Aline Corso
Jun, 23, 2026

[EN]

I am pleased to share that my article “Do ruído à pausa, a antena se ajusta: Nam June Paik, Kim Namjoon e a linhagem crítica na geopolítica do sensível sul-coreano” (“From Noise to Pause, the Antenna Adjusts: Nam June Paik, Kim Namjoon, and the Critical Lineage in the Geopolitics of the South Korean Sensible”) has been published in Prajna: Revista de Culturas Orientais, in the dossier “Politics, Entertainment and Cultural Industries in the Koreas”.

The article investigates the symbolic dispute within the geopolitics of the sensible through the practices of Nam June Paik and Kim Namjoon (BTS). Situated between analog video art and digital pop culture, the discussion examines how both artists contribute to decisive aesthetic reconfigurations in the international projection of South Korea in the context of Hallyu. Through a qualitative approach and a conceptual cartography organized around four constellations - language, body, image, and artifact - the article argues that Paikian audiovisualities persist as an operative force, absorbed and reactivated by contemporary Korean cultural industries. In RM’s performative and curatorial strategies, this legacy gains new layers of affect, visibility, and symbolic agency across digital platforms.

I am grateful to the editors and reviewers of Prajna for the opportunity to contribute to this dossier.

Article: https://revistaprajna.com/ojs3/index.php/prajna/article/view/146

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20778521

#NamJunePaik #RM #KimNamjoon #Hallyu #KoreanStudies #MediaStudies #Audiovisualities #Technoculture #Prajna #CulturalIndustries

.

[PT]

Compartilho com alegria a publicação do meu artigo “Do ruído à pausa, a antena se ajusta: Nam June Paik, Kim Namjoon e a linhagem crítica na geopolítica do sensível sul-coreano”, na Prajna: Revista de Culturas Orientais, no dossiê “Política, entretenimento e indústrias culturais nas Coreias”. 

O artigo investiga a disputa simbólica na geopolítica do sensível a partir das práticas de Nam June Paik e Kim Namjoon (BTS). Situadas entre a videoarte analógica e a cultura pop digital, suas obras são analisadas como forças estéticas decisivas para pensar a projeção internacional da Coreia do Sul no contexto da Hallyu. A pesquisa adota uma abordagem qualitativa, orientada por uma cartografia conceitual organizada em quatro constelações - linguagem, corpo, imagem e artefato -, buscando compreender como as audiovisualidades paikianas persistem como força operativa, sendo absorvidas e reatualizadas pelas indústrias culturais coreanas contemporâneas. Nas estratégias performativas e curatoriais de RM, esse legado ganha novas camadas de afeto, visibilidade e agência simbólica nas plataformas digitais.

Agradeço à equipe editorial e aos pareceristas da Prajna pela oportunidade de integrar este dossiê.

Artigo: https://revistaprajna.com/ojs3/index.php/prajna/article/view/146

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20778521

#NamJunePaik #RM #KimNamjoon #Hallyu #EstudosCoreanos #Audiovisualidades #Tecnocultura #IndustriasCulturais #Prajna

Aline Corso
Mar, 12, 2026

[PT]

CHAMADA PARA DOSSIÊ (V. 7 N. 13) AUDIOVISUALIDADES ASIÁTICAS: ESTÉTICAS DO OLHAR EM REGIMES TECNOCULTURAIS

Organizadoras: Aline Corso (Ewha Creative Art Center @ Ewha Woman’s University) e Camila de Ávila (UNISINOS).

Data limite: 18 de agosto de 2026.

https://revistaprajna.com/ojs3/index.php/prajna

Este dossiê propõe uma investigação crítica e transdisciplinar sobre as audiovisualidades emergentes nas culturas asiáticas contemporâneas, compreendidas como formas dinâmicas de produção e circulação do olhar que articulam imagem, tecnologia e subjetividade. Em um cenário cada vez mais mediado por dispositivos técnicos sofisticados e regimes algorítmicos de visualidade, buscamos examinar as transformações nos modos de ver — e de ser visto — a partir das especificidades estéticas, sociotécnicas e culturais do continente asiático.

