On 17 June 2024, Dr. Fatmeh Masdari presented in her lecture titled “Embodied Aesthetics – Exploring the Creation and Perception of Artistic Works in the Realms of Human Cognition and Artificial Intelligence” some theses from the project of her second doctoral thesis, dedicated to the investigation of AI-based art. In addition to discussing the societal impacts of AI-generated artworks on the accessibility of art in general, Masdari also explored how AI art could alter our understanding of human aesthetic experience. Given the increasing indistinguishability between AI-generated artifacts and human-made artworks, the question arises whether there exists a fundamental difference between human and artificial intelligence, and if so, how this impacts our experience and evaluation of art. According to Masdari, the embodiment of aesthetic experience, the unity of cognition and emotion of a body in the world, is essential for human thought, and fundamentally unattainable for artificial intelligences – even if they were to achieve a phenomenal consciousness. Our comprehension and understanding at the intersection of art theory and philosophy of mind must therefore also be examined from a theory of embodiment.

Dr. Fatemeh Masdari is a Junior Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change”. In 2018, she received her doctorate in Art Research from Al-Zahra University in Tehran (Iran) (title of the thesis: “The Aesthetics of New Media”). She obtained her master’s degree in “Economics and Management of Art, Culture and Entertainment” at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan (Italy).