Calendar

«We have forgotten the content of a real communication. The mathematical, abstract, statistical concept prevails. The first requisite for communication is reciprocal comprehension. Or the lack of it, clearly.» 

Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Television, internet, social networks: are they ‘democratic’ tools which facilitate communication and increase the spread of knowledge?
In 1976, seemingly anticipating the future, Enzensberger defined television as a “Buddhist machine”, a “zero-medium”; today, he affirms that “internet is a fundamental innovation that changes everything and determines everything”.
But can we really say that mass-media communication, whose influence also extends to culture and politics, without any need for intercession, is the magic wand in the way it connects directly to the public?

Mario Perniola
is professor of aesthetics at the “Tor Vergata” University in Rome and at the Kyoto University in Kyoto. He is also director of “Agalma”, a journal dedicated to cultural studies and aesthetics. Perniola’s works include Il metaromanzo (1966), L’alienazione artistica (1971), La società dei simulacri (1980), Dopo Heidegger. Filosofia ed organizzazione della cultura (1982), Transiti (1985), Del sentire (1991), Il sex appeal dell’inorganico (1994), L’estetica del Novecento (1997), L’arte e la sua ombra (2000), Contro  la comunicazione (2004) and Miracoli e traumi della comunicazione (2009).

Marino Sinibaldi
journalist, essayist and expert in communications, is co-founder of the journal Linea d’Ombra and has published numerous essays in sociology and literary reviews, including Pulp. La letteratura nell’era della simultaneità (1997) and È difficile parlare di sé (translated into English as It’s Hard to Talk About Yourself) (1999). Sinibaldi has also been the author and conductor of numerous radio and television programmes, and in 1999 created Fahrenheit, a highly-successful cultural programme broadcast in the afternoons by Italy’s Radio3. He was for many year’s the programme’s principal conductor. In August 2009 he was appointed director of Radio3.

Luca De Biase
is a writer and journalist. After graduating in economics, he taught in various Universities in Italy and abroad. De Biase contributed to numerous major daily newspapers and periodicals, and is now editor in chief of “Il Sole 24 ore”, for which he edits a special weekly supplement, “Nòva 24″, dedicated to innovation. He has written several books, including Il mago d’ebiz (2000), Edeologia. Critica del fondamentalismo digitale (2003), Economia della felicità. Dalla blogosfera al valore del dono e oltre (2007).

Derrick de Kerckhove
is a sociologist and theorist in communication and is director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology in Toronto. He teaches at the University of Toronto and at the “Federico II” University in Naples. De Kerckhove has published a number of books, including Brainframes. Technology, Mind and Business (1993), La civilisation vidéo-chrétienne (Video-Christian Civilization) (1995), Transpolitica. Nuovi rapporti di potere e di sapere (with Vincenzo Susca, 2008), Dall’alfabeto a internet. L’homme “littéré”: alfabetizzazione, cultura, tecnologia (2009).