Agenda

19 Nov 2026 14:00

HORIZONS | Critical AI and Ecomedia Art – [...]

Ca’ Dolfin, Aula Magna Silvio Trentin, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

HORIZONS brings together artists, researchers, curators, and students to explore AI’s role in art and culture from an environmental perspective. Connecting critical AI with ecomedia literacy, the symposium examines how creative practice can help us understand and question the technologies shaping our relationships with the living world.
Discussions will consider AI’s environmental applications alongside its demands for energy, water and material resources. They will also address authorship, algorithmic opacity, climate disinformation, and greenwashing.
A central focus is how innovative ecomedia formats, including participatory digital environments and interactive installations, might help people engage with ecoanxiety and imagine collective responses. Intergenerational dialogue, informed by environmental humanities, ancestral knowledge, ecofeminist care ethics and Indigenous land stewardship, provides a framework for exploring ecological responsibility and environmental justice.
The symposium also examines experimental curatorship: how exhibitions can become spaces for shared research and creation, with audiences contributing to the development of ecomedia projects. Keynote lectures, a curatorial dialogue and the AI Incubator showcase connect these ideas to practice. Students are invited to share their perspectives during the Emerging Voices Debate.
The conceptual framework draws on two initiatives led by Carolina Fernández-Castrillo: the book Horizontes de la inteligencia artificial para la acción climática: Perspectivas, desafíos y soluciones (Fragua) and the UC3M research project Digital Innovation to Address Intergenerational Ecoanxiety. 

Program
14:00–14:15 | Institutional Welcome

Franz Fischer, Director of the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities
14:15–14:45 | Keynote Opening Lecture
The Self-Weaving Shuttle: Authorship and Ecological Responsibility in the Age of Generative AI - Tatiana Abellán, University of Murcia

14:45–15:15 | Plenary Keynote Lecture
Artificial Prehistories: Imagining the Past and Possible Futures through AI Art -  Margherita Fontana, University of Milan
15:15–15:45 | Curategist Dialogic Session
Victoria Lu, Vice-Chairman, AI Artistic Innovation Alliance (AIAIA) - Carolina Fernández-Castrillo, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
15:45–16:15 | Project AI Incubator Showcase Emerging Voices Debate - Pearl Lei Pan, PhD Researcher, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
16:15–16:30 | Break
16:30–17:00 | Keynote Concluding Lecture
Thermography, AR, and AI for Environmental Awareness in Higher Education. The Velorivelo 1.5 Exhibition - Lorenzo Donghi, Università di Pavia
17:00–17:15 | Closing Remarks: Horizons Kaleidoscope - Carolina Fernández-Castrillo, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
17:30–18:30 | Curatorial Walk
HORIZONS | Beyond the Real – Wild Roots, Symbiotic Imaginaries


Guided visit with the curators at Ca’ Foscari Esposizioni, Dorsoduro 3246, 30123 Venezia.


Organised by Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, in collaboration with the Department of Communication and Media Studies,
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M).
Further information: horizonsartlab.com/symposium/
Contact: horizonsartlab@gmail.com

Language

The event will be held in English

Organized by

Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, in collaboration with the Department of Communication and Media Studies, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M)

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