Guilherme Fóscolo

This paper explores the intersection of art and artificial intelligence, focusing on the aesthetic and philosophical implications of AI-generated art. While systems like Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN s) and diffusion models have grown increasingly sophisticated, they often replicate rather than redefine traditional notions of creativity, originality, and beauty. By examining the aesthetic and philosophical dimensions of AI-generated art, we highlight its tendency toward redundancy and its alignment with commodified, crowd-pleasing aesthetics. Drawing on Immanuel Kant, Vilém Flusser, and Walter Benjamin, we argue that AI art struggles to break new ground, instead reinforcing familiar styles and contributing to what we term “redundancy” in the art world. Finally, engaging with the concepts of Spielraum and homo ludens, the paper advocates for reimagining AI as a tool for artistic play and experimentation, capable of fostering innovation and challenging technological determinism.

Os textos que compõem este livro resultam do encontro de três gerações de pesquisadores que se propuseram a pensar, juntos, sobre a Vida da Literatura. O ensaio de abertura, de Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, a partir dos contextos exploratórios de corpos místicos, bliss e intensidade, propõe uma nova forma de vida a partir da cultura literária. O ensaio seguinte, o de Flora Süssekind, reconstrói uma outra face da bliss, o êxtase negativo, a partir de uma análise que remonta ao trabalho de Ana Cristina Cesar na tradução do conto “Bliss”, de Katherine Mansfield. Guilherme Foscolo escreve sobre a vida das tecnologias a partir de um diálogo com o Manifesto Ciborgue, de Donna Haraway. Alex Martoni, por sua vez, na contramão das previsões contemporâneas para a morte da literatura, reivindica uma literatura viva pela dimensão sensível da leitura. Por fim, o texto de Nicolau Spadoni, provocando o futebol – entre acontecimento e filosofia –, acena para uma forma de vida que se alimenta da/e alimenta a própria literatura.

A radicalização da crítica em Friedrich Schlegel parece colocar-nos diante do problema da objetividade da crítica de arte: se o julgamento a respeito da qualidade no âmbito da arte deve ser orientado por uma teoria, os conceitos a fundamentar tal teoria devem ser válidos universalmente. O problema está justamente nesta fundamentação – uma vez que a razão desvelou-se órgão cognitivo insuficiente, fica patente sua incapacidade em submeter todas as obras de arte ao tribunal por ela mesma instituído. Schlegel não parece assumir a partir daí que toda crítica estética seja tão somente – subjetiva. No entanto, uma vez rejeitada a possibilidade de crítica objetiva, ficamos com a seguinte pergunta: que tipo de crítica é ainda possível? O presente artigo pretende-se uma reflexão sobre o exercício de uma crítica que deve transitar, portanto, entre objetividade universal e subjetividade radical.

“Without a theory to go with it, it’s impossible to see an artwork.” This article intends to discuss the provocation posed by Tom Wolfe, investigating the relationship established between art and art criticism in modernity. In fact, we want to suggest this relationship accompanies the transition from a theory of autonomy to the autonomy of Theory and to precisely define what this autonomy consists of. Tom Wolfe's thesis simply put: art itself had become little more than a crutch for art theorists. Art’s purpose had become to illustrate theories. It is our intent to argue that his statement is a symptom of a displacement that took place in early nineteenth-century German romanticism; in fact, this is where Theory conquers its own autonomy. Ever since, those who have occupied themselves of its practice—be they philosophers of art, theoreticians, or critics—seem to have strived for a sole purpose: to extend the privileges thus far granted to Theory. The excesses of the age of Theory would culminate, as we now know, in widespread theses stating the end of art. At last, Theory reveals its most ambitious project in the writings of contemporary analytical philosopher Arthur Danto: his philosophical work, a philosophical discourse about art, offers itself as an artwork in its own right.

Seguindo a pegada deixada por Didi-Huberman e colocando em destaque a questão política da produção e reprodução das imagens, este ensaio pretende pensar as disputas tecnopolíticas por recurso a imagens. Nesse sentido, duas imagens específicas emergem no contexto das experiências transversais de formação acadêmica nas universidades brasileiras, imagens que contam com a presença de mestres e mestras de tradições orais como sujeitos capazes de legitimar modos outros de produção de saber e de fazer estético-políticas. A partir daí, coloca-se em movimento uma discussão que compreende a materialidade dos aparatos tecnológicos (via Nietzsche, Marx e Kittler), a teoria geral dos gestos em Flusser, o conceito de dispositivo para Agamben e as relações entre estética e política, segundo Benjamin e Rancière. Se parece evidente, de partida, que não se passa — que não passaremos jamais — pelas tecnologias impunemente, o que (nos) resta como possibilidade de resistência e de potência de vida para o combate frente ao avanço aniquilador da falsa política? Pouco, talvez nada, talvez um quase nada, apenas, talvez, e ainda, imagens.

