Estetiche della geolocalizzazione and AI & Conflicts vol. 2

Estetiche della geolocalizzazione: Pratiche artistiche e media locativi
Paolo Berti
Italian
340 pages
Sapienza Università editrice
2025

Geolocation, originally developed as military technology and now an integral part of everyday life, has radically transformed our relationship with public space. Starting from this premise, the book explores the genesis and evolution of locative media, forms of digital communication linked to geographical location, analysing their metamorphosis into a tool for artistic mediation that emerged in parallel with the first civilian uses of satellite tracking. The trend consolidated in the early 2000s as a post-desktop response to net art, exploiting the performative potential of mobile networks. Receivers and personal devices redefine the very idea of living space, modulating the perception of scale between geographical distances and mediated representation of the territory; a field in which reflections open up on the artist's body as an active element of measurement, connection and critical mapping of control systems.

AI & Conflicts vol. 2
Curated by Daniela Cotimbo, Francesco D’Abbraccio and Andrea Facchetti
Contributors Pasquinelli, Buschek & Thorp, Salvaggio, Steyerl, Dzodan, Klein & D’Ignazio, Lee, Quaranta, Atairu, Herndon & Dryhurst, Simnett, Woodgate, Shabara, Ridler, Wu & Ramos, Blas, Hui
Krisis publishing
2025
Italian
400 pages

Artificial intelligence is not just a technology; it is a tool of power that reconfigures economies, cultures, and systems of representation. AI & Conflicts 02 explores the so-called “AI summer,” examining the tensions between the technological utopia promoted by big tech and the political, ethical, and aesthetic frictions that arise from it.
On one side, AI acts as an engine of extraction, shaping labor, creativity, and knowledge according to proprietary and opaque logics. On the other, artists and theorists respond with strategies of resistance and re-signification, exploring the possibilities of situated artificial intelligence capable of challenging dominant models.
Through interdisciplinary perspectives, the volume traces a path through colonial datasets, gender biases, and the appropriation of visual culture, questioning the very meaning of authorship and creativity in the era of machine learning. AI is not a neutral oracle: it is a battleground where imaginaries, epistemic categories, and political decisions intersect. This book attempts to observe it from within, offering new critical tools to navigate it.