• Ester Fuoco, contract professor at the Department Diraas of the University of Genoa, held a seminar on Revolutions in contemporary performance practice: from digital technology to robotics, during which she posed the following questions: what happens to the performing body when technological devices are involved on stage? What aesthetic process of remediation and "democratization" undergoes the corporeality typical of live performance? Through contemporary national and international examples, we have defined some of the different statements of the performative corporeity, of the actor and/or the spectator, following - in particular - three categories that involve the relational and expressive level, considering their alteration and implementation through the use of new technologies. The present in the here and now (immediate proximity), the present at a distance and the absent/virtual. A theme that during the pandemic has become increasingly topical and has proven to be an alternative to the blocking of live performances. Spatial fading, temporal trespassing and human absences are the result of new creative processes that show not only human actors on stage but also avatars and androids. We will try to overturn the perspective of canonical theatrical analysis and consider that the point of analysis should no longer start from the body but from its movement and the process it undergoes in the light of the interaction and integration of the technological device.

• Richard Saint-Gelais, professor at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Laval (Canada), held a seminar entitled Trompe l'œil as a (meta)semiotic device

• Claire Bishop, Professor of Art History at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York held a seminar entitled Interventions on April 15, 22 and 29. Over the course of the three sessions she will attempt to reflect on the concept of "intervention" understood as an artistic strategy of working in public space. Although interruption and refusal have been central to the avant-garde throughout the twentieth century, this seminar proposes a more circumscribed definition of intervention, one that triangulates with public gestures, political temporality, and media circulation.
  
  
• Dr. Joerg Fingerhut -Investigator of the Research Group: Philosophy and Cognitive Science of Media, Cultural Artifacts, and Art within the EU Horizon 2020 Consortium Project: ARTIS: Art and Research on Transformations on Individuals and Societies - held a seminar entitled Embodied Cognition of Media and Visual Culture.

• Dr. Riccardo Falcinelli, Professor of Psychology of Perception at Isia Roma Design and owner of Studio Falcinelli & Co. specialized in editorial design, gave a lecture on Design as representation of representations
  
  
• Marie Rebecchi, Professor at the Department of Arts of Aix-Marseille Université, held a seminar on The living revealed and documented by the technique
  
  
• Antonio Somaini, Professor of Cinema, Visual Cultures and Media Theory and Director of the Department of Cinema and Audiovisual Studies at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3, gave two lectures entitled Time Machine: Cinematic Temporalities. From Exhibition to Film
  
  
• Liat Lavi, Director of the Master in Design (M.Des) Program in Visual Communication at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem gave a seminar on A Philosophical Approach to Visual Analysis: What do Metaphysical Assumptions Look Like?
  
  
• Andrea Minuz, associate professor at the Department of History Anthropology Religions Performing Arts of the University La Sapienza of Rome, held a seminar on Screenwriting studies. Adaptation policies, rewriting practices and media franchises
  
  
• Valerio Magrelli, professor at the Department of Philosophy, Communication and Entertainment, University of Roma Tre, held a seminar on Poetry, Silicon, Links
  
  
• Mauro Carbone, professor at the Faculty of Philosophy of Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, held a seminar on Returning to screens: from the body that makes shadow to the body organs that make display
  
  
• Emmanuel Alloa, professor at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Fribourg, gave a seminar on The illiterates of the future. The Legibility of Images
  
  
• Michele Guerra, Professor of Cinema, Photography and Television at the University of Parma, held a seminar on "Action": for an archaeology of our media interactions.
  
  
• Simone Arcagni, associate professor at the Department of Culture and Society at the University of Palermo, held a seminar on The eye of the machine and on Cinema Futuro
  
  
• Francesco Caglioti, Professor of Medieval Art History at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, held a seminar on the following topics: Sacred topography, liturgical staging and funerary self-celebration - I: Donatello's bronze scrolls in San Lorenzo in Florence and then Sacred topography, liturgical staging and funerary self-celebration - II: Guido Mazzoni's Lamentation over the Dead Christ in Santa Maria di Monteoliveto in Naples
  
  
• Alessandro Piperno, writer and researcher at the Department of History, Cultural Heritage, Education and Society of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, held a seminar on Writers read writers: from Nabokov to Flaubert (backwards)
  
  
• William Mitchell, Professor at Chicago University, gave a seminar on Present Tense: The Iconology of Time

• Stefano Lombardi Vallauri, associate professor at Iulm Department of Communication Arts and Media, held a seminar on Uni multi inter hyper trans: mediality of music
  
  
• Franco Moretti, professor emeritus at Stanford University, held a seminar on Simulating entanglement: a new model for the study of literature?
  
