Call for papers
Guest Editor
Daniela Cotimbo
Curator and art critic, Re:Humanism
Submission deadlines
January 15th or July 15th 2027
Publication
One of the two 2027 issues
Submission guidelines
All contributions must be interdisciplinary and written in a way that makes them accessible to a heterogeneous readership of experts and non-experts alike. Submissions must be original and unpublished.
Authors are invited to consult Nodes editorial guidelines available at: https://nodesjournal.com/en/contacts/
All accepted papers will be published in both Italian and English. Nodes editorial board will handle translation into one of the two languages if not provided by the authors (in this case, the submission deadline is 15 days earlier than the indicated date).
All papers, whether in Italian or English, must be prepared by the author for peer review using the designated template and the following → Editorial guidelines
Manuscripts must be submitted to: nodesjournal@gmail.com
With the advent of generative artificial intelligence, new epistemological questions are emerging on the horizon of knowledge. On the one hand, the capabilities of today's large-scale AI models seem to be able to materialize dreams, nightmares, and highly realistic visions. On the other hand, we are witnessing the proliferation of images and content, often of poor quality (commonly referred to as AI slop), that embody latent fantasies while plausibly serving the purpose of fueling attention economies. Although these images are frequently of questionable aesthetic value and unmistakably artificial, they are nonetheless capable of giving shape to possible realities within moments, simply by evoking them.
At the same time, the presumed neutrality of these digital artifacts, resulting from the systematic removal of context, reinforces forms of abstract universalism and propagandistic rhetoric that risk obscuring the asymmetries embedded in algorithmic systems as well as in the processes through which knowledge is produced.
As Vilém Flusser argued, technical images program us through a kind of magical-ritualistic behavior, and only by becoming aware of the processes through which they are produced can we develop genuine agency over them.
If the formation of mental images is recognized by neuroscience as a fundamental cognitive process through which we understand the external world, can we imagine that synthetic images are beginning to reshape this very function? And what happens in the translation from textual imagination, the prompt, to synthetic visualization?
This call for papers for Nodes seeks to explore the ways in which these systems contribute to shaping mental processes, collective imaginaries, and forms of sensory experience, while simultaneously opening a space for critical reflection and experimentation aimed at identifying alternative practices of inquiry. Such practices may help redefine the relationship between subjectivity, generative technologies, and the production of knowledge.
The call is addressed in particular to psychologists, neuroscientists, media theorists, and artists whose research contributes to identifying and critically examining the shared characteristics underlying the widespread diffusion of these new forms of media.
Types of contributions
- Experimental research articles
- Theoretical essays
- Review articles
- Opinion papers
Nodes
Nodes is a peer-reviewed scientific journal founded in 2011 by Numero Cromatico, an artist, research center, and publishing house composed of scholars from both humanities and science fields. The journal aims to present and disseminate scientific research from a variety of disciplines – including empirical aesthetics, psychology of art, and cognitive neuroscience – within the broader framework of the relationship between art and neuroscience. Through this purpose, Nodes has become a ground for discussing the most current aesthetic and neuroscientific theories concerning art perception and experience, with the broader aim of investigating, studying, and deepening our understanding of human functioning. Currently, Nodes is the only Italian journal specialising in this field and has thus become a reference point for experts, scholars from related disciplines, students, and non-specialists, both nationally and internationally.
Nodes is classified as a Class A scientific journal in the 11/C4 area by the National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR) for the purposes of the Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale (ASN).
What we publish
Nodes is a biannual journal that publishes essays, scientific articles, and opinion papers exploring the perceptual-cognitive, psychological, neural, and cultural mechanisms underlying aesthetic experience in its broadest sense.