PROGRAMME:

H10:15-10:30 Institutional Greetings
Ilyas Azouzi (Istituto Svizzero)

H10:30-10:45 Introductory Note
Alexis Di Santolo (Fellow Istituto Svizzero, University of Geneva)

Session I: Visions on antiquity
Moderator: Roberto Malaspina (University of Milan)

H10:50-11:30 Figurare il divino nell’immagine: alcune riflessioni su diverse soluzioni sperimentate dagli iconografi greci e la loro risonanza sulla nostra percezione della presenza/assenza nell’immagine
Anne-Françoise Jaccottet (University of Geneva)

H11:30-12:10 Presentification and Meta-figuration in Roman Images
Stéphanie Wyler (University Paris Cité)

H12:10-12:30 Break

H12:30-13:10 Halfway there. Negotiating Divine Presence in Late Antique Sarcophagus Imagery
Caroline Bridel (University of Bern)

H13:10-13:30 Discussion

H13:30-15:00 Break

Session II: Contemporary Visions
Moderator: Anne-Françoise Jaccottet (University of Geneva)

H15:00-15:45 Postura come metodo. Presenza, orientamento, rappresentazione
Roberto Malaspina (University of Milan)

H15:45-16:25 La quasi-realtà dell’immagine e il regno delle ombre
Andrea Rabbito (University of Enna “Kore”)

H16:25-16:50 Break

H16:50-17:30 L’immagine come oggetto teorico tra anacronia, figurabilità e leggibilità
Miriam Rejas Del Pino (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

H17:30-18:00 Discussion

Caroline Bridel is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bern (Switzerland) in the project Co-Produced Religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, led by Professor Katharina Heyden. Her research examines how material culture functions as a field of negotiation, circulation, and co-production among religious traditions during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, with particular attention to shared iconographic languages between pagans, Jews, and Christians. She earned her PhD at the University of Fribourg within the project Religious Competition in Late Antiquity(2019–2023), supervised by Francesco Massa. Her dissertation, La fabrique de l’iconographie chrétienne, investigates the development of Christian iconography through shared languages, practices, and spaces. She is also co-editor of the volume Religions et interactions religieuses dans l’empire romain tardo-antique (2025, with F. Massa, M. Attali, D. Cellamare, and G. Spampinato).

Alexis Di Santolo completed a Master’s degree in Ancient Studies at the University of Geneva, with a thesis on the iconography of Zeus in Phrygia, which earned him the Prix Arditi des Lettres 2023. Since 2024, he has been a PhD student funded by the FNS Doc.CH grant at the University of Geneva, jointly supervised with the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. His thesis, under the joint supervision of MER Anne-Françoise Jaccottet and Professor Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, focuses on images of Artemis produced in the ancient Mediterranean world between the 1st century BCE and the 5th century CE. His research seeks to identify the communicative dynamics underlying the production and use of these images across diverse spatial, cultural, and functional contexts. Alexis is a Fellow at the Swiss Institute for the academic year 2025–2026, within the transdisciplinary programme Roma Calling.

Anne-Françoise Jaccottet is Maître d’Enseignement et de Recherche (MER) in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Geneva. She has previously taught archaeology and/or Ancient Greek at the Universities of Lausanne, Neuchâtel, Basel, and Zurich, at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), and at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) in Paris. Her research is transdisciplinary, crossing traditional disciplinary boundaries, and recurrent themes include Greek religion, iconography, and communication: in particular, the concept and functioning of sanctuaries, verbal and visual communication within them, representations of rituals and deities, the dialogue between text and image in ancient communicative processes, and the reuse and re-semantisation of classical iconographic schemes by Christians. She has authored around fifty scholarly articles, published a monograph (Choisir Dionysos, les associations dionysiaques ou la face cachée du dionysisme, 2003), and edited four volumes: Embarquement pour l’image. Une école du regard (2018), Rituels en image – Images de rituel (2021), NEOI. Des hommes nouveaux dieux entre Grèce et Rome (2023, with S. Wyler), and Humain – Divin. Exprimer et représenter l’entre-deux dans le monde méditerranéen antique (2026, with S. Estienne and S. Wyler).

Roberto Paolo Malaspina is an art historian and currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” at the University of Milan. In 2024, he completed a PhD in Philosophy and Human Sciences (Aesthetics) with a dissertation on erotic images and immersive devices, developed within the ERC project AN-ICON. He holds an MA in Visual Arts from the University of Bologna, with a thesis on the theoretical identity of postmodern architecture, and participated in the CAMPO curatorial training programme at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin). He teaches Theory of Perception at IED Milan and is a fellow in the Philosophy of Art programme at Bocconi University. His research interests lie at the intersection of aesthetics, contemporary art history and theory, and media archaeology. He has authored several articles and co-edited the volume Real Space-Virtual Space: Aesthetics, Architecture, and Immersive Environments (2025, with F. Bandi).