  
• Massimo Fusillo, full professor at the Department of Human Sciences, University of L'Aquila, held a seminar on Per una comparatistica transmediale. Disseminations, diffractions, focalizations
  
  
• Carla Barbati, full professor at the Department of Business, Law, Economics and Consumption IULM, gave a lecture on the theme of Cultural Law
  
  
• Paolo Giovannetti, full professor at IULM Department of Arts, Media and Communication, held a seminar on Transmediality (and intermediality) in time: the female pathos of Romanticism and the 'case' Romanzo criminale
  
  
• Stefano Bartezzaghi, associate professor at IULM Department of Humanistic Studies, held a seminar on Rhetoric of creativity: exercise of style, variation, enigma
  
  
• Riccardo Manzotti, associate professor at Iulm Department of Business, Law, Economics and Consumption, held a seminar at the Phd in Visual and Media Studies on The problem of the ontology of images from phenomenology to digital media.

• Gianfranco Noferi: Deputy Director Rai Cultura Palinsesti e Piani, held a seminar at PhD in Visual and Media Studies on 10 June 2019 at 14.00. The title of the speech is L'esperienza di Rai Cultura nella evoluzione della comunicazione in Italia (Rai Culture experience in the evolution of communication in Italy)

• Arturo Galansino: General Manager of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi held a seminar entitledPalazzo Strozzi: New Renaissance for Florence

• Paola Dubini: Professor at Bocconi University, held a seminar entitled Measuring the value of culture
  
  
• Makoto Sekimura, professor of Aesthetics and Philosophy at Hiroshima University, held a seminar entitled Spatiality and human beings in Japanese cultures. Click here to download the abstract and the short bio
  
  
• Emanuele Zinato: Associate professor of Contemporary Italian Literature at the University of Padua, he held a seminar entitled Starting with Huysmans: the aesthete, the objects and the technical reproducibility. Theoretical and methodological issues. Click here to download the abstract and the short bio
  
  
• Pierluigi Pellini:Director of the Department of Philology and Criticism of Ancient and Modern Literatures at the University of Siena, he is full professor of Contemporary Italian Literature. He held a seminar Statutes of the symbol between naturalism, symbolism and modernism. Click here to download the abstract and the short bio
  
  
• Bart Van Den Bossche: Professor of Italian Literature at KU Leuven University, he held a seminar on 26 February at entitled Images and words: the use of literature in the modernist period Click here to download the abstract, the short bio and the bibliography
  
  
• Antonio Pizzo teaches Performance Dramaturgy at the DAMS of the University of Turin. He held a seminar on 29 January entitled The forms of digital performance between theories and praxis Click here to download the abstract and bibliography
  
  

• Massimiliano Rossi: Full Professor of History of Art Criticism and Museology at the University of Salento since 2003. He held a seminar on 17 January entitled Poetics and rhetoric for images: literary artists and literary clients in the early modern age Click here to download the abstract and bibliography

• Paolo Coen: Associate Professor in History of Modern Art at the University of Teramo. Prof. Coen held a seminar on 21 January entitled From Primo Levi, with Primo Levi, to Primo Levi. Art and museums of the Holocaust, silent but not silent witnesses of Memory  Click here to download abstract and biography.

• Nicola Dusi: Professor of Intermediate Languages and Critical Analysis of Film at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Department of Communication and Economics. Click here to download abstract and biography.

• John Crawford: associate Dean with the Academy of Arts at the University of California Irvine. Prof. Crawford gave a lecture entitled "Exploring the use of processed digital media and computer-based interactivity in live performance".