Mais do que uma análise de imagens, a proposta se orienta por uma reflexão sobre os modos de produção, mediação e recepção do sensível, interrogando as tecnologias visuais que atravessam as práticas culturais asiáticas. Entre as questões norteadoras deste dossiê, destacam-se:

• Como os regimes do olhar são reconfigurados por plataformas digitais, vigilância algorítmica e estéticas tecnológicas no contexto asiático?

• O que as imagens produzidas entre espiritualidade, tradição e tecnocultura exigem de nós ao interpelar outras formas de sensibilidade?

• Que visualidades emergem das culturas pop asiáticas — como K-pop, BLs, doramas, animes, webtoons e cinematografias locais — e quais modos de existência elas produzem?

• Como corpos e identidades são performados, filtrados e redimensionados nas mídias visuais asiáticas, e quais desejos ou dissidências atravessam essas representações?

• O que se perde — e o que resiste — nos arquivos digitais, nos ruídos e nos silêncios que marcam as narrativas visuais do continente?

• Como saberes espirituais, cosmologias e filosofias influenciam a criação de imagens e se articulam às tecnologias contemporâneas?

• De que maneira a circulação global das audiovisualidades asiáticas reconfigura imaginários sobre tempo, corpo, modernidade e futuro?

• Quais contra-imagens emergem da Ásia diante das hegemonias visuais ocidentais?

Adotamos a expressão “audiovisualidades asiáticas” por entendermos que as dinâmicas tecnoculturais que emergem em regiões como o Leste Asiático não se limitam a fronteiras geográficas fixas. Tais práticas reverberam e se entrelaçam com produções de outras áreas do continente — como o Sudeste Asiático, o Sul da Ásia e a Ásia Ocidental — por meio de circuitos culturais compartilhados, plataformas digitais e estéticas transversais.

Exemplos disso incluem o consumo de K-pop na Tailândia, a adaptação de webtoons coreanos na Indonésia, a popularidade dos BLs tailandeses em países como Filipinas e Japão, e a crescente presença do cinema indiano em plataformas digitais do Sudeste Asiático. Esses fenômenos ilustram movimentos de hibridização e recombinação cultural que desafiam fronteiras nacionais, linguísticas e identitárias rígidas. A intensificação dessas conexões é impulsionada por tecnologias digitais — como redes sociais, algoritmos de curadoria, inteligência artificial e serviços de streaming — que criam zonas de contato entre estéticas locais e dinâmicas globais. O uso da designação “asiáticas” visa, portanto, reconhecer a pluralidade de regimes do olhar, práticas midiáticas e imaginários visuais que atravessam o continente, valorizando suas singularidades, mas também suas inter-relações e potências de reinvenção estética e cultural.

Eixos Temáticos:

Convidamos à submissão de artigos que explorem, ainda que não se limitem a, os seguintes eixos:

• Regimes do olhar: visibilidade, opacidade e poder: reflexões sobre o que se torna visível ou invisível nas produções audiovisuais asiáticas. Analisa como dispositivos técnicos, estéticos e políticos regulam o olhar, incluindo censura, vigilância, representação seletiva ou apagamento de sujeitos e narrativas;

• Tecnocultura e subjetividade digital: investiga como tecnologias visuais — como câmeras, filtros, aplicativos e redes sociais — moldam modos de subjetivação. Envolve temas como performatividade digital, construção de identidades, autocuradoria e afetos mediados por tecnologia;

• Estéticas algorítmicas e mídias sociais asiáticas: explora a influência de algoritmos, plataformas e interfaces (como TikTok/Douyin, Bilibili, WeChat) na estética das imagens e vídeos. Trata também das formas de viralização, consumo e circulação de conteúdo nas mídias digitais da Ásia;

• Audiovisualidades híbridas e tradução cultural: foca em adaptações, remakes, apropriações e reinvenções de produtos audiovisuais asiáticos em contextos globais. Examina também os fluxos entre culturas locais e internacionais, e os modos como obras asiáticas são reinterpretadas em diásporas ou mercados ocidentalizados;

• Imagem, afecção e interpelação: aborda o poder das imagens de afetar, provocando respostas emocionais, cognitivas ou éticas. Investiga a imagem como força interpeladora — que nos toca, nos convoca ou nos desestabiliza;

