Main Focus
- Computational Art History and Digital Visual Studies
- AI as Cultural and Interpretative Agent
- Embodied AI and the Discourse of the Image
- Embodied Experience in Art Creation and Reception
- Gender, Representation, and Historical Context
Research Project
Pictorial Forms in Motion. AI Embodiment, Hallucinations and the Painting
Curriculum Vitae
Valentine Bernasconi is a postdoctoral researcher in the Machine Visual Cutlure Group. She completed her doctoral dissertation in 2024 at the University of Zurich (UZH), where she was a member of the Digital Visual Studies research group.
Entitled "Show Me Your Hand! Computational Methods for Hand Gesture Analysis in Early Modern European Painting", her thesis focused on developing new methodologies and critical approaches withing the field of digital art history. Among other topics, she addressed the automated recognition of hand gestures in art, their communicative role in relation to specific iconographies, the analysis of the detail at large scale and new forms of interaction with painted hands.
During her first postdoctoral position at the University of Bologna (2024-2026), she continued her research on human-computer interaction and its potential to unveil phenomenological principles in relation to the perception of art. As part of the Virtual and Augmented Reality Lab, she explored the use of large language and generative models in augmented reality art experiences. Her current work investigates embodiment in AI visual culture through transformations of pictorial forms.