June 8, 2026 — 14:30 to 18:30

The workshop will take place on June 8, 2026, from 14:30 to 18:30. It features a keynote by Francesco D’Isa, five paper presentations (20 min + Q&A each), and an invited talk by Paolo Bufalini.

Time Session / Talk Speaker(s)
14:30 – 14:35 Opening Greetings Organizers
14:35 – 15:30 Keynote — Unoptimised: Art before and after AI
45 min + Q&A
The discourse on AI-generated imagery has settled quickly on a diagnosis: the machine produces slop. What goes unexamined is the assumption behind that verdict -- that slop is a novelty, a pathology introduced by generative models into a process that was otherwise tending toward quality. This talk argues the opposite. Mediocrity is the ordinary base of cultural production, and the pressure that keeps output gravitating toward it long predates the algorithm. Antwerp workshops, Salon academicism, genre-fiction templates, playlists: all are instances of what I call optimization, the calibration of output toward the statistical centre of collective taste. The talk's central claim is that the meaningful distinction in contemporary cultural production runs not between human and machine-made work, but between optimized and unoptimized practice, a line that cuts across both. Artists working with generative models who deliberately seek the error and the mislearning share a structural posture with artists who resist the technology entirely but refuse the legibility the market rewards. In 1874, the unfinished brushwork of the first Impressionist exhibition looked, to most who encountered it, like exactly what we now call slop. 		Francesco D'Isa
Francesco D’Isa (Florence, 1980) is a philosopher, visual artist, and writer. He teaches Philosophy at the Istituto Lorenzo de’ Medici (Florence) and AI Applied to Art at the LABA Academy of Fine Arts (Brescia and Florence). He has published novels, essays, and graphic novels; among his most recent works are Sunyata (2023), an experimental graphic novel created through generative AI, and the essay La rivoluzione algoritmica delle immagini (The Algorithmic Revolution of Images, 2024). His philosophical book L’assurda evidenza, published by Tlon, is slated for translation by Columbia University Press. He serves as Editorial Director of the cultural magazine L’Indiscreto and contributes as an author and illustrator to various international media outlets, publishing in English for The Philosophical Salon, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Philosophy Now. Considered a pioneer of digital and AI art in Italy, his practice develops a distinctive aesthetic grounded in creative prompting and in the valorization of generative errors, framed by his ongoing research on “semantic attractors” in latent space.
15:30 – 15:50 Cultural Artifacts as Diagnostic Probes: A Framework for Evaluating AI Architectural Commitments
15 min + Q&A 		Bernardino Sassoli de Bianchi & Martin Ruskov
16:00 – 16:30 Break
16:30 – 16:50 Slop as a Canovaccio: Towards a Retrieval Interface for Artistic Research and Actorial Agency
15 min + Q&A 		Rossella Petrosino
16:55 – 17:15 Rethinking Creativity: Human Perception and Artistic Value in AI-Mediated Music
15 min + Q&A 		Alessandra Micalizzi
17:15 – 17:35 Redefining the Director in the Age of Algorithmic Co-Agency
15 min + Q&A 		Vittoria Mascellaro
17:35 – 17:55 From Tool to Epistemic Collaborator: Rethinking Human–AI Interaction
15 min + Q&A 		Carmelo Ardito, Tommaso Colafiglio & Claudio Pomo
17:55 – 18:15 Invited Talk — From the Latent Album: Gen-AI and Personal Archives
25 min + Q&A
The presentation investigates the aesthetic and analytical implications of Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) in Gen-AI. LoRA, a fine-tuning technique that uses minimal data (from 10–15 images) to steer foundational models such as Stable Diffusion XL towards specific styles or subjects, is explored here as a means of reclaiming authorial agency within the stochastic environment of image generation. The LoRA technique is used here to reread my personal archives, specifically my family albums, through Gen-AI, and viceversa. This approach leads to a reframing of some key concepts, such as indexicality, artifact and mean image (Steyerl 2023). 		Paolo Bufalini
Paolo Bufalini (Rome, 1994) is a visual artist and researcher. His work, grounded in installation, photographic, and post-photographic practices, explores the relationship between affection and otherness, bringing into dialogue the technological and the emotional, deep pasts and possible futures, the documentary and the imaginary. He has exhibited in institutional and independent spaces in Italy and abroad, including: Iuno, Rome: Fondazione Home Movies, Bologna; Palazzo Ducale, Genoa; NUB project space, Pistoia; Museo di Palazzo Collicola, Spoleto; Marktstudio, Bologna; La Rada, Locarno; Gelateria Sogni di Ghiaccio, Bologna; Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Umbertide (PG); Dolomiti Contemporanee, Belluno; Fabbri-Schenker Projects, London; Localedue, Bologna; MASSIMO, Milan; Raum, Bologna; Neverneverland, Amsterdam. Recent awards, commissions, and residencies include: SIAE – Per Chi Crea (2023); Carapelli for Art (2022); Acquisition Award from the Emilia-Romagna Region (2020); Nuovo Forno del Pane (residency), c/o MAMbo, Bologna (2020). He is currently a PhD student at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli, where he is conducting research on the atmospheric as a spatialized feeling.
18:15 – 18:30 Closing Remarks Organizers