Conference: Seeing with Machines: Aesthetics, Education and Semiotics of AI Images
Thursday 7 – Friday 8 May 2026 — Reggio Emilia, Palazzo Baroni
In recent years, the development of image-generation technologies using Text-to-Image (TTI) systems, such as DALLE or Stable Diffusion, has radically transformed the processes of image production, circulation and interpretation. The exponential spread of ‘syntographs’ – synthetic images often indistinguishable from photographs – raises crucial questions regarding their ontological and epistemological status, their documentary value and visual reliability, notions of authorship and creativity, as well as their role in the training and education of new generations.
The conference aims to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue exploring the epistemological, aesthetic, socio-semiotic, technical and educational implications of images generated by artificial intelligence. Seeing with Machines serves as a space for dialogue between different disciplinary perspectives – from aesthetics to the philosophy of language, from semiotics to visual and media studies, from educational sciences to AI engineering – with the aim of critically examining the theoretical framework within which to understand generated images, the epistemological shift brought about by TTI technologies, the erosion of documentary value and the transformations of visual culture, as well as the educational and training challenges associated with the new status of images.
FAR Interdisciplinary 2024 ‘Images and AI’ Edited by: Ludovica Brandi, Francesco D’Isa, Lorenzo Manera, Federico Montanari, Antonella Pugnaghi, Enver Sangineto
Communication and organisation: Enrico Barbetti Participants: Emanuele Arielli • Alice Barale • Mauro Carbone • Maria Giulia Dondero • Francesco D’Isa • Joan Fontcuberta • Valentina Tanni
Seeing-With-Machine-Programme