SINAPSI
Sinapsi [synapses] is a series collecting texts published
in the journal Nodes since its foundation, as well as unpublished content. It delivers different writing forms: essays, interviews, scientific articles.
The intention is to make accessible to readers, on the one hand, contents that is no longer available and, on the other hand, unpublished writings.
Our Sinapsi aim to connect themes, disciplines, lines of thought, and research approaches to tell visions in the cultural
and aesthetic groove created by the relationship between art
and neuroscience.
Formato chiuso: 12,5 x 18 cm
Numero di pagine: 28
ISBN: 9788894709148
AI-aesthetics and the Anthropocentric Myth of Creativity
Emanuele Arielli and Lev Manovich
Since the beginning of the XXI century, technologies like neural networks, deep learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have gradually entered the artistic realm. We witness the development of systems that aim to assess, evaluate and appreciate artifacts according to artistic and aesthetic criteria or by observing people’s preferences. In addition to that,
AI is now used to generate new synthetic artifacts.
When a machine paints a Rembrandt, composes a Bach sonata, or completes a Beethoven symphony, we say that this is neither original nor real art, but simply the complex imitation
and reproduction of existing products of human culture.
We face the old question concerning the nature of creativity: what kind of recombination of ideas, unusual analogies,
and conceptual connections are considered the mark
of originality? Can AI produce artworks? Could machines reach a point at which we consider them genuinely creative?
We also need to investigate the challenges posed by AI-art
to the notion of authoriality: Who is the author of an artificially generated artifact? An artificial system could be considered just an artist’s and a programmer’s tool. However, we are
also fascinated by the idea of autonomous artificial creativity
in the aesthetic domain, as a manifestation
of highly intelligent behavior. This text will try to define
some key questions around what could it mean to consider
a machine creative or even equipped with artistic intentionality.
Formato chiuso: 12,5 x 18 cm
Numero di pagine: 24
ISBN: 9788894709124
VOL.2
Il ruolo dell’artista e il pregiudizio su intelligenze artificiali
che creano opere d’arte
Numero Cromatico
Several studies reported that, together with low-level features, high-level features of an artwork such as context, cultural beliefs and expectations can modulate aesthetic appreciation. Recent studies investigated the role of authorship as a factor that can influence aesthetic appreciation. Among these, some have compared the response to human vs. Artificial Intelligence or computer-made artworks, reporting evidence of a negative bias towards the latter. However, the appreciation of AI-generated artworks has not been systematically investigated yet. In the current era, this topic appears to be of great interest and this article attempts to contribute to the study of this phenomenon by focusing on two main aspects: a) the role of the artist and authorship in the history of art; b) the prejudice about artificial intelligence creating works of art. The article also discusses some recent neuroscientific studies, attempting to outline a new perspective for art research.
Formato chiuso: 12,5 x 18 cm
Numero di pagine: 28
ISBN: 9788894709179
VOL.3
Arte e psicoanalisi nell’orizzonte dell’estinzione
Franco "Bifo" Berardi
Not a prophet but a terminal schizo.
This means that we have no use for predicting trends in the objective world, because the objective world is not there.
What we need (perhaps) is a transcription machine of impulses coming from sensors scattered in the unlimited psychosphere around us.
A schizo terminal is a receiver with very high sensitivity capable of receiving and interpreting the psychic vibrations scattered in the ocean-mind.
On 20 January 2020 we underwent this experiment: transcribing into readable signs, in a sophisticated language but not incomprehensible language the vibrations that came
(even then) from billions of terrified minds, scattered all over
the planet.
The result of the experiment was certainly delirious, as anyone who browses further can verify. Delusional and methodical.
But a month later it all became clearer, when a subvisible material entity proliferated at breakneck speed across
the world's connected screens and into the respiratory systems
of billions of individuals whose proxemics had not yet been encoded.
This was followed by: contagion proxemic codification the distancing and the phobic sensitisation to the other's body. When contagion seemed defeated, there followed: invasion
war genocide extermination generalised Nazism.
The terminal schizo is now silent waiting of extinction.
VOL.4
Uno sguardo alla letteratura attraverso le scienze della mente
Alberto Casadei | Intervista di Manuel Focareta
Literary criticism, until the advent of neuroscience, has always recognised the value of literary texts by assessing their stylistic-philological qualities and enhancing the links between the work and the personal experience of the author of reference. With the emergence of new disciplines and areas of investigation - such as neuroaesthetics neuroaesthetics, neurocognitive poetics and digital humanities - the boundaries of interpretation of the aesthetic experience of literature have expanded. of literature.
Starting precisely from this evidence, Alberto Casadei - literary critic, writer and professor of Italian Literature at the University of Pisa - tells us how the new frontiers of neuroscience can contribute to the examination of literary works, providing new insights and supplementing the shortcomings of the classical interpretative models still widely used in the academic
world today.
Formato chiuso: 12,5 x 18 cm
Numero di pagine: 24
ISBN: 9788894709186
VOL.5
L’arte non è speciale. Un’offensiva contro chi critica
la concretezza del cervello umano
Martin Skov e Marcos Nadal
The assumption that human cognition requires exceptional explanations holds strong in some domains of behavioral and brain sciences. Scientific aesthetics in general, and neuroaesthetics in particular, abound with claims for art-specific cognitive or neural processes. This assumption fosters a conceptual structure disconnected from other fields and biases the sort of processes to be studied. More generally, assuming that art is special is to cling to the idea that some aspect of our species’ mental constitution makes us unique, special, and meaningful. This assumption continues to relegate scientific aesthetics to the periphery of science and hampers a naturalized view of the human mind.
Formato chiuso: 12,5 x 18 cm
Numero di pagine: 16
ISBN: 9788894073461
VOL.6
La ricerca sulle sinestesie
Un contributo tra neuroscienze e design
Dina Riccò
This text retraces the main stages that have marked the research on synaesthesia and detects two barely addressed issues: the history of synaesthaesia and its future prospects. First, the role and historical importance of Italian scholars (physiologists, aestheticians, historians, linguists) in identifying the synaesthetic phenomenon will be
outlined, given how they are too often left out from the scientific production. Second, some applicative prospects drawing from the neuroscientific knowledge on synaesthesia in the field of design for content accessibility and the design for health and well-being will be further explored.
Formato chiuso: 12,5 x 18 cm
Numero di pagine: 24
ISBN: 9788894073478
Formato chiuso: 12,5 x 18 cm
Numero di pagine: 36
ISBN: 9788894709193
VOL.7
Neuroscienze dell’architettura.
Tracciando i contorni di una nuova disciplina
Oshin Vartanian e Xueying Shao
Environmental psychology is the discipline broadly concerned about how environments impact our feelings, thinking, and behaviour. Because people in industrialized nations spend the majority of their time indoors, much research in this domain has focused on the impact of the physical features of built environments on the psychological states and behaviour of their users. Relatively recently, burgeoning research in the neuroscience of architecture has begun to peer into the brain and related physiological processes to examine how they are influenced by design features of built environments, which can in turn impact how we think, act and feel within and in relation to those spaces. Here we conduct a selective review of this emerging literature, focusing on the impact of physical features of built environments on naïve participants, individuals with formal training and experience in architecture and design, and clinical populations of interest. We argue that empirical findings from neuroscience of architecture have the potential to optimize the design of spaces in which we live and work, and ultimately the health and wellbeing of their occupants.