In this essay, I argue that the neo-fascist turn that brought Trump to the presidency in the USA and Bolsonaro in Brazil cannot be understood without the activity of a conglomerate of digital technologies – which, since it constitutes an autopoietic system of positive feedback, I propose we call hyperstition factory. I also propose that the internal dynamics of the system alternates between the production of memes and that of a metanarrative. Finally, I present two concepts – technopolitics and technopoiesis – that allow us to understand how such technologies, on the one hand, update the socioeconomic horizons from which they emerge, and, on the other, program the forms we think/perceive.

This essay aims at a double goal: reconstructing the problem of how Enlightenment created and sharpened the conceptual weapons that made possible the European colonialist/slavery-machine (reframing thus universal history as a project of universalization of European/colonialist reason); and arguing how black-feminist poetry plays a fundamental anti-colonial role not only in exposing/forcing into review colonialist/racist thought, but also in creating non-totalitarian worlds of possibilities. Mostly, these two poles are put in motion in a non-systematic argumentative movement: our medium of/for reflection are an assembly of Theodor Adorno’s philosophy and black-feminist poetry and thought. The analyses of Brazilian black-feminist inventions – particularly, Conceição Evaristo’s concept of “escrevivência”, Priscila Rezende’s Bombril (2010) performance and Tamara Franklin’s videoclip for Wakanda (2019) – is meant to allow for an innovative take on Adorno’s concept of art as social monad, which will be revisited in view of the key-concepts of technopolitics/technopoiesis.

The aim of this paper is to reflect on the aesthetic experience of videogames from the friction between two polemics: that of videogames as sports, recently reignited in Brazil by Sports Minister Ana Moser’s declaration that E-Sports are not sports, and that of videogames as art, which resonated between the years 2005-2010 from the declarations of Roger Ebert, film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, that videogames could never be art. The superposition of these polemics allows us, on one hand, to realize how the problem of the aesthetic status of videogames cannot be addressed without an understanding of the way they work, which leads us, in part, to the discussion of their status as sports; on the other hand, it also provides the occasion for investigating how the formal elements of videogames can produce a specific kind of aesthetic experience – one that is not found in traditional sports or even in artistic performances. Concepts such as interactivity, agency, practicality, virtuality, and competition/excellence gain relevance from the analysis of the relationship established among the formal elements of videogames (graphics, sound, engine, and user interface), the physical input/output devices, and the gameplay/experience of players.

This is an attempt at recovering Marx’s subterranean influence in the theoretical developments of the “Materialitiesof Communication” colloquium. It is argued that the colloquium “Materialities of Communication”, in revisiting the Marxian concept of materialism, produced a “de-marxialized” version of materiality as an alternative (and reaction) to the excesses of the postmodern culture of interpretation. However, the de-marxialization of the concept ultimately meant depriving it of its political critique, making of it a politically innocuous tool. Lastly, it is suggested that rewiring the concept of materiality with itscritical origin opens up a whole range of possible investigations.

This paper explores the rhythm of modernity as an outcome of the sociotechnical dynamics of Capital. It contends that the ongoing transformation of the means of production and the proliferation of new technologies give rise to sensations of acceleration and stagnation - phenomena that can be traced to a shared temporal regime here termed “machinic”. The sociotechnical aspect of Capitalism is acknowledged to have a specific influence on shaping our bodies, sensations, and perception. Furthermore, it proposes the utilization of Stimmungen analysis as a theoretical tool that could facilitate the detection of aesthetic responses useful for characterizing different sociotechnical/temporality regimes.

This paper explores the intersection of art and artificial intelligence, focusing on the aesthetic and philosophical implications of AI-generated art. While systems like Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN s) and diffusion models have grown increasingly sophisticated, they often replicate rather than redefine traditional notions of creativity, originality, and beauty. By examining the aesthetic and philosophical dimensions of AI-generated art, we highlight its tendency toward redundancy and its alignment with commodified, crowd-pleasing aesthetics. Drawing on Immanuel Kant, Vilém Flusser, and Walter Benjamin, we argue that AI art struggles to break new ground, instead reinforcing familiar styles and contributing to what we term “redundancy” in the art world. Finally, engaging with the concepts of Spielraum and homo ludens, the paper advocates for reimagining AI as a tool for artistic play and experimentation, capable of fostering innovation and challenging technological determinism.

Este ensaio pretende investigar até que ponto o recurso à Estética em Kant contribui para com a reflexão sobre esportes e experiência estética inaugurada por Gumbrecht em Elogio da Beleza Atlética. Para tanto, serão friccionados o movimento do pensamento em Kant e em Gumbrecht e, em seguida, será traçado um paralelo entre o esforço de Gumbrecht para uma “estética dos esportes” e a produção teórica do crítico de arte estadunidense Clement Greenberg. Conclui-se que Kant serve melhor ao purismo de um Greenberg do que ao pensamento contra-hermenêutico de Gumbrecht.

This paper is an attempt at connecting the emergence of second order observation in critical philosophy with the theory of aesthetic autonomy as developed by Early German Romanticism. In outlining the genesis of an autonomous art system from the reception of critical philosophy, my intention is to show how those apparently overly hermeneutical philosophical developments relate to the birth of a system of production and reproduction of artworks, which – as I will argue – are the very materialization of the system’s code.