[Commlist] La Valle dell'Eden/East of Eden Issue 41 Call for Papers "The algorithmic images between media, art, and society"

La Valle dell'Eden/East of Eden
CALL FOR PAPERS # 41 July – December 2022

Special Issue

/The algorithmic images between media, art, and society./

//Edited by Roberto Diodato and Ruggero Eugeni

The technological developments of still and moving digital images have 
prompted some profound transformations in the theoretical debate. 
Indeed, digitized images do not simply (or do not only) constitute the 
“remediation” of previous technological forms of pictures; instead, they 
are based on new principles and the new logic of production, existence, 
circulation, and use of visual objects.

Images appearing on the screens of smartphones, tablets, televisions, 
cinemas, shop windows, smart glasses, virtual reality helmets, and so on 
all consist of partial displays of dynamic data sets and data cubes 
subjected to automated algorithmic treatments. As such, algorithmic 
images possess a liminal and residual existence compared to the actual 
processes of elaboration of the visible in an invisible form. 
Furthermore, algorithmic images constitute an adaptation to the human 
sensory of processing speeds that we can’t experience by our organism: 
we are therefore hosted into a “real-time” and a “live” temporality 
built from a myriad of extremely fast sub-processes. Ultimately, the 
centre of gravity of visual phenomena (and therefore their theoretical 
interest) shifts from the image and its uses to the devices and 
algorithmic processing that precede and prepare the displaying of data 
in visible (and possibly audible) forms.

This “algorithmic turn” in visual studies has resulted in complex 
consequences. We can highlight at least three. First, the boundaries 
between disciplines dealing with visual objects have been blurred: film 
and media studies, semiotics, aesthetics, art history, archival science, 
visual sociology, etc. are today jointly observing this newly emerging 
landscape. Second, the research on images is increasingly confronted 
with extra-medial and extra-aesthetic areas, from data science to 
surveillance processes, from the uses of images in scientific research 
to those in warfare. In the past, visual studies emphasized the 
connection between images, their contents and social phenomena; today, 
the focus has shifted to optical devices and dispositives as the places 
of transition between different uses of images. Finally, algorithmic 
images have pushed the reflection toward the relationship between 
expressive productions and technology, both in its aesthetic or 
metaphysical entanglements and archaeological heritages. Interactions 
with visual devices have increasingly appeared to be comparable to 
technical tools, with all the complex processes related to the mutual 
constitution of objects, images and subjects that these practices involve.

The new special issue of /La Valle dell’Eden / East of Eden/ intends to 
map this territory and identify new areas to explore. A part of the 
issue derives from the workshop “The algorithmic image between media and 
art”, organized by the editors of this dossier at the Casa Della Cultura 
- Milan during the Spring of 2022. Other scholars are kindly invited to 
contribute to this debate by responding to this call for papers. In 
particular, the editors invite the submission of proposals concerning:

  * Epistemological and theoretical-methodological questions related to
    the different contemporary approaches to the image, and their dialogue.
  * Visual art products based on algorithmic images, and their
    relationship with technology, artistic inventions, the art market,
    the role of the artist, etc.
  * Dispositives of production, manipulation, circulation and exhibition
    of images, even from the archaeological perspective of their
    development.
  * The statutes of algorithmic images and their semiotic, aesthetic,
    social and ontological characteristics.
  * The evolution and transformations of the relationships between the
    “indexical” image and the “artificially” constructed image (also
    regarding the new processes of automated image creation by
    Artificial Intelligence).
  * The relationship between images, visual devices, and social
    environments, including new and old practical uses of images as well
    as old and new forms of their agency.
  * The establishment of digital image archives and new algorithmic
    search techniques within them.

The articles can either address specific aspects of these issues, 
present bibliographic reviews and original proposals, or analyze 
specific and symptomatic cases to trace general ideas, trends, and 
principles.

*Deadlines and Methods of submission*

The proposals (an abstract of up to 1,500 characters), accompanied by a 
short biography of the author, must be sent by 20 June 2022 to one of 
the editors of the issue ((ruggero.eugeni /at/ unicatt.it) 
<mailto:(ruggero.eugeni /at/ unicatt.it)>;(roberto.diodato /at/ unicatt.it) 
<mailto:(roberto.diodato /at/ unicatt.it)>) and at the same time to the 
editorial staff ((eden /at/ unito.it) <mailto:(eden /at/ unito.it)>).

The complete essays (max 30,000 characters) must be handed in by 1 
October 2022.

No Article Processing Charges are required.

/La Valle dell’Eden / East of 
Eden/ (https://eastofedenjournal.wordpress.com/ 
<https://eastofedenjournal.wordpress.com/>) is a Film and Media Studies 
journal, established in 1999 and published by the Universities of Turin, 
Pavia, and Genoa. The Journal adopts an open, non-blind peer review 
system, which allows a frank and dynamic dialogue with its authors, in 
order to promote a quick and informal review process.


*Selected Bibliography*

Alexis L. Boylan, /Visual Culture/, Cambridge (Mass.) – London, The MIT 
Press, 2020.

Michele Cometa, /Cultura visuale. Una genealogia/, Milano, Cortina, 2020.

Maria Giulia Dondero, /The Language of Images. The Forms and the 
Forces/, Foreword by Virginia Kuhn, Cham, Springer, 2020.

Johanna Drucker, /Visualization and Interpretation. Humanistic 
Approaches to Display/, Cambridge (Mass.) - London, The MIT Press, 2020.

James Elkins, Sunil Manghani, Gustav Frank (eds.), /Farewell to Visual 
Studies/, University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015.

Barbara Grespi, Luca Malavasi, /Dalla parte delle immagini. Temi di 
cultura visuale/, Milano, McGraw Hill, 2022.

Sheree Josephson, James D. Kelly, Ken Smith (eds.), /Handbook of Visual 
Communication. Theory, Methods, and Media/, Second Edition, New York – 
London, Routledge, 2020

Tarcisio Lancioni, Anna Maria Lorusso (a cura di), /Enunciazione e 
immagini/, numero monografico di /E|C Rivista dell’Associazione Italiana 
di Studi Semiotici/, anno XIV, n. 29, 2020.

Moritz Neumüller (ed.), /The Routledge Companion to Photography and 
Visual Culture/, New York – London, 2018.

Andrea Pinotti, Antonio Somaini, /Cultura visuale. Immagini, sguardi, 
media, dispositivi/, Torino, Einaudi, 2016.

Krešimir Purgar (ed.), /The Palgrave Handbook of Image Studies/, Cham, 
Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

Hito Steyerl, /Duty Free Art. Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War/, 
London – New York, Verso, 2017.

Marita Sturken, Lisa Cartwright, /Practices of Looking. An Introduction 
to Visual Culture/, Third Edition, New York – Oxford, Oxford University 
Press, 2018.

Mark C. Taylor, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Thomas A. Carlson, /Image. Three 
Inquiries in Technology and Imagination/, Chicago – London, The 
University of Chicago Press, 2021.

William Uricchio, “The algorithmic turn: Photosynth, augmented reality 
and the changing implications of the image”, in /Visual Studies/, Volume 
26, Issue 1, 2011, pp. 25-35.

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