• Artemídia, experimentação e tecnopoéticas visuais: analisa práticas visuais experimentais que utilizam tecnologias emergentes como realidade aumentada, inteligência artificial, instalações imersivas e arte generativa. Envolve pesquisas em videoarte, cinema expandido e novas formas de criação estética na Ásia;

• Estéticas do tempo: excesso, silêncio e repetição: explora como as audiovisualidades asiáticas constroem temporalidades alternativas, narrativas fragmentadas, ritmo contemplativo ou repetição intensiva. Propõe pensar o tempo como uma experiência estética sensível e historicamente situada;

• Tecnologias da memória: arquivo, ruído e apagamento: investiga como o audiovisual contribui para a construção (ou destruição) da memória coletiva e individual. Aborda arquivos digitais, apagamentos históricos, ruídos na transmissão de memória e a disputa pelo direito de lembrar;

• Corpo, desejo e gênero nas estéticas asiáticas: discute como os corpos são representados nas mídias visuais asiáticas, com foco em sexualidade, identidade de gênero, desejo, normatividade e dissidência. Inclui análises queer, feministas e decoloniais do corpo;

• Técnica, espiritualidade e visualidades transculturais: explora relações entre espiritualidade asiática (budismo, taoismo, hinduísmo, animismos, entre outras) e tecnologias visuais contemporâneas. Questiona como o audiovisual pode expressar cosmologias não ocidentais e experiências do sagrado;

• Geopolítica das imagens e disputas narrativas: analisa como imagens e produtos audiovisuais asiáticos desafiam narrativas globais dominadas pelo Ocidente. Inclui representações da Ásia em conflitos culturais, nacionalismos midiáticos, disputas simbólicas e construção de imaginários;

• Ética da imagem: vigilância, controle e resistência: reflete sobre os usos da imagem em contextos de controle social, vigilância estatal, reconhecimento facial e monitoramento algorítmico. Também investiga estratégias visuais de resistência, anonimato e crítica ao poder visual;

• Audiovisualidades na diáspora asiática: foca nas produções visuais de comunidades asiáticas fora do continente (como na América Latina, Europa e EUA), explorando questões de identidade, pertencimento, tradução cultural e hibridismo estético.

Este dossiê busca aprofundar as reflexões sobre as articulações entre tecnologia, imagem e cultura nas sociedades asiáticas, oferecendo aportes teóricos e metodológicos inovadores para os campos dos estudos visuais, midiáticos e culturais. Nosso intuito é descentralizar os referenciais analíticos hegemônicos, posicionando as audiovisualidades asiáticas como territórios epistêmicos potentes, capazes de tensionar e enriquecer as categorias tradicionais de análise. Ao fazê-lo, espera-se consolidar a Prajna: Revista de Culturas Orientais como um espaço de referência crítica para debates sobre as culturas asiáticas e suas projeções globais no campo do audiovisual contemporâneo.

*

[EN]

CALL FOR PAPERS (V. 7 N. 13) Asian Audiovisualities: Regimes of Visuality in Technocultural Contexts

Editors: Aline Corso (Ewha Creative Art Center) and Camila de Ávila (UNISINOS)

Journal: Prajna: Journal of Oriental Cultures (Prajna: Revista de Culturas Orientais) - Brazil

Submission deadline: August 18, 2026

Submission link: https://revistaprajna.com/ojs3/index.php/prajna

Languages: The dossier accepts submissions in Portuguese and English. Articles submitted in English must include an abstract in Portuguese.

For inquiries, please contact Aline Corso at aline.corso@gmail.com

This dossier proposes a critical and transdisciplinary investigation into emergent audiovisualities in contemporary Asian cultures, understood as dynamic forms of producing and circulating visuality through articulations among image, technology, and subjectivity. In an increasingly mediated landscape shaped by sophisticated technical devices and algorithmic regimes of visibility, we seek to examine transformations in modes of seeing - and being seen - through the aesthetic, sociotechnical, and cultural specificities of the Asian continent.

More than an analysis of images, this proposal is oriented toward a reflection on modes of production, mediation, and reception of the sensible, interrogating the visual technologies that traverse Asian cultural practices. Among the guiding questions of this dossier are:

• How are regimes of visuality reconfigured by digital platforms, algorithmic surveillance, and technological aesthetics in Asian contexts?

• What do images produced between spirituality, tradition, and technoculture demand from us when they call forth other forms of sensibility?

