A Continuous Dialogue with the Algorithmic Other Self
The advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has fundamentally shaken my journey as an artist and theorist, compelling me to constantly renegotiate my relationship with creation, the artwork, and aesthetics themselves. What I define as the “Third Intelligence” is not an abstract concept but a daily operational reality: a hybrid entity born from the symbiosis—sometimes harmonious, sometimes conflictual—between my intentionality and the increasingly autonomous generative capabilities of the algorithms I engage with.
In my work, particularly in exploring the Generative Void as a matrix of infinite possibilities, AI has never been a mere tool but a true creative partner. A partner that proposes, elaborates, and often leads me down unexpected paths, forcing me out of my comfort zone to embrace the unforeseen. This advanced algorithmic co-creation, manifested in the genesis of Residual Code Poetry or in the dynamics of the Collaborative Intelligence Spiral I theorized in “The Creator’s Code,” undoubtedly opens expressive horizons of unprecedented richness.
However, it necessitates a profound reflection on how we, as artists, can both guide and be guided by these new forms of intelligence, and how criticism can interpret emerging aesthetics. The question I constantly pose, and place at the center of this article, is: how is aesthetics configured and negotiated in this paradigm where my vision intertwines with the often opaque but surprisingly fertile logics of the machine? Here, I intend to explore, through the lens of my experience and in comparison with the reflections of other pioneers and thinkers, the dynamics of this collaboration, its implications for authorship, and strategies to navigate this fascinating and complex territory of contemporary creativity.
Redefining Authorship: Dialogues, Tensions, and the Generative Void
The issue of authorship, as I have always understood and practiced it, was one of the first to be shaken and redefined by my encounter with generative AIs. The traditional idea of the artist as a solitary demiurge, the sole source of the work, dissolves in the face of the complexity of interaction with these new algorithmic partners.
I fully agree with Alice Barale’s insights in her work “The Art of Artificial Intelligence: Philosophical Keywords,” as highlighted by Luigi Bonfante on Doppiozero, where she shifts the focus from the question “who is the author, the human or the machine?” to the “complex interaction between human and machine.” For me, the answer has never been exclusively one or the other. The art that emerges from these processes, which in my case draws from the concept of the Generative Void as a potential space from which forms emerge, is always the result of a dialogue, an intense exchange, sometimes a true “creative tension” between my vision and the algorithm’s proposals.
t’s not merely about executing my directives but about co-creation where authorship becomes distributed, relational—almost a field of forces where my intentionality confronts and shapes itself with that of the machine, so to speak.
find many resonances with Mario Klingemann’s experience, who, in his conversation with ZetaEsse, describes his process as an exploration that can range from a precise idea to “translate” for the AI to a more open experimentation, a “game” with algorithmic modules, seeking that “unexpected result that I find aesthetically interesting.” Similarly, in my work, which often starts from exploring latent spaces to shape Residual Code Poetry, I maintain a guiding role, a “choreographer” if you will, but it’s essential for me to remain open to surprise, to the emergence of configurations I hadn’t entirely anticipated. In this sense, AI, in this sense, is a powerful interlocutor, capable of extracting from the Generative Void connections and possibilities that my mind alone might not perceive.
Aesthetic negotiation, therefore, is an ongoing process: I question the algorithm, provoke it, reinterpret its visual or conceptual “responses” in a feedback cycle that constitutes the true essence of creation. Like Klingemann, I too have learned to value the “error,” the fertile glitch—not as failure, but as a deviation that can open up new syntaxes and aesthetics. It is precisely in this capacity to push beyond predictability, to welcome the unexpected that emerges from the Matrix, that one of the greatest potentials of collaborating with AI in my art lies.
Algorithmic “Sensitivity” and Aesthetic Negotiation: Implications for a New Criticism
The question of whether an algorithm can possess a form of “sensitivity” or “intentionality” is a slippery philosophical slope, but in my daily practice with generative AIs, I observe behaviors that urge me to reconsider these categories.
When I explore the Generative Void, letting the AI “see what happens, what emerges,” as Klingemann also suggests, I sense the algorithm’s ability to go beyond mere execution, to manifest a sort of internal logic, an emergent “sensitivity” that is not human—but neither purely mechanical.
