An-Iconology: History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images

Project Information

AN-ICON

Grant agreement ID: 834033

DOI

10.3030/834033

Project closed

EC signature date 12 April 2019

Start date 1 September 2019

End date 28 February 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 2 328 736,00

EU contribution

€ 2 328 736,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - AN-ICON (An-Iconology: History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images)

Reporting period: 2024-03-01 to 2025-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

AN-ICON has been a timely project, as it has addressed recent developments in image-making techniques that have resulted in a drastic blurring of the threshold between the world of the image and the real world, and consequently in a radical transformation of the human image experience and its impact on manifold contemporary aspects of life. Immersive and interactive virtual environments have enabled the production of pictures that elicit in the perceiver a strong feeling of being incorporated in a quasi-real world. In doing so, such pictures conceal their mediateness (their being based on a material support), their referentiality (their pointing to an extra-iconic dimension), and their separateness (normally assured by framing devices), paradoxically challenging their status as images, as icons: by virtue of their immediateness, presentness, and unframedness, they are veritable self-negating images, i.e. “an-icons”. 

AN-ICON has developed “an-iconology” as a new methodological approach able to address this challenging iconoscape. Such an approach has been articulated in a transdisciplinary and transmedial way, pursuing the following main objectives: 

1) HISTORY – a media-archaeological reconstruction has provided a taxonomy of the manifold an-iconic strategies (e.g. Paleolithic caves, illusionistic painting, pre-cinematic dispositifs such as panoramas and stereoscopes, 3D films, video games, devices for Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR); 

2) THEORY – a theoretical account (drawing on phenomenology, visual culture and media studies) has explored the an-iconic key concepts: presentness, unframedness, immediateness, immersion/emersion, interaction, multi-sensoriality, illusion, embodiment, avatar, digital empathy.  

3) PRACTICES – a socio-cultural section has explored the multifaceted impact of an-iconic images, environments and technologies on contemporary professional domains as well as on everyday life. 

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The AN-ICON research team worked intensively and collaboratively, discussing all project outputs through over 70 internal seminars. They explored many VR and AR domains: aesthetics, phenomenology, immersive environment ontology (Conte, Dalmasso, Pinotti, Pirandello); media archaeology and theory (Dalmasso, Grespi, Grossi, Pinotti); new media art (Fontana, Malaspina, Modena, Pinotti, Pirandello); immersive journalism (Modena, Pinotti); forensic evidence (Cinelli); scientific popularization (Ampollini); didactic methods (Cavaletti, Terrenghi); architecture (Bandi); psychopathology (Cavaletti, Grossi); digital grief (Conte, Serafini); gender studies and immersivity (Fontana, Galimi, Malaspina, Pirandello).

Scientifically, AN-ICON members produced: 9 monographs, 58 journal articles, 43 book chapters, 9 edited journal issues, and 2 collective books. Their interdisciplinary work extended across philosophy, aesthetics, media archaeology, film theory, psychology, pedagogy, and art/science history, addressing:
• immersivity related to presentness and immediateness;
• history and practices of pre-digital immersivity;
• the avatar’s role in digital subjectivity;
• the disruption of frames and screens by an-icons;
• the grid dispositif between cinema and VR;
• commemorative practices in VR/AR;
• VR for treating depression, anxiety, and managing time during therapies;
• embodiment in virtual and augmented environments;
• magical and theological roots of VR/AR narratives;
• VR/AR in gender studies, architecture, journalism, storytelling, forensic procedures, deep learning, art didactics, mourning rituals, and pornography.

They also founded “AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images”, a peer-reviewed, open-access digital journal (riviste.unimi.it/index.php/anicon). Six issues has been published so far (2022-2024), covering topics like altered states, simulation, immersive dives, societal change through immersive arts, and interactivity. In March 2025, it was recognized as a scientific journal for Area 11 by ANVUR.

As to the dissemination, the AN-ICON team organized:
• 5 international conferences;
• 9 workshops;
• 7 exhibitions with immersive technology artists;
• over 40 outreach events.

Furthermore, AN-ICON supported several VR public programs, helping establish Italy’s first VR competition at Milan’s Filmmaker Festival since 2021. At the University of Milan, AN-ICON supported the Statale Virtuale project, recreating the historic Cortile della Legnaia in 3D. It also enhanced the Dino Formaggio Archive, making available nine recorded lectures via QR codes.
Finally, AN-ICON’s success led to the launch of the PoC project "TIMELAPSE" (2024-25), a VR application designed to reduce the subjective passage of time during chemotherapy treatments (timelapse.unimi.it).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

During its five and a half years of implementation, AN-ICON has represented an advanced frontier in the investigation of the most sophisticated image production technologies, that the project was able to simultaneously consider in the perspective of its historical and media-archaeological premises and assess in its theoretical and practical implications for our present time.

Thus, AN-ICON could rapidly become a point of reference of the national and international community of scholars, who for various disciplinary reasons are interested in immersive environments.

Through publications, international conferences, seminars, workshops, hands-on activities, and public outreach, AN-ICON significantly advanced scientific knowledge of VR and AR immersive environments beyond the existing state of the art. Its strong transdisciplinary approach, blending theoretical, historical, and media-archaeological methodologies, promoted critical awareness and a deeper understanding of how these technologies reshape image production and reception within the contemporary iconoscape.

The project thoroughly explored the media-archaeological and genealogical background of immersive environments and investigated the phenomenological and ontological status of environmental VR and AR images, addressing their ethical and political implications. Special attention was paid to how immersive images integrate into our experiential environment while blurring their iconic nature, as well as their operational impact on artistic and professional practices.

AN-ICON critically analyzed the discursive regimes and narratives that surround VR and AR technologies, debunking mythological notions like “transparency”, “immediacy”, “unframedness”, and “presence” that dominate both ordinary language and scholarly discussions. It also clarified the term “virtual”, often conflated today with “online”, “digital”, or “remote”, tracing it back to its pre-digital origins and differentiating it from “augmented”. VR was defined as an immersive substitution of reality, while AR was characterized as an emersive superposition onto ordinary experiential layers.

In addition to remarkable advancement in the project’s clusters History and Theory, the cluster Practices has received increasing attention from the research team: the focus of the initial phase, which had concentrated on digital and pre-digital immersive art practices and the comparison between VR and cinema, was broadened to include applications of immersive VR and immersive AR technologies in other relevant fields such as psychological therapy, architectural design, educational strategies and popularisation of scientific discoveries.

POC TIMELAPSE logo with partners

The cover of the first issue of the AN-ICON digital journal

AN-ICON logo with partners

AN-ICON logo