Author: martina

AI & creativity

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Automata and artificial intelligence (AI) have long occupied a central place in cultural and artistic imagination, and the recent proliferation of AI-generated artworks has intensified debates about authorship, creativity, and human agency. As far as literature is concerned, LLMs are currently capable of composing not only entire novels but also poems and sonnets. We live in a time in which an increasing number of texts are circulating whose authorship is unclear, since it cannot be determined whether they originate from a human or a machine. Initial studies have also shown that even experts cannot determine with certainty whether a text presented as literary was written by a human or, for example, by ChatGPT.

The current debate surrounding AI-generated art remains deeply rooted in long-standing cultural narratives about artistic production. Central to this discourse are questions of authorship, inspiration, and the originality or creative capacity of AI-generated works. Art is still widely regarded as a privileged expression of human creativity and originality—qualities traditionally associated with subjective experience. This modern understanding of creativity is heavily shaped by enduring cultural topoi, particularly the image of the artist as a “great man” imbued with genius—a unique, often tormented, individual whose work is inseparable from his personal, inner experience.

Empirical studies show that audiences often perceive AI-generated works as less authentic or emotionally resonant than human creations, with authorship attribution strongly shaping esthetic judgments. Other studies show that even LLMs attribute a lower literary quality to AI-generated literary works than to texts produced by humans, suggesting that LLM-based evaluations reproduce human assumptions about creative authorship and literary value.

Group leaders: Massimo Salgaro and Marco Rospocher

Internal members:

  • Simone Rebora
  • Gabriele Vezzani
  • Ainur Kakimova

External members:

  • Giulia Torromino
  • Manuel Focareta
  • Sara Cuono
  • Dionigi Mattia Gagliardi

Actions: WP 1.1; WP 1.3; 1.13

References:

Bajohr, Hannes (2024 b): On Artificial and Post-artificial Texts: Machine Learning and the Reader’s Expectations of Literary and Non-literary Writing. In: Poetics Today; 45 (2): 331–361. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-11092990

Chiarella, S.G.; Torromino, G.; Gagliardi, D.M.; Rossi, D.; Babiloni, F.; Cartocci, G. Investigating the negative bias towards artificial intelligence: Effects of prior assignment of AI-authorship on the aesthetic appreciation of abstract paintings. Comput. Hum. Behav. 2022, 137, 107406.

Demir, Sercan / Fuegener, Andreas / Gupta, Alok / Weinmann, Markus (2024): When AI is Creative: How Do Humans Perceive Creativity When AI is Involved?. In: ICIS 2024 Proceedings. 17. https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2024/user_behav/user_behav/17

Di Dio, Cinzia / Ardizzi, Martina / Schieppati, Stefano / Massaro, Davide / Gilli, Giorgio / Gallese, Vittorio / Marchetti, Antonella (2025): Art made by artificial intelligence: The effect of authorship on aesthetic judgments. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 19(4), 1164–1176. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000606

Rospocher, Marco / Salgaro, Massimo / Rebora, Simone (2026): Machines Prefer Humans as Literary Authors: Evaluating Authorship Bias in Large Language Models. Information, 17(1), 95. https://doi.org/10.3390/info17010095

Images and metaphors to portray dyslexia

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Una foto di una pagina del libro di Gaia Gaboardi

A few days ago, our Department had the pleasure of welcoming back Gaia Gaboardi, an Alumna of our Master’s Degree in Tourism and Commercial Communication. Gaia dropped by to say hello and brought along a copy of Drawing Dyslexia, an intense and delicate book that portrays dyslexia through images and metaphors, offering an authentic look into a different way of perceiving, understanding, and interpreting the world.

As she shared with us, Drawing Dyslexia is the very book she wishes she had had when, during her university years, she was diagnosed with dyslexia—not as a limiting definition, but as the beginning of a new awareness. From that moment on, dyslexia became a space for creative exploration for her, an alternative language to give shape to thought.

In her book, Gaia uses images and metaphors to convey both the feeling of disorientation and frustration, as well as the strength, self-assertion, and confidence that can arise from self-acceptance. Among her favorite illustrations is that of a puzzle: a tangle of letters and pixels that initially appears confusing but, when viewed from a different perspective, reveals its own unique harmony. It is a powerful metaphor capable of building an emotional bridge between difficulty and possibility, between resilience, hope, and self-love.

