Authors:Federica Cavaletti, Filippo Fimiani, Andrea Pinotti Pages: 3 - 5 Abstract: The increased availability and usage of immersive devices, together with futuristic narratives promoted by technology and media “gurus” and entrepreneurs, has encouraged a strong revival of the notion of virtuality. At first sight, this notion appears straightforward, and its application clearly connected to specific objects and phenomena of our time. On closer inspection, however, confusion starts to arise. The concept of virtuality is still in need of in-depth critical examination. The challenge is not much solving highly specific thematic or terminological matters; but rather addressing them while considering their wider frame and background, so that the richness of the virtual is not neglected or depleted. This issue of Aisthesis aims at providing the ground precisely for such an attempt, by gathering contributions with multifarious angles and scope, yet unified by the awareness of the intricacies of “going virtual” today. PubDate: 2023-07-22 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Andrea Colombo, Floriana Ferro Pages: 7 - 16 Abstract: In this paper we aim to find a definition of virtual which fits the latest developments of digital technology, but also applies to the analog world. We consider the virtual as related to immanence, taking inspiration from Deleuze’s reading of Bergson and Merleau-Ponty’s last work. We first analyze Deleuze’s idea of immanence, from which virtuality emerges, then we focus on Merleau-Ponty’s concept of flesh and its virtual center. We argue that both philosophers see immanence as a dynamic medium of virtuality, overcoming the traditional concept of substance and theorizing a deep intertwining of bodies and technology. Our analysis shows that the virtual is defined by the following features: it implies an epistemological and ontological monism, relationality, and entanglement with reality. The virtual clearly emerges in digital technologies, but also belongs to analog reality, as a general condition for our knowing and being in the world as such. PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-14203 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Francesca Perotto Pages: 17 - 25 Abstract: Gilles Deleuze has become a key reference for the recent debate on virtual technologies, as his conception of the virtual is widely used to argue for the reality of virtuality. Nonetheless some scholars, among which Slavoj Žižek stands out, have warned about the risks of flattening the Deleuzian concept on the tech debate. This paper aims to show why the two concepts of the virtual do not overlap by explaining some features of the Deleuzian virtual that make it incompatible with virtual media. Namely, its intensive dimension, its relationship with the possible and its imperceptible nature. The paper will also claim how differentiating the two concepts opens up wider applications for the Deleuzian virtual while, at the same time, lightening the tech debate of its ontological burden, allowing to approach the issues of virtual technologies from a more fruitful perspective – that is to say, their pictorial functioning. PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-13957 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Nicolas Bilchi Pages: 27 - 36 Abstract: The growing critical and economic success of Virtual Reality technologies is generating renewed scholarly interest in virtual environments. One of the most long-lasting and influential perspectives on the topic has been labelled «virtual realism» (Heim [1998]), and it has passed throughout the entire history of virtual environments studies up to recent days (Chalmers [2022]). Virtual Realism frames virtual environments in terms of realism, and precisely of perceptive soundness and isomorphism between physical environments and virtual ones, producing a convincing illusion of being physically present in the digital space. This article develops a critical counter-argument to this account. By employing James J. Gibson’s ecology of perception and Deleuze’s and Lévy’s philosophy of the virtual, the article aims at demonstrating that the ontology of virtual environments is rooted in a domain of predetermined possibilities, and that the resulting aesthetics can not be fully immersive. Instead, the latter should embrace the «emersive» and anti-realistic qualities of the medium as an expressive device. PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-14306 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Lorenzo Manera Pages: 37 - 47 Abstract: By reconstructing the connections between different artistic forms, such as Art Sociologique, cybernetic, media and digital art, the paper addresses how the concept of interactivity has evolved in relation to the development of aesthetic paradigms. Firstly, the paper problematizes the concept of interactive art, by discussing connections and differences with media and digital art. Secondly, the paper shows how Flussers’ concept of participatory media, influenced by the artistic work of Fred Forest, together with the theoretical perspective developed by members of the Group for an Aesthetics of Communication, contributed to the development of new perspectives in interactive art. Thirdly, the paper shows how theoretical perspectives such as Relational aesthetics and the Aesthetics of Communication constituted the basis for the successive reflection on the potentialities of virtuality and immateriality from an artistic perspective. By drawing on such premises, the paper addresses the issue of the meta-operational processes involved in the use of Text-to-Image technologies (TTI), discussing the level of interactivity and the creative processes involved in its use. Finally, the paper problematizes the features of interactivity that characterize emerging forms of art made possible by virtual devices. PubDate: 2023-06-08 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-13954 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Ilaria Ventura Bordenca Pages: 49 - 59 Abstract: In this essay, some theoretical semiotic issues concerning immersive technologies are presented and discussed. In particular, the somatic and corporeal dimensions of the construction of the user-visual hybrid, the problematic of point of view and realism, and