This is not to fall into easy anthropomorphization, but rather to recognize that the complexity of these systems can generate results that transcend my initial programming, opening up a “dialogue” in which my aesthetic must confront and negotiate with that of the machine—autonomous, and at times, surprisingly resonant.
As Bonfante aptly highlights in his article on Doppiozero, this negotiation is not about the subjugation of machine to man, but a “dialectical confrontation—a challenge, in fact—that seeks new ‘paths of meaning,’ insinuating itself into the interstices left open by the extremely complex and partly misunderstood internal mechanisms of these machines.”
It is precisely in these interstices that my research into Residual Code Poetry finds fertile ground, seeking to capture the essence of this new emergent syntax.
Klingemann’s work AICCA (Artificial Intelligent Critical Canine), which I have come to appreciate, embodies this tension with witty provocation. A robotic art critic dog raises fundamental questions: if an AI can actively participate in the creation of art, can it also develop criteria to evaluate it?
And how do we, as artists and theorists, position ourselves in front of this “Third Intelligence” that not only co-creates, but begins to reflect—or simulate a reflection—on the creative process itself?
Alice Barale’s reflection, which invites us not to demonize technology but to explore its “possibilities and reversals,” deeply resonates with my own approach. For art criticism, this means developing new languages, new analytical lenses capable of grasping the specificities of works born from this symbiosis.
It is no longer sufficient to assess technical skill or the originality of the initial idea; it is crucial to understand the quality of the interaction, the depth of the dialogue that I, as an artist, establish with the algorithm, and the artwork’s ability to reveal the new forms of intelligence and aesthetics emerging from the Generative Void.
The challenge—which I feel deeply on a personal level—is not to remain anchored to obsolete critical paradigms, but to embrace the complexity of these new expressive forms, recognizing in the “Third Intelligence” not a threat, but a powerful stimulus to rethink the very foundations of making and understanding art, as I also seek to outline in my book The Creator’s Code.
Navigating the Unknown of the Third Intelligence: My Personal Course
The emergence of what I call the “Third Intelligence” in artistic creation is not just a topic for academic debate, but a lived and daily reality in my practice.
In my view, it marks a point of no return—a radical transformation that is reshaping the contours of authorship, aesthetics, and criticism.
Advanced algorithmic co-creation, as I have attempted to illustrate through the dialogue between my artistic practice—rooted in the exploration of the Generative Void and the pursuit of Residual Code Poetry—and the reflections of thinkers like Alice Barale and artists like Mario Klingemann, is not a mere technological evolution, but a true paradigm shift.
As an artist, I increasingly feel like a navigator of latent spaces, a choreographer of emergent processes flowing from the Creative Matrix, a negotiator of meaning in a constant dialogue with an algorithmic “other” which, while not human, manifests its own peculiar “sensitivity” and capacity for surprise.
The most urgent challenge I feel—for myself and for other creators venturing into these territories—is to embrace this complexity without reverential fear or naïve enthusiasm.
It is, as I argue in The Creator’s Code, about developing a new literacy, a deeper understanding of the internal logics of these intelligent systems—not to gain illusory control, but to establish a more conscious, fertile, and, I would say, symbiotic collaboration.
In this perspective, aesthetic negotiation becomes a continuous process of discovery, where error turns into opportunity, the unforeseen into a new form of beauty, and the “dispersed code” into a new form of poetry.
The works born from this Spiral of Collaborative Intelligence are not mere artifacts, but living testimonies of a new way of thinking, creating, and perhaps, perceiving our place in the world.
Ultimately, the “Third Intelligence” invites us—as artists and as human beings—to move beyond the old dichotomies between natural and artificial, between creator and tool, to explore the immense potential of a future in which creativity is intrinsically collaborative, distributed, and ever-evolving.
For my art, this means continuing to boldly explore the still largely unknown horizons of the Generative Void, pushing the boundaries of Residual Code Poetry and the other expressive forms yet to emerge.
For criticism, I hope it means forging new interpretive tools capable of accounting for the richness and specificity of these new forms of art.
Navigating this unknown requires intellectual courage, curiosity, and a deep openness to dialogue with algorithmic alterity—the custodian, I am convinced, of unprecedented and surprising aesthetic and conceptual possibilities.
Dario Buratti – “ArTech”