Image and Memory in the Digital Age. Historical, philosophical and anthropological perspectives

The conference will address the question of images from a philosophical and anthropological standpoint, with particular reference to the so-called “digital revolution”. The aim is to analyse how the introduction of digital technologies reshaped the way images are produced, reproduced, stored, used and perceived, determining a paradigm shift whose effects go way beyond the mere proliferation of images, still a crucial and defining aspect of our era. With the digital turn, images do not simply have another kind of physical support; they rather gain a new ontological status, a new social significance, a new cultural and epistemological value.

In this perspective, the reference to the topic of memory is pivotal, both on the individual/subjective and on the political/infrastructural level. Memory in fact – understood not only as an individual faculty but also and foremost as a social factor and a cultural heritage – is the dimension in which the incidence of technological innovation has manifested itself in the most radical way. This is especially true if we consider the potentialities of the new methods of distribution, research, indexing and archiving of images, but is also an essential element if we keep in mind the new dangers introduced by practices that have crucial consequences on the behavioural, physiological and neurological level. For this reason, the attempt to understand the topic of images from an anthropological standpoint is a defining aspect of the conference, as also the focus on the historical-genealogical dimension: the aim is not only to investigate how man modified images, but also and most importantly how images modified and keep modifying man.