THURSDAY, 6 MARCH 2025, 9:15 – 18:30

THURSDAY, 6 MARCH 2025, 9:15 – 18:30
How does art capture and shape our encounters with the unknown? Building on our broader exploration of uncertainty’s existential and epistemic dimensions within the Uncertainty Symposia series, we devote a special day to the aesthetic dimensions of uncertainty—examining how artistic practices foreground and negotiate uncertainty as an essential element of human experience. We will consider how art across literature, visual media, and music both reflects and shapes our emotional and cognitive responses to life’s inherent unpredictability.
Drawing on historical-theoretical and cognitive-scientific approaches, we ask:
Does aesthetic experience reduce uncertainty, or does it deepen our engagement with the unknown? Does art impose order through form-making, or does it expose the limits of representation? Is uncertainty an inherent condition of aesthetic experience, and how do the two interrelate in terms of underlying structures or cognitive processes? Through rigorous analysis, our work seeks to elucidate the relationship
between art and uncertainty, advancing our understanding of how creative practices inform and transform our engagement with indeterminacy.

Speakers

Maria Brincker (University of Massachusetts Boston),

Sebastian Egenhofer (University of Vienna),

Philipp Ekardt (University of Konstanz),

Vittorio Gallese (University of Parma),

Markus Klammer (University of Basel),

Christine Knoop (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main),

Aaron Kozbelt (Brooklyn College, CUNY, New York),

Darío Negueruela del Castillo (Center for Digital Visual Studies, Max-Planck Society/University of Zurich),

Martin Rohrmeier (EPFL, Lausanne),

Alfonsina Scarinzi (University of Göttingen/ Ca‘ Foscari University of Venice)

Location

Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zürich; RAA-G-01 (small AULA)

Organized by

Dr. Polina Lukicheva, Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich

Dr. Darío Negueruela del Castillo, Center for Digital Visual Studies, Max Planck Society/ University of Zurich

Acknowledgements

Acknowledging the assistance of
Yves Trachsel, Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich
Pepe Ballesteros Zapata, Center for Digital Visual Studies, Max Planck Society /
University of Zurich

Program

9:00 – 9:15 Welcoming & Coffee

9:15 – 9:45 Opening Remarks, Polina Lukicheva (University of Zurich)
„Oscillations of Being and Non-being: The Emergence of Image from
Indeterminacy and Order – Chinese Aesthetic Perspectives“

9:45 – 10:55 Session 1

9:45 – 10:20 Philipp Ekardt (University of Konstanz) „Clarity of Contour: Two Types of Uncertainty in Aby Warburg‘s
Image Theory“

10:20 – 10:55 Alfonsina Scarinzi (University of Göttingen/Ca‘ Foscari
University of Venice)
Between Felt Incompleteness and Awareness of Unity: Aesthetic Experience
and the 4E Approach to Human Cognition in the Age of Virtuality.

10:55 – 11:10 Coffee Break

11:10 – 12:55 Session 2

11:10 – 11:45 Vittorio Gallese (University of Parma) „The Embodiment of Images: A Neuroscientific Perspective“

11:45 – 12:20 Christine Knoop (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics,
Frankfurt am Main)
„Literary Style as a Mediator of Uncertainty“

12:20 – 12:55 Sebastian Egenhofer (University of Vienna)
„Rhythm and Form in Joan Jonas“

13:00 – 14:15 Lunch Break

14:15 – 16:00 Session 3

14:15 – 14:50 Markus Klammer (University of Basel)
„Uncertainty and Improvisation“

14:50 – 15:25 Aaron Kozbelt (Brooklyn College, CUNY, New York)„The Limits of Creativity: Prospects for Control versus Uncertainty“

15:25 – 16:00 Martin Rohrmeier (EPFL, Lausanne)
TBA

16:00 – 16:15 Coffee Break

This series is made possible with the generous support of the NOMIS Foundation

16:15 – 17:25 Session 4

16:15 – 16:50 Maria Brincker (University of Massachusetts Boston)
„The Aesthetic Stance & Autonomous Agency: Notes on Doom-Scrolling
and Open-Ended Imagination“

16:50 – 17:25 Darío Negueruela del Castillo (Center for Digital Visual Studies,
Max-Planck Society/University of Zurich)
„Uncertain Objects, Aesthetic Regimes: The Epistemic Upheavals of
Artificial Intelligence“

17:25 – 18:30 Discussion & Closing Session