Technophobia and Technophilia in the Media, Art and Visual Culture

The volume collects most of the speeches presented at the conference “Technophobia and Technophilia in the Media, Art and Visual Culture” held at the University of Genoa in May 2018. The conference was organized by some scholars and students of the Doctoral School in Digital Humanities of the same University particularly interested in investigating the political, cultural and “sentimental” impact of technology. So, “philia” and “phobia” appeared immediately as two crucial concepts in order to test both the cultural and ideological perception of technology in our society, and the emotional “temperature” of the relationship between human beings and technical devices, tools and environment. But, at the same time, a question was also posed in regard to the feelings toward technology itself, seen as symptoms of an incomplete neutralization of technology. This condition, it seems, is in fact to be the destiny, or the final accomplishment, of our “transparent society”.