Bodies of Stone in the Media, Visual Culture and the Arts

Alessandra Violi is Full Professor of English Literature and Culture at the University of Bergamo. Her research work has focused on the points of contact among literature, aesthetics and the human sciences, with particular attention to the medical imaginary and, specifically, the sciences of anatomy and neuropathology, on which she has published the volumes Le cicatrici del testo, (Bergamo, 1998) and Il teatro dei nervi (Milan, 2004). In addition, she has written books on the theme of the body as a medium (Impronte dell’aria, Bergamo, 2008), as artistic-anthropological material (Capigliature, Milan, 2008), and in the cultural imaginary (Il corpo nell’immaginario letterario, Milan, 2013). Barbara Grespi is Associate Professor at the University of Bergamo where she teaches Cinema and visual culture. She has written extensively on the theme of gesture, on the relationship between cinema and photography and on the theories of montage. Her essays have been appeared in the international journals Acoma, Agalma, Bianco&Nero, Ikon, Interface, L’anello che non tiene, Aisthesis, Cinema&Cie (of this last she is also editor). Her main publications include Memoria e Immagini (ed. 2009), Cinema e montaggio (2010), Gus Van Sant (ed. 2011), Fuori quadro (co-ed. 2013), Overlapping Images (co-ed. 2016), Harun Farocki (co-ed. 2017), Il cinema come gesto (2017), Figure del corpo (2019). She was on the Selection Committee of the Torino Film Festival from 2007 to 2017. Andrea Pinotti is Professor in Aesthetics in the Department of Philosophy ＂Piero Martinetti＂, State University of Milan. His research focuses on image theories and visual culture studies, memorialisation and monumentality, phenomenological aesthetics, empathy theories, the morphological tradition from Goethe to the present day. Among his publications the volumes Il corpo dello stile. Storia dell’arte come storia dell’estetica a partire da Semper, Riegl, Wölfflin (1998), Memorie del neutro. Morfologia dell’immagine in Aby Warburg (2001), Empathie. Histoire d’une idée de Platon au post-humain (2016), Cultura visuale. Immagini sguardi media dispositivi (in collaboration with Antonio Somaini, 2016). In 2018 he was awarded the Wissenschaftspreis der Aby-Warburg-Stiftung in Hamburg. He is currently directing an ERC-Advanced project entitled An-iconology. History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images. Pietro Conte is a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of Aesthetics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. His research focuses on illusion, hyperrealism, immersion, and the multifarious practices of un-framing, a thematic cluster that he has addressed in the monographs Unframing Aesthetics and In carne e cera. Estetica e fenomenologia dell’iperrealismo (Flesh and Wax: Aesthetics and Phenomenology of Hyperrealism).