Today, Gaia is a high school English teacher. Every day, she brings into the classroom her sensitivity, her creativity, and, above all, the firm belief that there is no single correct way to learn or to express one’s potential. Her journey reminds us how vital it is to recognize and value the uniqueness of every single student, transforming cognitive differences into a shared resource. We could not be prouder of her.

Numero cromatico for DiLLS

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The event Numero Cromatico x DiLLS – Art, Creativity, Artificial Intelligence will take place on Thursday, December 18, and Friday, December 19. This two-day meeting is dedicated to the dialogue between art, creativity, and artificial intelligence. Our Department and the Academy of Fine Arts of Verona will present a series of presentations, debates, and lab meetings involving professors, researchers, and the artistic collective Numero Cromatico. The collective’s research and artistic production are rooted in a scientific approach to art, with a particular focus on recent neuroscientific discoveries and fields such as neuroesthetics, empirical esthetics, experimental psychology, literature, and visual communication.

On Thursday, December 18, the event will be held in the Aula Magna of the Academy of Fine Arts of Verona (Via Carlo Montanari 5, Verona). It will offer an opportunity to explore Numero Cromatico’s innovative methods of artistic production and to reflect on the impact of emerging technologies on creative research.

On Friday, December 19, the event will move to the Aula Co-Working (Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, first-floor mezzanine, Lungadige Porta Vittoria 41, Verona). This day will feature in-depth sessions, workshops, and discussions bringing together artists, scholars, and students.

This initiative aims to create a space for interdisciplinary exchange, promoting a critical and collaborative reflection on the relationship between artistic practices and artificial intelligence.

Teatro a rotelle per la Giornata della Disabilità

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In occasione della Giornata Internazionale per i Diritti delle Persone con Disabilità che si celebra oggi, mercoledì 3 dicembre, condividiamo il video realizzato da Teatro a Rotelle, gruppo studentesco dell’Università degli Studi di Verona nato nel 2016 anche grazie al supporto del nostro dipartimento.

Teatro a Rotelle, composto da attori con diverse forme di abilità e disabilità, propone un videoracconto in cui si interroga sul godimento di tutti i diritti umani e di tutte le libertà fondamentali da parte delle persone con disabilità senza discriminazioni di alcun tipo, promuovendo la loro effettiva partecipazione ed inclusione all’interno della società.

The Cassandra Project: Prophetic Furor and Female Otherness

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The international conference The Cassandra Project: Prophetic Furor and Female Otherness will take place on December 11 and 12, 2025. The event is organized by Silvia Bigliazzi and Cristiano Ragni as members of our Department’s Project of Excellence.

The conference, which will host speakers from all over the world, aims to investigate the representation of a specific type of prophetic furor as a cultural form of constructing female otherness based on the ancient model of Cassandra. It will study the mechanisms of exclusivity and inclusivity relevant to various cultural discourses and their literary and theatrical adaptations.

Information and the full program can be found at this link.

Online il ventunesimo episodio di Inclusioni

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Online il 21esimo episodio del podcast Inclusioni, dal titolo Dall’afrofuturismo all’Astro-Blackness. In questa puntata ci dedichiamo proprio all’afrofuturismo, un sottogenere della narrativa speculativa in cui la cultura afro-americana si mescola all’immaginario ipertecnologico della fantascienza per creare mondi nuovi, intersezionali, che superano l’egemonia del mondo occidentale bianco proiettando le persone di discendenza africana in un futuro in cui il concetto di razza è destabilizzato.

Dalla musica alla letteratura, passando per il fumetto e il cinema, questo episodio ripercorre la storia della corrente artistica afrofuturista dai lavori di Sun Ra alla saga di Black Panther.
La nostra ospite è Adriana Lobato Villarreal, dottoranda di Universidad de Zaragoza, che sta completando una tesi sulla trilogia della Terra Spezzata di N. K. Jemisin analizzata attraverso la lente dell’afrofuturismo e dell’Astro-Blackness, la sua più recente evoluzione critica.

Dialogano con lei – in lingua inglese – Valentina Romanzi, assegnista di ricerca presso Università degli Studi di Torino e studiosa di narrativa speculativa americana, e Chiara Battisti, docente di letteratura anglo-americana del nostro dipartimento.