Giorgia Aiello

📣 Kick-off of the International Workshop on #VisualMethodologies

👋Christophe Sohn welcomed attendees to @liser.lu for the 2 day event.

🗣️ Prof. @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social now presents: "(Why) does visual-material criticism matter in (post)digital urban research?"

Info: www.liser.lu/events/inter...

📣 International Workshop on #VisualMethodologies

📅Dec. 2-3 at @liser.lu

Strengthen your methodological expertise & foster new competencies in qualitative visual approaches as they offer a powerful means to engage critically w/ contemporary societal issues.

🚨 Register: www.liser.lu/events/inter...

On 10/12 I will be in Turin to participate in this conference on AI and visual communication as an invited speaker. My presentation will focus on the significance of types rather than stereotypes, of researching stock images, and of genericity w/r/t how gender is constructed through visual AI.

This approach seeks to understand how cities are mediatized across various image-based arenas while also mediating the everyday lives of urban dwellers." 8/

I therefore propose a methodological outlook grounded in text- and field-based observation of the interplay between symbolic and physical urban traits. (continues below) 7/

Instead, I argue that visual-material criticism is increasingly vital to understanding (post)digital cities, as aesthetic considerations may often drive – rather than be driven by – political and economic choices that result in urban injustice. (continues below) 6/

However, in digital urban research, aesthetics is often treated as an outcome rather than as an active force in urban transformation and inequality. (continues below) 5/

Some of this work has engaged with the visual-material approach I developed in the 2010s to conceptualize the urban built environment as a medium of communication in its own right. (continues below) 4/

Meanwhile, the ‘smart city’ has taken center stage in both public and academic debates on urban planning. More recently, scholars have begun to focus on the aesthetic dimensions of cities’ digital infrastructures. (continues below) 3/

And here's my abstract:
"Over the past decade, the role of digital technologies in shaping cities has become prominent in urban research. Big data, social media platforms, and algorithmic logics are now all central to how urban space is both represented and materialized. (continues below) 2/

On December 2-3 I will be at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) for the invited seminar "Methodologies in Visual Narratives". tinyurl.com/msemhdh3
The title of my presentation is going to be "(Why) does visual-material criticism matter in (post)digital urban research?" 1/

📖 The #RoutledgeCompanionToVisualJournalism is now available for pre-order. It features a whopping 41 chapters over 524 pages and is richly accompanied by all types of visuals from photographs and screenshots to AI-generated images and data visualisations.

🇦🇺🇳🇿🔗: www.booktopia.com.au/the-routledg...

We invite applications for the 3rd edition of the Digital Methods for Consumer Studies summer school on the Lake Como (22-26 September).We have 3 fantastic keynotes: Joonas Rokka (Emlyon), @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social (University of Milan) & Gabriele Colombo (Density Design). Deadline June 6. Join us!

Through our analysis of this ubiquitous but overlooked visual
form, we advance understanding of what constitutes professionalism within contemporary journalism, in ways that ought to inform research on emerging uses of standardized imagery, specifically visual generative AI, in the news. 5/

Drawing on interviews with the FT, the BBC and Reach, we argue that journalists reinforce their professional authority by imbuing generic visuals with news values, drawing on 21st century notions of their audience to justify the use of generic visuals, and routinizing and standardizing their use. 4/

Because they are produced, distributed and consumed regularly and at speed in today’s news texts, it is
important to investigate whether and how they are shaping and reshaping the profession of journalism. 3/

Specifically, here we examine the role that generic visuals such as simple data visualizations and stock photos play in professional journalistic practice as an emergent “object of journalism”. 2/

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Here's the latest article from the Generic Visuas in the News project, this time about how media workers from three different UK news organizations use and relate to simple data visualizations and stock photos in journalistic practice. 1/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14648849251342891

My paper for the Ethics and Aesthetics of Artificial Images conference is ready and I’m now on my way to Venice for this three-day international gathering: ai-venice2025.com

Looking forward to this event today with lovely colleagues and students from Paris, brilliant communication professionals and fab tutors and MA students from University of Milan!

Opinion | There’s More to Selfies Than Meets the Eye Is a selfie embarrassing? It depends on how you think about it.

The New York Times has installed *Visual Studies*, a series that explores how images move through and shape culture.

Great to see this kind of public attention! Hopefully the academic field with its research traditions is reflected in future contributions too.

www.nytimes.com/card/2025/04...

The post by Marco Rubio Met with Danish Foreign Minister Rasmussen in Brussels today to talk about the defense priorities shared by our two nations. We discussed the importance of increasing burden sharing within NATO and addressing threats to the Alliance.

A post by Lars Løkke Rasmussen Honest and direct meeting with @SecRubio yesterday. I made it crystal clear that claims and statements about annexing Greenland are not only unacceptable and disrespectful. They amount to a violation of international law.

This is what you call two different readouts of the same meeting.

Go Denmark, Go Greenland!

Today’s Daily Cartoon, by Ali Solomon. #NewYorkerCartoons

AI ambient imagery in the city.

The Gen X Career Meltdown Just when they should be at their peak, experienced workers in creative fields find that their skills are all but obsolete.

The plight of my generation.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Can you tell the difference between real and fake news photos? Take the quiz to find out As the tide of AI ‘slop’ rises, it’s more important than ever to hone your reality-checking skills.

🤔 How would you fare with trying to sort photos from synthetic #AI images? Here's your opportunity to try it out. I had fun working with Michael Lucy and Matt Garrow on this interactive for @aunz.theconversation.com.

theconversation.com/can-you-tell...

@admscentre.org.au @ntsnetwork.bsky.social

Anime lessons in the limits of AI Generative images show us the risks of endowing the technology with magical powers

www.ft.com/content/291d...

If you want to know more about the AI side of style transfer and how it aligns with capitalist extraction in the creative industry, take a look at our #chi2025 paper:

arxiv.org/abs/2409.17410

Here you can also find a blogpost I wrote about the article when it first was published:
genericvisuals.leeds.ac.uk/out-now-new-... 7/7

I am currently mobilizing the idea of symbolic reiteration and overall visual genericity that we developed in this paper and the Generic Visuals in the News project in my current work on the aesthetics of genericity in visual generative AI, so stay tuned! 6/