LATEST EVENT
Abstraction and Violence: Rothko and the Limits of Representation
10 JULY 2026 - 10:00 - 11:30 PALAZZO STROZZI, 12:00 - 13:30 EUI PALAZZO BUONTALENTI
Istituto Fiorentino di Critica Culturale
A research institute examining the cultural, political, and aesthetic forces shaping contemporary life
Featured Publications
Interpreting the Earth: Technology, Testimony, and the Search for the Disappeared
Miguel Moctezuma
2025
Aesthetics of the Unseen 1(3)
Product Manager
Indicative Areas of Research
IFCC’s research opens onto the intersections of philosophy, art, and technology, exploring how contemporary forms of power and imagination shape the conditions of human life.
From digital infrastructures to cultural myth, from the politics of perception to the ethics of creation, our work engages questions that cross disciplines and traditions.
These inquiries unfold through a series of thematic programmes that bring together scholars, artists, and practitioners to rethink what critical thought can do — and how it might help us imagine the future anew.
Aesthetics of Disappearance
How do regimes of visibility and invisibility structure political life? Investigating disappearance as political technology.
Aesthetics and Resistance
Examining how art and perception interrupt systems of domination — from abstraction in painting to the politics of the image in digital culture.
Phenomenologies of Hope and Renewal
Re-examining time, anticipation, and the unfinished as conditions for political, ethical, and aesthetic renewal.
Critical Technologies and Digital Subjectivity
Analysing the ethical and epistemic implications of data infrastructures and artificial intelligence for the formation of modern subjectivity.
Featured Institutional Engagement
Invited Lecture —
Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
The Algorithm as Police of the Possible
Contribution examining pre-emptive subjectivity, algorithmic governance, and the reconfiguration of political authority under conditions of AI monopoly.
Product Manager
IFCC develops and supports interdisciplinary publications that extend the reach of critical inquiry across academic and public spheres.
Its editorial projects bring together philosophers, theorists, artists, and writers to engage questions of representation, aesthetics, and digital culture.
Through essays, reviews, and collaborative volumes, IFCC seeks to cultivate a renewed critical vocabulary for addressing the ethical and aesthetic challenges of the present.
Publications
THE FLORENCE PAPERS
ON AI AND DEMOCRACY
Events
IFCC’s events and programmes are guided by a commitment to interdisciplinary engagement.
They bring together philosophers, scientists, artists, and cultural practitioners to explore the defining challenges of our time — from technological transformation and ecological change to the erosion of democratic life and the redefinition of human agency.
The Institute fosters collaboration between fields too often kept apart, affirming that complex problems demand a plurality of perspectives and methods.
" Each event is conceived as a forum for critical inquiry, designed to bridge disciplinary boundaries and reconnect thought to the world it seeks to understand. "
The Algorithm as Police of the PossibleMon 02 FebAula magna Silvio Trentin