PORTANOVA STAMATIA

I obtained my MA in Multimedia, and my PhD in Digital Cultures, at the University of East London (UK), with a thesis on the relationship between dance and digital technologies, with a Doctoral Training Studentship from the AHRB (Arts and Humanities Research Board), UK. In 2007 I was a Research Fellow at the Departments of Cinema/Studio Arts at Concordia University, Montrèal, Canada, after winning a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship from the CBIE (Canadian Bureau of International Education) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Canada.

Since November 2024 I have been Associate Professor in Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes at the Department of Human and Social Sciences of the University of Naples 'L'Orientale', where I teach Cultural and Media Studies and Digital Media Theories. Previously, I was Lecturer A at the Department of Media and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck College University of London. I am currently member of the Steering Committee of the Interuniversity Research Center on Transnational Technocultures (CRiTT), of the Steering Committee of the Center for Postcolonial and Gender Studies (CSPG), and of the Editorial Board of the journal Studi Culturali (Il Mulino). I am also a member of the Jean Monnet AI-CoDED Center of Excellence on Artificial Intelligence, Communication and Democracy.

I have collaborated in the following international research projects: ERASMUS K2 “Geo-Philosophy of the Balkans” (2020/23); COST Action 18136 European Forum for Advanced Practices (2020/23); Immediations (an international partnership funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2011-2019).

My research interests include algorithmic culture, Artificial Intelligence technologies, the relationship between machines and time, with particular attention to the philosophical and sociological aspects of new digital rhythms. I have been working on the relationship between digital philosophy and choreography, exploring also other techno-performative or techno-artistic topics such as the vision of machines in the post-digital era, the aesthetics of virtual influencers, the use of blockchain and NFT for the preservation of cultural heritage. I also work on the relationship between ancient knowledge and modern technologies, referring especially to pre-Socratic Mediterranean philosophy and medieval Arab thought as theoretical matrices for a critique of contemporary science and technology. I work on the postcolonial deconstruction of the myth of the Hellenic-classical origin of Western culture and, more generally, on the decolonization of philosophical reflection. I am also interested in the philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences, in particular the theme of consciousness, intelligence and the phenomenology of the conscious subject, and I investigate these biological-cultural formations from a historical and critical point of view, relating them to 'other', mythological, mystical or migrant cognitive modes. I am an avid reader of crime novels, especially attracted by the logical rationality displayed in the investigation process.

I have written the two monographs "Whose Time Is It? Asocial Robots, Syncholonialism and Artificial Chronological Intelligence", for the series “The Contemporary Condition” edited by Geoff Cox and Jacob Lund, Sternberg Press (2021), and "Moving without a Body: Digital Philosophy and Choreographic Thoughts", published in the series “Technologies of Lived Abstraction” edited by Brian Massumi and Erin Manning, The MIT Press (2013). I have published articles in journals such as AI&Society, Studi Culturali, Computational Culture, Body and Society, Space and Culture.

Since 2022/23 I have been the departmental vice-delegate for Communication.