EDITOR’S LETTER
Innovation has always drawn its avant-garde from nature. The camera obscura and film are a shining example: the film plays the role of the retina, the lens and diaphragm play the part of the cornea and iris, while the shutter imitates the eyelid.
But it is as if man is always trying to overcome himself, looking at himself as an element detached from a system of which, instead, he is part. Artificial Intelligence demonstrates this striving: it seeks to overcome human limitation, in this case subjectivity linked to moods, without considering that it is precisely these human contrasts that give rise to the masterpiece. CWhat is striking, among the statements by Marino Parisotto, the immense storyteller to whom we are dedicating our tribute, is his harsh judgment on artificial intelligence. “Paradoxically, with digital, a very young art has died. I will soon be exhibiting my images with Sieff, Newton, Horst: I am the only living one. There were many masters, and you could call them such because you could recognise their images. Mine, too, enjoy a recognisability, because a lot of myself lives inside. Today the photographer no longer expresses his own personality’.
He himself revealed to us, through the stories of his daughter Sofia, that the wonder of his visual storytelling was the result of a contrast between the drive for beauty and the spirit that bound him to a deep religious feeling.
Could AI ever contemplate such a thing? This question has been asked by great directors such as Ridley Scott or James Cameron, creators of masterpieces such as Blade Runner and Terminator, anticipating that perhaps in the game with the machine we will gain efficiency, eliminate the quarrels linked to boring states of mind, leave the illusion of control to become deus ex machina but perhaps lose that imperfection that makes man divine.