• Tom Konyves: one of the founders of the collective The Vehicule Poets held two lessons entitled: Approaching Videopoetry: Origins, Constraints, Categories - Evaluating Videopoetry: Selection, Modification, Juxtaposition.

• Prof. Boris Groys: Professor of Aesthetics, Art History and Media Theory at the Center for Media Art and Theory in Karlsruhe, Germany, and Global Professor at New York University in the United States. He is considered the leading scholar of media theory and has given two lectures entitled: An alternative history of modernism I: Kandinsky and art as the medium of affects - here you can find the poster; An alternative history of modernism II: Malevich and Cosmic imagination.

• Carlo Fontana: Theatre Director and President of A.G.I.S. (Associazione Generale Italiana dello Spettacolo) from 12 September 2013. Carlo Fontana gave a lecture entitled Working in Culture: History of Operations and Institutions

• Prof. Joshua Yumibe: Associate Professor of Film Studies at Michigan State University. Prof. Yumibe will be the guest of the PhD on May 3 to give a lecture entitled: Chromatic Modernity: Silent Cinema and the Legacies of Color

• Prof. Federico Vercellone: Professor of Aesthetics at the University of Turin. Vercellone gave a lecture entitled "Modern Revolutions of Katechon. Starting with Anselm Kiefer"

• Prof. Christine Macel: since 2000 she has been Chief Curator of the Musée national d'art moderne - Centre Pompidou in Paris, where she is responsible for the Department of "Création contemporaine et prospective" that she founded and developed. She has been curator of the French Pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2013 (Anri Sala), of the Belgian Pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2007 (Eric Duyckaerts), and director of the Biennale d'Arte 2017 Viva, arte viva!... He gave a lecture entitled: "The Experience of the General Director of La Biennale Arti Visive Venezia 2017.

• Prof. Richard Dyer: Emeritus Professor at King's College London gave a lecture entitled "Is It Their Song? The Use of Song in Film Melodrama".

• Prof. Giancarlo Alfano: Associate Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Naples Federico II held a lecture entitled With the face page. Narration, photography and typography in Sebald's work.

• Prof. W.J.T Mitchell: Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago

• Prof.ssa Cristina Baldacci: Fellow at ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry gave a lecture entitled: The Wandering Archive as a Metaphor and Symptom in Contemporary Art.

• Michele Cometa: Professor of History of Culture and Visual Culture at the University of Palermo, he held a seminar On the origins of make-image. The Visual Culture of the Palaeolithic 

• Riccardo Falcinelli: one of the most appreciated visual designers on the Italian graphic scene and author of Cromorama,. He gave a lecture entitled Colour as a mass medium. Design, perception, communication

• Prof. Salvatore Silvano Nigro: Emeritus Professor of Italian Literature

• Prof. Emilio Sala: Associate Professor of Music at the University of Milan.

• Prof. Michele Dantini: Professor of Contemporary Art History at the University for Foreigners of Perugia and Visiting Professor at IMT Scuola di Alti Studi Lucca. He gave a lecture entitled Continuity|Discontinuity. Visual arts, society and politics between fascism and neo-avant-garde.

• Prof.ssa Anna Maria Lorusso: associate professor at the Department of Philosophy and Communication of the University of Bologna, where she teaches Semiotics, Semiotics of Culture and Semiotics of Journalistic Texts. Controversial images, between information, denunciation and self-representation. He gave a lecture entitled: Controversial images, between information, denunciation and self-representation.

• Prof. Guglielmo Pescatore: Full Professor of Cinema, Photography, Television at the University of Bologna. He gave a lecture entitled Narrative ecosystems. A new approach to serial narratives

• Prof. Carole Talon-Hugon: Professor at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nice-Côte d'Azur
  
  

• Paolo Baratta: President of the Venice Biennale.

• Francesco Casetti: Professor of Humanitics and Professor of Film Studies at Yale University.

• Franco Farinelli: Full Professor of Geography Director of the Department of Philosophies and Communication - University of Bologna.