the narrativity inscribed in immersive technologies will be discussed. The objective is twofold: tracing the semiotic perspective on the real/virtual relationship and questioning certain rhetoric of immersivity that underlies precise ideologies circulating in the contemporary imagery. PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-14313 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Philippe Bédard Pages: 61 - 72 Abstract: While many scholars have decried the erasure of the body in virtual reality (VR), this paper focuses on the body – and the physical reality for which it stands – as a critical component of any experience of virtual reality. Specifically, studying VR from the perspective of the physical body allows for a more nuanced appreciation of the unique reality of this «virtual» reality. Moreover, this paper argues that the body should not be seen as a distraction from the immersive potential of VR, but rather as a potential tool for augmenting what virtual reality can currently offer. PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-13949 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Ariela Battán Horenstein, María Clara Garavito, Veronica Cohen Pages: 73 - 83 Abstract: We use phenomenology to reflect on the experience of being with others as mediated by screens through videoconferencing platforms, a phenomenon accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic and social isolation measures. We explore two directions to explain the intersubjective experience of a videoconference. One direction introduces a conceptual background based on previous contributions in phenomenology, while the other one is more speculative: we introduce the novel idea of a phantom other. First, we understand this phenomenon either as a correlate of image consciousness or as a paradoxical perception. Then, we introduce the phantom other using ideas offered in phenomenological descriptions in which the phantom limb appears as a quasi-presence. The phantom other is the same flesh and blood body with whom I co-constitute senses of the world. In a videoconference, the other appears as a whole body with which I coordinate, although she appears as a phantom other. PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-14362 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Mariapaola Della Chiara Pages: 85 - 93 Abstract: Nowadays virtual reality has gained extreme popularity among adolescents around the world, thanks to the possibility they offer to create a new life for their users. Especially for teenagers affected by the hikikomori syndrome, who experience struggles in establishing communication with others, virtual reality has become a tool to forsake their “adverse” reality, shaping fictitious safe environments and creating relationships with similar-minded users. This issue of virtual reality has been depicted in recent Japanese animation, whose country is mostly affected by this issue. I will show mainly two approaches to the phenomenon: the one given in the anime series Sword Art Online (2012), in which virtual reality is perceived as the only place where true communication can happen; the second is the interpretation given by director Hosoda Mamoru in his animated features Summer Wars (2009) and Belle (2021), where virtual reality is a tool to support real life’s difficulties. PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-14363 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Margherita Fontana Pages: 95 - 103 Abstract: This paper examines the theoretical and practical aspects of geodesic dome architecture in North America as part of an aesthetic of virtualization. Geodesic domes can be conceived of as virtual environments designed as alternatives to the contemporary world and its internal crises. They were originally a tool of the American counterculture of the 1960s to search for futuristic housing solutions which responded to ecological concerns. The contribution traces some of the most important phases of dome architecture, which crossed paths with the emerging technoculture linked to the rise of virtual reality. Indeed, the idea of the dome as a means of imagining new virtual environments, as was the case of Biosphere 2, intersects with the career of VR pioneer Jaron Lanier. Today, virtual reality technologies have merged geodesic architecture with visualization devices, as happens in the case of “virtual domes”, offering a unique way to experience virtual reality and connect with others in a shared environment. PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-14374 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Logan Canada-Johnson Pages: 105 - 115 Abstract: As artforms, film and street art seem incompatible. Contra this incompatibility, I investigate their combination: cinematic street art. Two promising cases are the artworks MUTO and Repopulate, but I argue neither is suitable. MUTO only counts if I accept the transparency thesis, the claim that photographs allow us to literally see their depicta. Repopulate only counts if we reject Noel Carroll’s requirement that a cinematic performance token isn’t itself an artwork. However, these imperfect cases demonstrate what is required in order to have cinematic street art: the artwork is a 1) aconsensual artwork that 2) does not merely use street art as imagery or 3) merely use the street as a performance space. I introduce two hypothetical artworks inspired by this approach and discuss their merits, as well as their pitfalls relevant to my own desiderata. As such, this article serves as the foment for broader discussion within the philosophy of street art. PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-13862 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Josefa Ros Velasco Pages: 117 - 132 Abstract: Hans Blumenberg wrote, in an unpublished manuscript entitled Ein Betrug' / Der böse Dämon (UNF 532-534), that «the whole world and human intelligence were hidden beneath the earth, where the relics of the precursors of life rest». The German philosopher was not a palaeoanthropologist in the strict sense but dedicated much of his life to excavating in the ground, in search of replies to the great questions about the human condition. This paper is the result of a work compiling and classifying a series of unpublished texts about