. We will first focus on the analysis of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations by André Boucourechliev, which Roland Barthes compares to the narrative structure of the Recherche. Then, through an article by Barthes himself, Musica Practica, the approach to the interpretation of Beethoven’s works will be compared to the role of Proustian criticism. Here, Barthes also highlights the importance of amateur musical practice in understanding the very essence of a musical work. Finally, Igor Stravinsky’s commentary on Beethoven’s late string quartets will be related to Proust’s reflections on the modernity of the work of art.Proust’s Recherche has been, and still is, an inexhaustible source of inspiration for literary and philosophical studies. This essay aims to outline the network of relationships, some- times unexpected, that emerged from the intellectual environment of these studies, especially around the BCDEs, and their mutual influences from and on other fields of human thought and arts, even beyond the boundaries of literature and philosophy. A specific case study will be considered: a monographic issue of the French magazine L’Arc published in BCDE and dedicated to the bicentenary of Beethoven’s birth. We will first focus on the analysis of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations by André Boucourechliev, which Roland Barthes compares to the narrative structure of the Recherche. Then, through an article by Barthes himself, Musica Practica, the approach to the interpretation of Beethoven’s works will be compared to the role of Proustian criticism. Here, Barthes also highlights the importance of amateur musical practice in understanding the very essence of a musical work. Finally, Igor Stravinsky’s commentary on Beethoven’s late string quartets will be related to Proust’s reflections on the modernity of the work of art
Il paesaggio tra estetica e geografia: un confronto tra Joachim Ritter e Augustin Berque
Full text linkIn this essay I compare the landscape philosophy proposed by Joachim Ritter in his famous essay Landschaft (1963) and the landscape theory elaborated by French geographer and orientalist Augustin Berque, focussing primarily on the volume La pensée paysagère (2008). The perspective from which the comparison is advanced concerns the problem of aesthetic appraisal and experience and its relation to the geographical reality to which landscape refers. The confrontation between Ritter and Berque brings the tradition of philosophical aesthetics into confrontation with that of human geography, as part of a path aimed progressively at overcoming the separation of the aesthetic (of which the aestheticized concept of landscape typical of the tradition of Western art history would be an expression) from the other spheres of meaning with which space is invested, from the ecological- environmental to the ethical-political.In this essay I compare the landscape philosophy proposed by Joachim Ritter in his famous essay Landschaft (1963) and the landscape theory elaborated by French geographer and orientalist Augustin Berque, focussing primarily on the volume La pensée paysagère (2008). The perspective from which the comparison is advanced concerns the problem of aesthetic appraisal and experience and its relation to the geographical reality to which landscape refers. The confrontation between Ritter and Berque brings the tradition of philosophical aesthetics into confrontation with that of human geography, as part of a path aimed progressively at overcoming the separation of the aesthetic (of which the aestheticized concept of landscape typical of the tradition of Western art history would be an expression) from the other spheres of meaning with which space is invested, from the ecological- environmental to the ethical-political
Between Rhetoric and Knowledge: A Philosophical Account of Metaphor from Aristotle to Nietzsche
Full text linkPhilosophical reflections on metaphor run throughout Western thought, from Aristotle to contemporary debates. Its Aristotelian definition, in fact, draws a picture that subsequent interpretations have taken up and either confirmed or overturned. Often, the lines of continuity have only been presumed, while supposed breaks ended up being more faithful to the original than intended. The aim of this essay is to start from Aristotle\u27s perspective on metaphor to highlight some of the most relevant stages in the history of this concept up to Friedrich Nietzsche: from the transformation of metaphor into a fundamental theme of rhetoric to the recovery of its cognitive function. In this sense, Nietzsche became a crucial turning point for 20th-century “metaphormania”.Philosophical reflections on metaphor run throughout Western thought, from Aristotle to contemporary debates. Its Aristotelian definition, in fact, draws a picture that subsequent interpretations have taken up and either confirmed or overturned. Often, the lines of continuity have only been presumed, while supposed breaks ended up being more faithful to the original than intended. The aim of this essay is to start from Aristotle\u27s perspective on metaphor to highlight some of the most relevant stages in the history of this concept up to Friedrich Nietzsche: from the transformation of metaphor into a fundamental theme of rhetoric to the recovery of its cognitive function. In this sense, Nietzsche became a crucial turning point for 20th-century “metaphormania”
Giudizio estetico, morale e cancel culture a partire dall\u27opera di Alessandro Ferrara
Full text linkAlessandro Ferrara\u27s moral philosophy is centered on the concept of “exemplarity”, that is conceived of as an aesthetic notion. I aim to use this kind of approach, that I interpret relying on the reference to the inductive inference, in order to deal with the issues of the “cancel culture”.Alessandro Ferrara\u27s moral philosophy is centered on the concept of “exemplarity”, that is conceived of as an aesthetic notion. I aim to use this kind of approach, that I interpret relying on the reference to the inductive inference, in order to deal with the issues of the “cancel culture”
Editoriale: Mimesis come conditio humana
No full textThe concept of mimesis originates in the Greek context in the 5th century BC, and since then, it has been at the heart of Western aesthetic reflection. It finds its best-known formulation in the Aristotelian affirmation that “art imitates nature”; however, as C. Wulf has emphasised, the mimetic faculty plays a role not only in the art domain but also in almost all areas of human action, representation, speech and thought:mimesisis aconditio humana. Thus, alongside the passive-imitative meaning of mimesis, we can also identify an active meaning of the term since it indicates a process that leads us to encounter external reality aesthetically and to reproduce its traits creatively, even in our bodies. The topicality of the question lies in this complexity, which connects mimesis not only to the terms of imitation but also to those of individual plasticity and autopoiesis.The concept of mimesis originates in the Greek context in the 5th century BC, and since then, it has been at the heart of Western aesthetic reflection. It finds its best-known formulation in the Aristotelian affirmation that “art imitates nature”; however, as C. Wulf has emphasised, the mimetic faculty plays a role not only in the art domain but also in almost all areas of human action, representation, speech and thought:mimesisis aconditio humana. Thus, alongside the passive-imitative meaning of mimesis, we can also identify an active meaning of the term since it indicates a process that leads us to encounter external reality aesthetically and to reproduce its traits creatively, even in our bodies. The topicality of the question lies in this complexity, which connects mimesis not only to the terms of imitation but also to those of individual plasticity and autopoiesis