• Francesco Valagussa: Professor of Aesthetics and forms of doing and Metaphysics of the practices of the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele

• Chus Martìnez : Director of the Art Institute of the FHNW Academy of Arts and Design in Basel, Switzerland

• Boris Groys: Professor of Aesthetics, Art History, and Media Theory at the Center for Media Art and Karlsruhe Theory, Germany Global Professor at New York University

• Prof. Arturo Mazzerella: Full Professor of Literature and Visual Arts and Theories and Techniques of Narrative Department of Philosophy, Communication

  
  

Annual PhD Conference in Visual and Media Studies

Since 2017, the Doctoral School of IULM University has been organizing an annual conference to share and make visible the results of studies conducted by doctoral students and lecturers. The most innovative research topics are discussed in a critical encounter with authoritative scholars, both Italian and foreign, in order to intensify study and find new keys to interpretation. The conferences are open to the public.

20 November 2019 Le forme del simbolo. Discorsi e pratiche del contemporaneo  - Phd in Visual and Media Studies
The conference aims to re-discuss in a contemporary key the relationship between symbol and artistic practices in multiple media contexts. The speakers illustrated the way in which contemporary culture, from the 20th century to the present day, on the one hand has defined its identity through the elaboration of new artistic and literary codes, and on the other has taken up the challenge of a direct confrontation with tradition.

Click here to download the programme of the Conference and here to download the poster.

21 November 2018 Intrecci mediali. Articolazioni dell'iconico nella cultura visuale contemporanea - PhD in Visual and Media Studies
The second conference of the IULM Doctoral School was an opportunity to intensify study and discuss the following question: how can we rethink the concept of media today? Doctoral students and scholars in the field discuss it from three interdisciplinary perspectives: aesthetics and politics of staging, multidimensional relationships between image and word, dynamics of sensitive affection.

Click here to download the programme of the Conference and here to download the poster.

15 November 2017 Questioni di intertestualità - Phd in Visual and Media Studies
Intertextuality issues is the title of the first conference promoted and organized by IULM Phd School for Communication Studies.
The PhD students proposed a day of reflection on the theme of intertextuality, analyzed from three different perspectives: that of Visual Arts with a focus on "rewriting the look"; that of Film Studies focused on "traumatic visions in contemporary non-fiction" and that of Writing, Translation, Creativity oriented towards the concept of "estrangement as a critical interface".

Click here to download the programme of the Conference and here to download the poster

IULM University offers interdisciplinary courses aimed at developing the skills necessary for a researcher in training: communication, design and technical research funding, protection of intellectual property and skills in innovation and digital communication - the strength of our University.

The implementation of these training courses takes place according to the European recommendations on the development of doctoral education: in 2011, the European Commission includes the "Transferable Skills" among the basic principles for innovation of doctoral training courses.

The aim of the interdisciplinary courses is the development of skills that encourage, beyond the academic career, also the inclusion in roles of high responsibility in bodies, institutions, research centres and companies.

English Academic Writing

The course provides practical tools related to:

• Elements that make up an academic text
• Call for papers submission: the construction of the abstract
• Writing a paper
• Quoting, paraphrasing, referencing techniques
• Presentation of a research paper
• Construction of an academic bio short

Copyright

The course provides an introduction to the themes of intellectual property and legal protection of creative activities. The themes of copyright on products of university research and some problematic aspects of the application of rules on intellectual property to activities and works characteristic of the contemporary art scene are the subject of in-depth study.

Theory and practice of European design for cultural and creative enterprises

Training objectives:

• Acquisition of skills in the analysis of European Union research and development policies for "Cultural and Creative Industries - CCI";
• Acquisition of the design logic required for participation in European Union Calls for Proposals;
• Research and analysis of good practices in the field
• Acquisition of a forma mentis of research oriented to the consideration of the concrete benefits for the whole society, not only for the specific scientific community of reference, in relation to the fruits of its research work.

Contents:

• EU direct funds for research and development in the field of Cultural and Creative Industries CCIs
• The logic of European design: the Logical framework approach
• The matching between the objectives of the European programme and the objectives of the project
• Project evaluation: the point of view of the European external evaluator
• Needs analysis and definition of objectives
• Expected results and result indicators
• European added value and partnership building
• Risk analysis
• Dissemination and use of results
• Impact and sustainability of the project
• Project management and reporting
• Drafting of the project draft
• Monitoring of calls for CCI grants

Quaderni di Visual and Medi Studies aim to be a place of convergence of theoretical knowledge and operational strategies related to the study of media and visual languages in an interdisciplinary perspective, offering PhD students a space that brings together and makes visible the best results of their work.

