Publications:
The Body: From Small “a” Otherness to AI Resurrected Zombies (2024) DOI:10.14236/ewic/POM24.8
The Body: From Virtual Avatar to Plastic Surgery (2019) DOI: 10.14236/ewic/POM19.20
This research topic examines the transformation of the human body within contemporary technological culture, focusing on the convergence of digital image production, artificial intelligence, and biomedical interventions such as plastic surgery. It investigates how visual technologies, from early photographic manipulation to contemporary AI image generators, have contributed to the emergence of standardized bodily aesthetics and the gradual homogenization of physical appearance across global media environments.
At the core of this research is the concept of the catastrophic image, understood not simply as an image of destruction, but as a condition in which the pursuit of perfection produces new forms of bodily violence, conformity, and loss of individuality. What initially appeared as a virtual aspiration, the digitally perfected body, increasingly manifests as a physical reality through surgical modification and medical technologies. The body becomes a site of translation, where visual ideals migrate from screens into flesh.
The research explores how the commodification of the body operates within contemporary economies of visibility, where physical appearance is shaped by algorithmic aesthetics, social media circulation, and market-driven standards of beauty. It considers how AI-generated imagery and digital filters contribute to the normalization of uniform facial and bodily features, producing what may be described as a plastic reality, a condition in which bodies are increasingly modeled according to reproducible visual templates.
The research group approaches the body as a communicative and symbolic medium situated within technological and cultural systems. It draws on interdisciplinary frameworks from media theory, philosophy, visual culture, and critical theory, including:
Deterritorialization (Guattari), to analyze how bodies and identities shift across digital and physical domains
Homo Sacer (Agamben), to examine the vulnerability of bodies subjected to normative regimes of visibility and control
Body without Organs (BwO) (Deleuze and Guattari), as a conceptual model for understanding the body as a field of potentiality and resistance
Deconstruction (Derrida), to question the stability of distinctions between natural and artificial, human and machine
Within this framework, the body is understood not as a fixed biological entity but as a dynamic interface shaped by technological mediation, cultural expectations, and socio-political forces.
The research group may engage with the following thematic directions:
1. AI and the Standardization of the Body
Algorithmic aesthetics and the production of uniform facial and bodily features
AI image generators and the emergence of synthetic beauty standards
The role of datasets in shaping normative representations of the human body
2. From Virtual Image to Physical Transformation
The migration of digital ideals into surgical and biomedical practices
Plastic surgery as a visual and cultural phenomenon
The body as a site of technological translation
3. The Catastrophic Image and Bodily Violence
The psychological and social consequences of aesthetic conformity
Disfigurement, normalization, and the politics of bodily care
The body under conditions of technological and cultural pressure
4. Identity, Agency, and Resistance
Alternative practices of bodily care and self-representation
Artistic interventions that challenge standardized aesthetics
The body as a space of experimentation and critical expression
5. More-than-Human Bodies and Machine Relations
Human–AI interactions and hybrid forms of embodiment
The body in post-human and more-than-human ecologies
Machines as agents in the production of bodily knowledge
The research group encourages interdisciplinary and practice-based methodologies, including:
Visual analysis and media studies
Artistic research and experimental design
Ethnographic and cultural observation
Critical theory and philosophical inquiry
Practice-led exploration of medical and technological interfaces
Particular emphasis is placed on artistic and visual practices as diagnostic tools capable of revealing the hidden structures of technological influence on the body.