Andrea Pinotti (PhD in Philosophy 1998) is Full Professor of Aesthetics at the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” of the State University of Milan, where he teaches Aesthetics and Representation and Image Theories. He is the coordinator of the Doctoral Course in Philosophy and Human Sciences. He has been fellow at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University, New York (2003-04); Directeur d’études associé at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris (2008); Fritz Saxl Senior fellow at the Warburg Institute, University of London (2010); professeur invité at the Université Jean-Moulin, Lyon 3 (2011); Gastwissenschaftler at the ZfL in Berlin (2012); directeur d’études associé at the FMSH in Paris (2015); Eurias-Marie-Curie Senior fellow at the IEA in Paris (2017-18) . He has been Directeur de Programme at the CIPH (Collège International de Philosophie) in Paris on the programme Monument Nonument. Politique de l’image mémorielle, esthétique de la mémoire matérielle. In 2018 he has been awarded the Wissenschaftspreis der Aby-Warburg-Stiftung.

Alfio Ferrara (PhD in Computer Science 2005) is Full Professor of Computer Science at the Department of Computer Science ‘Giovanni Degli Antoni’ of the University of Milan, where he teaches database, information retrieval and text mining. He is the coordinator of the Data Science Research Center of the University of Milan. He participates in the activities of the research group “Information Systems and Knowledge Management” (ISLab), with co-direction responsibility since 2011, and coordinates the Instance Matching track in the international research group of OAEI (Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative) of which he is member of the steering committee. He has been part of the research team in 10 European and national projects. Alfio Ferrara is also the author of more than 100 publications in international journals, volumes and conference proceedings. At the University of Milan, he was also one of the promoters of the Data Science and Economics Master’s Degree Course and of the II level University Master’s Degree in Data Science for Economics, Business and Finance.

Federico Gustavo Pizzetti, born in 1976, graduated in Law at the University of Turin (Italy) in 1999, is Full Professor of Public Law at the University of Milan (Italy), where he also teaches Biolaw, since 2015. He is actually Vicedirector of the Department of International, Legal and Historical-Political Studies. He has written around 140 publications (among which, 8 books). He is a member of the International Forum of Teachers in Bioethics, medical ethics and medical law, UNESCO Chair in Bioethics; of the European Association of Health Law; of the Italian Society of Neuroethics and Philosophy of the Neurosciences; and of the Italian Association of Constitutional Lawyers. He is affiliated of the The Initiative on Neuroscience and the Law Project, Houston Baylor College of Medicine. His research areas are about the End-of-Life Decisionmaking Law, the Constitutional Law and Neurosciences, the Human Duties (in particular, to protect vulnerable persons).

Anna Caterina Dalmasso (Ph.D. Philosophy, University of Lyon/University of Milan, 2015) is assistant professor (ricercatrice a tempo determinato RTD-A) at the Department of Philosophy of University of Milan. Her research combines visual culture, film and media studies with phenomenology and aesthetics. Her current focuses are the aesthetics of virtual environments and immersive media, post-cinema, and media archaeology. She has been Marie Curie COFUND postdoctoral fellow at the Centre Prospéro of Saint-Louis University – Brussels (2017-2019). She devoted her doctoral thesis to Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of the visual and to its implications for contemporary mediality and technoculture (published in two books: Le corps, c’est l’écran. La philosophie du visuel de Merleau-Ponty, Mimesis, 2018; L’œil et l’histoire. Merleau-Ponty et l’historicité de la perception, Mimesis, 2019). She has coedited several interdisciplinary collective books and journal issues on screens studies and philosophy of cinema. She is also filmmaker and has worked in cinema, television and in audiovisual literacy workshops, collaborating with the director Andrea Caccia.

Fabrizia Bandi, graduated at University of Milano, is a PhD in Philosophical Sciences – Aesthetics and Theory of the Arts (University of Palermo 2016). Her main research topics are phenomenology and aesthetics, with particular regard to the phenomenology of aesthetic experience, aesthetics of architecture and art. She has been postdoctoral fellow at Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio (Università della Svizzera Italiana) thanks to an Excellence fellowship of the FNS (Swiss National Science Foundation) dedicated to the concept of Freespace. She has been adjunct professor of the Aesthetics course at Politecnico of Milan, MSc programme Architectural Design and History (2016-2020). She is a member of the editorial staff of the journal Studi di Estetica as well as of the SIE (Italian Society of Aesthetics). In 2018 she has published the book La percezione armata. Esperienza estetica e immaginazione in Mikel Dufrenne (Mimesis).

Federica Cavaletti’s main research fields are aesthetics and phenomenology, and she combines theoretical and empirical methods of investigation. She obtained her PhD degree in Humanities (curriculum: Communication, media, and performing arts) at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan. The topic of her dissertation was time perception in audiovisual media, which she explored both theoretically and by means of methods from cognitive psychology and empirical phenomenology (micro-phenomenological interviews). Within the ERC project “AN-ICON”, she is mainly contributing to the “Theory” and “Practices” research axes. More in particular, she is working on the first-person experience of VR environments and on the dynamics of the gazes implied in these environments. She is also addressing these topics in relation to the uses of VR in professional domains such as psychology, psychiatry, and medicine.

Alessandro Costella has graduated from the University of Milano in 2020, Master’s Degree in Computer Science. His main research topics within this project concern the design and development of virtual reality experiences. He also works with artists within the 12th Atelier, collaborating in the creation of their digital works of art. During his studies he worked as game designer and system designer at Acchiappasogni s.r.l., creating art-based tabletop role playing games.

Roberto Paolo Malaspina graduated (BA) in 2016 at the University of Florence in History and Conservation of Cultural Heritages with a thesis on the relationship between museology and New Media. In 2019 he concluded his MA degree in Visual Arts at the University of Bologna, with a dissertation on the theoretical identity of postmodern architecture. During his studies, he worked as curator for Narkissos, an independent gallery based in Bologna, where he further researched on the interrelation between body, technology and feminisms. Between 2019 and 2020 he attended CAMPO, course for curators of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. He is currently a PhD student at the University of Milan – Department of Philosophy and Human Science – where he conducts a research on the relationship between embodied perception and New Media in the fruition of pornographic moving images.