The aim of this module is to provide students with the following skills: 1) How technology can enhance transmission modes and languages of cultural heritage; 2) How emerging forms of hermeneutic mediation reach intellectual understanding by passing through the immediacy of the affective gesture and from emotional knowledge; 3) How new tools orientate the experience of the products of our artistic history in order to re-appropriate and share it; 4) How the comparison of artistic artefacts and virtual/mixed reality projections manipulated in models of active can define strategies for reactivating audiovisual content.
To provide students with the ability to appreciate the different dimensions (symbolic, thematic, semantic) of artistic language and the ways in which artistic works operate and “function” within the exhibition space. To help students understand the importance of the art system (museums, galleries, curators) in attributing qualitative or thematic judgments according to the specificities of viewing contexts. To offer students a historical-thematic pathway based on the peculiarities of the subject at hand. To foster an understanding of the most significant aspects of recent trends in both artistic and exhibition practices.
In-person and synchronous distance learning with projection of images and multimedia teaching material
1) The artistic image and the impact of new technologies on contemporary visual culture: a journey through the final decades of the twentieth century
2) Between iconography, iconology, denotation, and connotation: “What do images want from us?”
3) The dialectic between art, artistic production, exhibition contexts, and new technologies
Meetings with specialists in the field and visits to exhibitions and museums are planned.
The program is open to both attending and non-attending students.
Required readings:
1) David Cottington, Modern Art. A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford (any edition)
2) One chapter of your choice from Alessandro Ferraro (ed.), Representing and Interpreting Abstraction Today, Magutt Publishing, Milan, 2023
3) The slides presented during lectures and provided by the instructor at the end of the course are to be considered as exam material.
Ricevimento: By appointment (alessandro.ferraro@edu.unige.it) at Archivio d'Arte Contemporanea (AdAC - Balbi 4, fifth floor) or on the Teams platform if needed
ANTONIO CAMURRI (President)
ALESSANDRA FERRARO
GUALTIERO VOLPE (President Substitute)
ELEONORA CECCALDI (Substitute)
September, 29th 2025
The timetable for this course is available here: EasyAcademy
Oral exam
The evaluation of the candidate's preparation will be considered sufficient on the basis of the ability to correctly propose what has been learnt during the course and to relate about the indicated readings. Higher and excellent marks will be awarded by verifying the student's ability to grasp critical aspects and cultural connections in the topics addressed in the course of study, to compare and discuss the readings offered in the three modules and discussed in the recommended texts.
Students with disabilities or learning disorders are allowed to use specific modalities and supports that will be determined on a case-by-case basis in agreement with the Delegate of the Engineering courses in the Committee for the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities. Students are invited to contact the teacher of this course and copy the Delegate (https://unige.it/commissioni/comitatoperlinclusionedeglistudenticondisabilita.html).