Intrecci mediali. Articolazioni dell'iconico nella cultura visuale contemporanea

Widespread spectacularization, aesthetic capitalism and visual hypertrophy are just some of the distinctive features of an everyday environment characterized by increasing forms of interactivity, intermediality and immersion. In order to respond to the challenges imposed by this new cultural scenario, the volume questions the continuous reconfiguration and remediation of the relationship between words, things and images. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the emerging articulation of the iconic configure three intertwined perspectives: aesthetics and politics of the staging, multidimensional relationships between image and word, dynamics of sensitive affection in the audiovisual.

Questioni di intertestualità inaugurates the series created as part of the PhD course in Visual and Media Studies.

The volume alternates between work by young scholars and reflections by renowned professors specialised in the theme of rewriting, analysed here from three perspectives: that of Visual Arts, with a focus on rewriting the vision, that of Film Studies, focused on "traumatic visions in contemporary non-fiction" and that of Writing, Translation, Creativity, oriented towards the concept of "estrangement as a critical interface".

• Academic year 2021/2022 Visual, Media and New Technological Forms

The recent digitization’s processes and the spread of new technologies produce a pervasive visual continuum acting as cognitive backbone and as mediator in social relations. In this complex enviroment, thanks to production, archiving, processing and image transmission tecniques, the global perspective and unusual performance ways are on stage.

The techno-medial dimension of images imposes hence a reflection both on the medium and the device, according to a genealogical and archeological point of view, which shows its evolution. This involves an alteration in our sensorium, which defines a new techno-aesthetic perspective (Simondon; Montani) demanding a different images consumption method.

The contemporary individual is involved both as creator and receiver. This distinction becomes more and more evanescent, through the manipulation and re-mediation processes the images are undergoing, such as in reenactment, restaging and foundfoutage practices.

What is hence the impact these new technological expressions have on creativity? Which new kind and hybridizations are produced? How to represent the fluidity among different media in artistic creation – whether it be connecting to visual arts, cinema, or literature? Which are the new fruition’s forms of digital environments? At last, which is the A.I. effect on images’ production techniques? Can the generative process of an A.I. system be defined “aesthetic” and “creative”, such as some contemporary art events seem to show?

This year’s subject will be the impact of technology on visual, medial, and literary dimension, trying to identify the main vanishing lines in the tecno-global scenario we are surrounded by, thanks to the participation of national and international important voices, who will guide us through contemporary visual scene.

• Academic year 2020/2021 Transmediality and crossmediality, new perspectives

Reflection on the relationship between the arts and the corresponding expressive codes played a central role in the history of the Western canon well before aesthetics was established as an autonomous discipline. From classical antiquity to the fertile experiments of comparative poetics of German Romanticism, this line of study has crossed the various epochs, proposing in ever new ways the ancient dilemma regarding the specificity of the Muses and their languages.

Looking back at the twentieth century, it is no less evident that alongside long-term issues - such as the relationship between narrative (telling) and exhibition (showing) modes - new problems have gradually arised such as the materiality of individual media and their specific potential, as well as the emergence of new types of use, not least the unprecedented interaction with the user made possible by digital technologies .

The XXXVI cycle of the Doctoral program in Media and Visual Studies aims to investigate this broad horizon of themes from a dual historical and theoretical perspective, offering Phd students a comprehensive overview of multi-, trans- and cross-media processes.

In accordance with this objective, the educational project will focus on various topics related to the above issues, including:

- definition of the similarities and differences between multimedia and its most recent evolutions in the modern and postmodern era (trans- and cross-media)
- adaptation policies and theories of rewriting
- media archaeology
- media reinventions
- hybridizations between artistic languages in different epochs and geographical contexts
- theories and practices of intertextuality
- visual remedies
- rebuilds, devices and new interfaces