palaeoanthropology to be found dotted throughout his Nachlaß. The aim is to show the interest that disciplines such as palaeoanthropology aroused in the German thinker, and that his understanding of the matter, reflected in part in his anthropological-philosophical theses, has not yet been systematised. PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-13641 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Antonio Valentini Pages: 133 - 145 Abstract: The purpose of the paper is to show how the reading of Kafka’s Prometheus offered by Hans Blumenberg in Arbeit am Mythos authorizes a re-understanding of this short story as a device within which the meta-representative moment and the questioning moment are configured as two indissolubly linked aspects. In this perspective, starting from the recognition of the key role played by the mechanism of irony in the construction of the Kafkaesque short story, the article aims to highlight the three different levels of articulation of such a mechanism, with particular reference to its ability to exhibit – at the same time – the transcendibility of the datum and the need to think the sense as «infinite deferral». PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-13684 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Maja Jerrentrup Pages: 147 - 158 Abstract: The number of elderly influencers on Instagram is increasing. When analyzing a sample of corresponding posts, it is noticeable that fashion, especially fancy or vintage fashion, plays a central role. By choosing extraordinary looks, elderly influencers, whose age is by no means concealed, communicate self-determination and independence from the opinions of others – both also in connection with life experience. Their followers consider them as cool and empowering: this way, they can positively influence society’s perception of elderly people, take away younger recipients’ fear of aging, and act as role models. However, a noticeable divide emerges, as the elderly influencers are apparently well-educated and presumably also wealthy and enjoy good health. In social comparison, many of those of the same age would probably perform poorly. Therefore, it can be concluded that elderly influencer may be beneficial to their recipients and to society as a whole, but that addressing the social conditions that enable old people to live a fulfilled life is largely ignored. PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-14379 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Joni Agung Sudarmanto, Pujiyanto Pujiyanto Pages: 159 - 168 Abstract: One of the prestige of young people’s identity today is through fashion. Fashion has even become a “religion” that binds the identity of the individual who wears it. The Sneaker, a form of fashion, also has a big role; even now, it has become a commodity and prestige with a fetish nuance. Therefore, this study aims to identify how the sneaker fetish becomes a space for simulating the lives of young people in Indonesia. Furthermore, this study also examines the problem of the representation of youth-lifestyle simulations in Indonesia. This research uses a qualitative case study approach to play on Jean Baudrillard’s approach to simulacra and hyperreality, which also discusses David Chaney’s approach to fashion. Data collection was obtained from audience studies by examining tagging on social media, Instagram, from July 2022 to October 2022. The results of the study show that the sneaker trend does not only act as a complement to appearances, more than that, but it can also display the personal identity of the wearer. A sneaker community also facilitates the lifestyle of young people towards sneakers. Finally, the community shifted the concept of young people towards sneaker consumption to be more consumptive than before. On the other hand, young people do not realize that what they have done is a hyperreality that tries to identify itself with the best possible image and continues to shape it through massive consumption activities. This is where the sneaker concept shifts from a “community” to a “commodity”. PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-14033 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Ramon Blanco-Barrera Pages: 169 - 179 Abstract: Drawing could be considered the oldest known art form. However, art and its understanding has come to evolve so much that it has derived a multitude of forms that are almost unclassifiable today. The aesthetic discourses of the public, social and political have also been prejudiced and their true essence has been altered. In the present research work, we explore a series of artists who work with art as a language and tool for change and improvement of public life in general. We analyse the messages they address, the aesthetics and material form they use, the methodologies they practice or the social changes they cause. In this regard, through a selection of contemporary projects, we can identify more effective representative artistic characteristics that are consistent with our current world. In conclusion, we emphasize that the practice of public art is more significant and necessary than it seems. PubDate: 2023-07-22 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-13659 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Laura Aimo Pages: 181 - 190 Abstract: Mathematics and aesthetics are closely intertwined. Not only mathematical concepts, relationships and theorems can be aesthetically pleasing, but we also often find harmony between their results and the patterns of the world around us, and we like that. Yet, apart from rare exceptions, the beauty of mathematics, particularly in education, is mostly unrecognized: this science rarely meets the favour of students. Vedic mathematics is an approach which encapsulates the enjoyment and power of this knowledge, not only in the sphere of thought process, but also in its practical utility. It highlights and develops the aesthetic dimension of learning in a very immediate sense. The aim of this article is to introduce the method – what it is and how it works – to give comparative examples of techniques and their efficacy, and to emphasize the aesthetic value it conveys. PubDate: 2023-05-04 DOI: 10.36253/Aisthesis-14287 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023)
Open Access journal