• What visualities emerge from Asian pop cultures - such as K-pop, BLs, dramas, anime, webtoons, and local cinemas - and what modes of existence do they produce?

• How are bodies and identities performed, filtered, and rescaled in Asian visual media, and what desires or dissidences traverse these representations?

• What is lost - and what resists - in digital archives, in the noise and silences that mark the continent’s visual narratives?

• How do spiritual knowledge, cosmologies, and philosophies influence the creation of images and articulate with contemporary technologies?

• In what ways does the global circulation of Asian audiovisualities reconfigure imaginaries of time, body, modernity, and the future?

• What counter-images emerge from Asia in response to Western visual hegemonies?

We adopt the expression “Asian audiovisualities” because we understand that the technocultural dynamics emerging in regions such as East Asia are not limited to fixed geographic borders. These practices reverberate through and intertwine with productions from other parts of the continent - such as Southeast Asia, South Asia, and West Asia - through shared cultural circuits, digital platforms, and transversal aesthetics.

Examples include the consumption of K-pop in Thailand, the adaptation of Korean webtoons in Indonesia, the popularity of Thai BLs in countries such as the Philippines and Japan, and the growing presence of Indian cinema on digital platforms across Southeast Asia. These phenomena illustrate movements of hybridization and cultural recombination that challenge rigid national, linguistic, and identitarian boundaries. The intensification of these connections is driven by digital technologies - such as social networks, curation algorithms, artificial intelligence, and streaming services - which create zones of contact between local aesthetics and global dynamics. The designation “Asian” thus seeks to acknowledge the plurality of visual regimes, media practices, and visual imaginaries that traverse the continent, valuing both their singularities and their interrelations, as well as their potential for aesthetic and cultural reinvention.

Thematic Axes

We invite submissions of articles that explore, though are not limited to, the following axes:

• Regimes of visuality: visibility, opacity, and power: reflections on what becomes visible or invisible in Asian audiovisual productions. This axis examines how technical, aesthetic, and political devices regulate visuality, including censorship, surveillance, selective representation, or the erasure of subjects and narratives;

• Technoculture and digital subjectivity: investigates how visual technologies - such as cameras, filters, apps, and social networks - shape modes of subjectivation. It includes themes such as digital performativity, identity construction, self-curation, and technologically mediated affects;

• Algorithmic aesthetics and Asian social media: explores the influence of algorithms, platforms, and interfaces (such as TikTok/Douyin, Bilibili, and WeChat) on the aesthetics of images and videos. It also addresses forms of virality, consumption, and circulation of content in Asia’s digital media environments;

• Hybrid audiovisualities and cultural translation: focuses on adaptations, remakes, appropriations, and reinventions of Asian audiovisual products in global contexts. It also examines flows between local and international cultures, as well as the ways Asian works are reinterpreted in diasporas or Westernized markets;

• Image, affection, and interpellation: addresses the power of images to affect, provoking emotional, cognitive, or ethical responses. It investigates the image as an interpellative force - something that touches us, calls upon us, or destabilizes us;

• Media art, experimentation, and visual technopoetics: analyzes experimental visual practices that employ emergent technologies such as augmented reality, artificial intelligence, immersive installations, and generative art. It includes research on video art, expanded cinema, and new forms of aesthetic creation in Asia;

• Aesthetics of time: excess, silence, and repetition: explores how Asian audiovisualities construct alternative temporalities, fragmented narratives, contemplative rhythms, or intensive repetition. It proposes thinking of time as a sensitive aesthetic experience that is historically situated;

• Technologies of memory: archive, noise, and erasure: investigates how the audiovisual contributes to the construction - or destruction - of collective and individual memory. It addresses digital archives, historical erasures, noise in the transmission of memory, and disputes over the right to remember;

• Body, desire, and gender in Asian aesthetics: discusses how bodies are represented in Asian visual media, with a focus on sexuality, gender identity, desire, normativity, and dissidence. It includes queer, feminist, and decolonial analyses of the body;

• Technique, spirituality, and transcultural visualities: explores relationships between Asian spiritualities (Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, animisms, among others) and contemporary visual technologies. It questions how the audiovisual may express non-Western cosmologies and experiences of the sacred;

• Geopolitics of images and narrative disputes: analyzes how Asian images and audiovisual products challenge global narratives dominated by the West. It includes representations of Asia in cultural conflicts, media nationalisms, symbolic disputes, and the construction of imaginaries;

• Ethics of the image: surveillance, control, and resistance: reflects on the uses of the image in contexts of social control, state surveillance, facial recognition, and algorithmic monitoring. It also investigates visual strategies of resistance, anonymity, and critique of visual power;

• Audiovisualities in the Asian diaspora: focuses on visual productions by Asian communities outside the continent - such as in Latin America, Europe, and the United States - exploring questions of identity, belonging, cultural translation, and aesthetic hybridity.

