Conference Program

The advent of digital technology has precipitated a radical transformation in the media ecosystem, which is characterised by the preeminence of algorithmic platforms, the proliferation of content, and the emergence of participatory forms of cultural production and dissemination. In this paradigm, the visual and interactive arts are undergoing profound transformations that impact not only expressive languages but also the very conditions of production and aesthetic enjoyment. The artistic experience is theorised as a situated and participatory process, in accordance with Dewey's conception of art. According to this theory, the work takes shape in the experience generated by the interaction between the individual and the environment (Art as Experience, 1934). From this perspective, the artistic process is embedded within creative media ecologies, in which bodies, technological devices, algorithmic infrastructures and the public contribute to the shared production of experience, giving rise to new dynamic configurations of perception, relationship and the construction of meaning.

This paper will analyse the work of artist Marco Donnarumma, with a particular focus on the performance Ex Silens (2024), which forms part of the I Am Your Body project. This project is based on research conducted with a group of deaf people (including the artist himself) on the concept of embodied knowledge, and explores how normative power is imposed through the technological mediation of the senses. In this performance, AI-based cochlear implants are divested of their corrective function for individual use and reconfigured as collective sound prostheses, capable of generating shared perceptual environments in which all participants - whether hearing or with hearing impairments, in an inclusive perspective - can engage in unprecedented sensory experiences. This process of reframing facilitates the transcendence of sensory boundaries, thereby fostering novel forms of co-participation between performers and audience members.

The performative act provides a highly intense experience for participants, giving shape to a radically alternative sensorium commune, which opens up new thresholds of shared perception.

The theoretical framework draws on the work of authors such as Marshall McLuhan, Donna Haraway, John Dewey and Judith Butler, as well as studies on embodied knowledge. From a methodological perspective, the research adopts a comparative qualitative approach, based on an interpretative analysis of Donnarumma's work, through an analytical examination of the performative structures, the technical devices employed and the modes of participation activated.

The present paper aims to demonstrate how contemporary multimedia and performance art, through the integration of digital technologies and AI systems, helps to redefine the notion of liveness as a sensory, interactive and collective experience, transforming the artwork into a processual space in which dynamics of democratic negotiation of perception and shared experience are activated. From this perspective, interactive artistic practices become experimental laboratories in which to explore new forms of relationship between body, technology and the media environment. This suggests the possibility of considering art as a potential epistemological and pedagogical environment in the post-digital society.