1 February 2024
Techniques of Enchantment. Magic and Contemporary Technology

Sofia Pirandello

14 January 2025
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
Intelligenza artificiale. Prospettive critiche
19 December 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
Ombre sul Mediterraneo: estetiche translocali e nuove geografie televisuali tra Italia ed Europa

Valentina Re

12 December 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
Anthropology of Screens. Showing and Hiding, Exposing and Protecting

Mauro Carbone

2 July 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
Images from an Exhibition. Inhabiting the world with the stereoscope

Giovanni Fiorentino

12 June 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
Faraway, So Close! Bridging distances between Anthropological Philosophy and Media Anthropology

Martino Quadrato

12 June 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
The Automatic Body: a mediarcheological approach

Alice Peli

21 May 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
Difficult Heritage: disputed figures in contemporary memorial museums

Giulia Bertolazzi

21 May 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
“Antimonumenta”: artistic practice in feminist Mexico

Francesca Romana Gregori

9 May 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
Death and Virtual Mourning. The “Return of the Dead” in Digital Afterlife

Maria Serafini

7 May 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
Vierundzwanzig Beine! Carts, chariots, carriages and other (image-)media in Warburg’s Mnemosyne

Katia Mazzucco

16 April 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
Education meets Virtual Reality. Reasoning on learning outcomes, inclusion and didactic scenarios

Ilaria Terrenghi

4 April 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
Rape or “rape”? Virtual violence and the somatechnical body

Pietro Conte

26 March 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
Chiromorphisms. The technical genesis of modern disability

Alessandro Costella

15 February 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
The Obscene Device. Archaeology of Immersive Pornographies

Roberto Malaspina

25 January 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
Alternative Worlds – VR without Headsets

Margherita Fontana

11 January 2024
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
A world of imprints. The epistemology of visual evidence in digital and virtual media-ecologies

Rosa Cinelli

21 December 2023
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
FEMINIST HORROR THEORY – Filmic Forms and Female Identity: Rewriting in the Key of Gender

Rossana Galimi

5 December 2023
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
From Photography to Virtual Reality and back again. A conversation with Francesco Jodice

Francesco Jodice

20 November 2023
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
Immersed in science

Ilaria Ampollini

9 November 2023
2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111
The burning gaze. An aesthetics of shame in the age of the virtual

Federica Cavaletti

research: Seminar

2023/24 /ɪˈməːʃən/
111

Techniques of Enchantment. Magic and Contemporary Technology

Sofia Pirandello

Despite the fact that in Western countries it is very common to associate magical knowledge and beliefs only with distant times and places, the reference to magic in relation to new digital technologies is actually widespread, both in advertising and in specialist literature. For some time now, magical practices using memes have been gaining ground on social media: on TikTok, in particular, we are witnessing a collective revival and claim of witchcraft. Moreover, while many scholars have already pointed out that online calls and chats are reminiscent of nineteenth-century séances, voice commands resemble spells, while wearable instruments such as smart glasses literally take possession of the user's body, giving them the ability to move and manipulate things at a distance. The tendency to associate these phenomena with the occult is not surprising, given the history of magic and the people who practice it. Although not all techniques can be called magical, magic can be seen as a technique that uses certain movements, formulas and tools, in certain places and under certain conditions. The power attributed to the gesture and the user's body are of particular interest and, combined with the need for technical mediation to activate superpowers, can be examined with reference to categories such as enchantment, charm and fascination. Such a study is thus more specifically a bio-aesthetic one, with implications at both the individual and community levels. In fact, magic has always been practiced as a way of influencing the world: it is performed by elites as well as marginalized subjects, and its analysis can help to understand certain instances of control and power that underlie contemporary technology.

Biography

Sofia Pirandello

Sofia Pirandello is post-doc researcher in Aesthetics at the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” of the University of Milan. Her research interests concern contemporary theories of imagination, philosophy of technology, media theories and contemporary art. She obtained her PhD degree in Philosophy and Human Sciences at the University of Milan (2023), working on a PhD thesis about augmented reality (AR) feedback on human imagination. She is author of the book Fantastiche presenze. Note su estetica, arte contemporanea e realtà aumentata (Johan & Levi 2023). In the ERC Project AN-ICON she works on aesthetics and politics of AR considered as a phantasmagoric dispositif, also investigating the link between magic and contemporary technology.

research: seminar

Techniques of Enchantment. Magic and Contemporary Technology

Sofia Pirandello

Despite the fact that in Western countries it is very common to associate magical knowledge and beliefs only with distant times and places, the reference to magic in relation to new digital technologies is actually widespread, both in advertising and in specialist literature. For some time now, magical practices using memes have been gaining ground on social media: on TikTok, in particular, we are witnessing a collective revival and claim of witchcraft. Moreover, while many scholars have already pointed out that online calls and chats are reminiscent of nineteenth-century séances, voice commands resemble spells, while wearable instruments such as smart glasses literally take possession of the user's body, giving them the ability to move and manipulate things at a distance. The tendency to associate these phenomena with the occult is not surprising, given the history of magic and the people who practice it. Although not all techniques can be called magical, magic can be seen as a technique that uses certain movements, formulas and tools, in certain places and under certain conditions. The power attributed to the gesture and the user's body are of particular interest and, combined with the need for technical mediation to activate superpowers, can be examined with reference to categories such as enchantment, charm and fascination. Such a study is thus more specifically a bio-aesthetic one, with implications at both the individual and community levels. In fact, magic has always been practiced as a way of influencing the world: it is performed by elites as well as marginalized subjects, and its analysis can help to understand certain instances of control and power that underlie contemporary technology.

1 February 2024
15:00
18:00

Aula Martinetti

Via Festa del Perdono, 7

Techniques of Enchantment. Magic and Contemporary Technology
Sofia Pirandello
Aula Martinetti
Via Festa del Perdono, 7
20240201
15:00
18:00