This dossier seeks to deepen reflections on the articulations among technology, image, and culture in Asian societies, offering innovative theoretical and methodological contributions to the fields of visual, media, and cultural studies. Our aim is to decentralize hegemonic analytical frameworks by positioning Asian audiovisualities as powerful epistemic territories capable of challenging and enriching traditional categories of analysis. In doing so, we hope to consolidate Prajna: Journal of Oriental Cultures (Prajna: Revista de Culturas Orientais) as a critical reference space for debates on Asian cultures and their global projections in the field of contemporary audiovisual studies.   

Chance is not a detail: it is a way of perceiving

Aline Corso
January 20, 2026

I return to Goodwill the way one returns to a particular kind of archive: not an archive that preserves, but one that redistributes. A space of belated circulation, where objects reappear not out of nostalgia, but out of displacement - as if they had been expelled from someone’s everyday life and, even so, refused to vanish.

There, culture does not present itself as a monument. It appears as a remainder. As a fragment. As something that lost its place on a shelf, yet did not entirely lose its power of symbolic inscription.

It was within this circuit that I found a book connected to the K-drama Goblin (Guardian: The Lonely and Great God). It cost 2,000 won. I bought it in an almost automatic gesture, as if picking up a small piece of a familiar universe: a derivative object, something peripheral, an audiovisual supplement. A material detail of a narrative that, in theory, already lives fully in streaming, in edits, in gifs, in memory.

But chance does not respect this logic. It interrupts.

When I sat down for lunch and began flipping through the pages, the book returned something else. On the back cover, four signatures. The signatures of the four main actors. And with that, banality broke open.

A signature is one of those minimal technologies of singularity: a trace that tries to say “I.” A compressed gesture meant to shorten the distance between celebrity and world, between image and body, between circulation and presence. Even when it is only ink, the signature stages an impossible proximity: it operates as a kind of “proof” of contact, evidence of passage, a promise of authenticity.

But in the present, this gesture never arrives alone. It comes accompanied by its double: verification.

My reaction was immediate and contemporary: I opened my phone and searched. I compared the signatures with online records of real autographs. I looked for patterns, curves, repetitions - not to undo the enchantment, but because digital culture has trained us to distrust direct encounters and, paradoxically, has also given us tools to reinforce our faith in them. Authenticity is no longer an attribute; it has become a procedure. And that procedure has become inseparable from images.

For a few minutes, the book hovered between two regimes: the “souvenir” and the “archive”; the ordinary object and the trace; residual merchandise and aura.

And perhaps this is the most intriguing layer of the episode: it is not only about finding out whether the signatures are “real.” It is about the fact that they change the object’s status. They introduce a fissure into the idea that everything is replaceable, replicable, always available. Suddenly, a cheap book stops being merely a derivative product. It becomes a micro-event.

What happens when an object of pop culture - produced for mass circulation - appears displaced within the donation circuit? What does it mean to find, in the very same gesture, the “disposable” and the “singular”?

There is a silent economy in this displacement. Goodwill is not simply a place to buy: it is a zone of transit. A threshold where culture appears without the glamour of release and without the solemnity of the museum. There, Hallyu does not present itself as spectacle, but as material residue: books, clothes, objects that carry traces of a fan life, of domestic presence, of a form of consumption that no longer fits in the same place.

It made me think that perhaps the global circulation of South Korean culture is not sustained only by its major vectors - cultural industry, platforms, exports, image politics, and soft power. It is also sustained by these smaller, lateral, almost invisible circuits: where the global touches the intimate; where the audiovisual turns into a thing; where streaming gains weight, folds, stains, signature.

