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The nun. AI generated image Introduction In 1980, Roland Barthes published Camera Lucida , a book that would become one of the most influential reflections on photography in the 20th century. There he formulated two key categories— studium and punctum —that aimed to explain the aesthetic and affective experience of the image. More than forty years later, the visual horizon has radically changed: traditional photographs coexist with images generated by artificial intelligence, where there is no lens, no camera, and no “reality” in the classic sense. This raises an unavoidable question: can studium and punctum be carried over into the universe of algorithmic creation? Or must they be redefined to account for a new aesthetic sting in a digital world? Barthes and Photography: Studium and Punctum Barthes distinguished between two modes of relating to photography. The studium belongs to the cultural and shared field: “ Studium is an application to a thing, a taste for someone, a k...

Art is in the Air. AI art     “In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be (...). We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.” —Paul Valéry Abstract In 1928, Paul Valéry anticipated in La conquête de l’ubiquité a radical transformation of the material conditions of art, driven by the technical advances of his time. Almost one hundred years later, his intuitions strongly resonate in the age of artificial intelligence, where digital reproduction, global circulation, and algorithmic creation present new challenges and opportunities for art. This article revisits Valéry’s essay in light of contemporary technological developments, exploring the relevance of his diagnoses and their pertinence for understanding today’s aesthetics. Introduction In Pièces sur...

AI art. (See prompt below)     Introduction: Crafting Effective Prompts for AI-Generated Images In an age where artificial intelligence can generate images from text, the words we use carry more weight than ever. A vague request like “draw a castle” may conjure thousands of results, none of them matching your mental picture. Why? Because much like in art itself, the devil is in the detail. When we were children, teachers often asked us to describe a person or a landscape. The exercise was meant to sharpen our perception. The same principle applies today: the more accurately you can see with your mind’s eye, the more precisely you can say what you want — and that’s exactly what a machine needs. This article aims to bridge the intuitive process of imagining with the discipline of visual analysis. By borrowing tools from the painter’s vocabulary — composition, form, tone, colour, and subject-matter — you can learn to craft prompts that don’t merely describe an image, but c...