Andrea Pinotti is Full Professor of Image Theories and Director of the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” at the University of Milan. He coordinated the ERC project An-Icon. An-Iconology. History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images (2019–2025). He has been a fellow at numerous international institutions and served as President of the Scientific Committee of the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris from 2021 to 2024. In 2018, he received the Wissenschaftspreis der Aby-Warburg-Stiftung, was Panofsky Professor at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich in 2023, and elected full member of the Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana in 2024. His research focuses on aesthetics, image and visual culture theories, collective memory, monumentality, and empathy. His publications include Cultura visuale. Immagini sguardi media dispositivi (2016, with A. Somaini), Alla soglia dell’immagine. Da Narciso alla realtà virtuale (2021, English translation 2025), Nonumento. Un paradosso della memoria (2023), and Il primo libro di teoria dell’immagine (2024).

Andrea Rabbito is Full Professor of Cinema, Photography and Television and Vice-Rector for Cinema, Music and Theatre at the University of Enna “Kore”. His research has developed both the genealogical approach of media archaeology and the transdisciplinary perspective of visual culture studies, focusing on the relationship between Baroque art and technical images, and taking Michel Foucault’s concept of epistemological rupture as a foundational framework. These concerns underpin his volumes L’illusione e l’inganno. Dal Barocco al cinema (2010) and Il cinema è sogno. Le nuove immagini e i principi della modernità (2012). Central to his work is the thought of Edgar Morin, for whom he edited the updated edition of Lo spirito del tempo (2017). The recovery of the dual principle “sapiens–demens”, developed by the founder of complex thought, forms the basis of L’onda mediale. Le nuove immagini nell’epoca della società visuale (2015) and La meno-quasi e più-realtà. Genealogia delle nuove immagini e indagini dalla prospettiva dei visual culture studies (2023). In both volumes, attention is turned to prehistoric humanity in order to trace atavistic elements and behaviours in the human–image relationship. In 2025 he published Pictorial Trump. Il ruolo politico delle nuove immagini, which investigates the communicative strategy implemented by the neo-President of the United States through the use of Mitchellian “image–pictures”. He is co-editor, together with Ruggero Eugeni, of the journal VCS – Visual Culture Studies.

Miriam Rejas Del Pino holds a Ph.D. in Art History and Semiotics from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and was a visiting Ph.D. researcher at EHESS, Paris (2023). Since 2021, she has been a teaching assistant in Semiotics and Art Theory at IUAV University of Venice. Her doctoral research investigated the representation of power and the power of representation in photographic portraiture within the framework of representational critique. Her broader research interests include processes of identity construction in visual discourse, the plural temporality of images, and the intersections between semiotics, image theory, and visual culture. She received the Best MA Art Thesis Award at IUAV in 2019 for her research on Claude Cahun. She has since co-edited Fotografia analogica e fotografia digitale: un riesame (2023, with D. Mangano) and contributed to academic journals such as Carte Semiotiche, Versus, and VeneziaArti, as well as to both scholarly and public-oriented volumes. Rejas is part of the Venetian research unit of the PRIN ARTCHAE project (Rediscovering Video and Installation Art as an Archaeology of Telepresence) and is affiliated with CROSS, VISUS (Associazione Studi di Cultura Visuale), and LABIM (Laboratorio di Teoria delle Immagini). She serves on the editorial board of Carte Semiotiche. In her curatorial practice, she is involved in developing the exhibition program of the De Santillana Foundation. She is also the co-founder of the editorial project TBD Ultramagazine (2019) and participated in CAMPO19, the curatorial training program of Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo.

Stéphanie Wyler is Professor of Roman History at Université Paris Cité and Director of the French Research Centre Anhima (Anthropology and History of Ancient Worlds). Her research focuses on the anthropology of ancient images, particularly Roman painting, and the history of religions and identities in Italy during the Republic and Early Empire, through combined analyses of texts, images, and archaeology. She has authored numerous articles and edited several volumes, including Dans les yeux des anciens (2023, with F. Gherchanoc and E. Valette), Spectateurs grecs et romains. Corps, modalités de présence, régimes d’attention (2023, with E. Valette), and Images dans l’image – Antiquité et Moyen-Âge (2020, with G. Puma).