Conference Program

In recent years, cinema has undergone a profound transformation affecting its aesthetic forms, models of production and distribution, and modes of spectatorship. This metamorphosis is not merely technological in nature; rather, it is deeply epistemological, insofar as it reconfigures the role of the author/director, the practices of spectatorship, and the operational logics of the cultural industry within an ecosystem increasingly shaped by algorithmic platforms and participatory forms of production. This contribution examines three coexisting paradigms within the contemporary audiovisual landscape: classical cinema, grounded in the photographic indexicality of reality; so-called digital cinema; and cinema generated through Artificial Intelligence. Moving from Bazinian ontological realism to the category of the archive-image, the article aims to conceptualize contemporary cinema not as a form that records the Real, but as a practice that simulates it through generative models. It further interrogates how the competencies of directing, editing, and aesthetic construction are transformed when the image becomes “computed,” and what kinds of changes affect practices of spectatorship on on-demand platforms. Adopting a socio-semiotic framework that brings into dialogue media studies, the sociology of culture, and critical theories of the audiovisual industry, the contribution also seeks to investigate the educational and democratic implications raised by this transformation: in what ways does this transition in cinema enable or hinder critical capacities, informed participation, and the collective construction of meaning? The theoretical and socio-cultural re-elaboration advanced here redefines the audiovisual as a fluid, transmedial, and co-evolutionary cultural practice, reflecting on how the transition from the frame to the algorithm anticipates broader transformations in visual culture and collective sensibilities in the age of artificial intelligence.