The Goblin book for 2,000 won did not offer me only a “find.” It offered me a question: when does an object stop being mere merchandise and begin to function as an archive?

Archive, here, not as an institution - but as a condensation. As something that holds more than it seems. Something that carries a story you cannot fully read, but can sense. Who kept this book before? How did those signatures get there? Was it a fan event? A gift? A memory that grew tired? An object that lost meaning for someone - and was therefore donated?

In this case, the signature does not secure an origin: it opens an enigma. And perhaps that is its force. It is not only evidence; it is an unfinished narrative.

In the end, the most significant thing was not the object’s “rarity,” but the way it reorganized perception. Chance worked as an involuntary method: an interruption that produces attention, a small collapse of the automatic. A minimal displacement that forces you to look again.

And it is precisely this kind of event - small, domestic, almost invisible - that sometimes reveals what theory tries to articulate by other means: that culture circulates not only as content, but as trace; not only as image, but as remainder; not only as flow, but as something that insists.

A signature on the back cover. A cheap book. And suddenly, it is no longer only a book.

A brief encounter with an image where time ceases to be linear and becomes lived

Aline Corso
January 12, 2026

I photographed this sculpture while moving through an art fair, surrounded by overlapping conversations, hurried steps, artworks competing for attention, and bodies in constant circulation. The space, structured by speed and rapid visibility, seemed inhospitable to sustained looking. And yet, it was precisely there that the figure imposed itself.

Vincent van Gogh appears immediately recognizable. The slightly inclined body, the concentrated gaze, the suspended gesture. Recognition is instant, but brief. Something interrupts the automatism of identification.

In his hand, there is no brush, no letter, no sketchbook. There is a smartphone. The scene does not present itself as a simple anachronism, nor as obvious irony. It operates as a temporal short circuit – a displacement that does not seek to resolve the conflict between eras, but to keep it suspended.

What this image produces is not merely a contrast between past and present, but a fracture in our habitual ways of thinking about historical time. The mobile device, often taken as the ultimate symbol of acceleration, continuous connectivity, and instant capture, does not “update” Van Gogh. On the contrary, it seems to slow him down. The artist’s gesture does not align with the logic of rapid image consumption; it suggests duration, a mode of attention that does not exhaust itself in the instant.

In this sense, the image does not operate through a simple opposition between art and technology, nor through nostalgia for a pre-digital past. What it invites is the coexistence of heterogeneous temporalities. The nineteenth century does not appear as a closed past, nor the present as an evolutionary peak. They infiltrate one another. Time ceases to function as a linear progression and becomes thick, folded, layered.

There is something deeply unsettling about this figure because it disturbs our perceptual habits. We are accustomed to associating smartphones with distraction, fragmentation of attention, and loss of depth. Here, however, the device is held with the same gravity as a letter or an object of study. The issue is not the device itself, but the temporal regime that traverses it. The image quietly suggests that technology does not impose a single experience of time; it can be inhabited by multiple durations.

This reading also displaces the notion of aura. The canonized artist, often frozen into a static historical icon, reappears as restless, unfinished, still in process. This is not a matter of bringing Van Gogh into our present, but of recognizing that he never fully belonged to his own time. His work already operated, during his lifetime, as a temporal misalignment – an excess of intensity that found no immediate place.

The smartphone, then, does not function as a symbol of contemporaneity, but as an operator of estrangement. It does not modernize the artist; it renders visible the fragility of our temporal categories. The question the image leaves us with is not “What would Van Gogh do today?”, but rather: what kind of time are we inhabiting when we look, create, and relate through images?

Perhaps the most powerful gesture of this sculpture lies precisely in its refusal to offer an answer. It sustains ambiguity. Between the concentrated duration of the gaze and the instantaneous logic of the device, something remains in tension. And it is in this tension – in this interval where time ceases to be measurable and becomes lived – that the image finds its force.

Not as commentary on the past, nor as prophecy of the future, but as a sensory experience of a present that resists stabilization.

Between diapers, sleepless nights, and breastfeeding, one thought keeps returning: what happens when it’s time to go back?

Aline Corso
April 3, 2025

This text was originally published on my Substack. 

My academic and professional trajectory has always been intertwined with motherhood. When my first daughter was born, I was still in my first year of undergraduate studies. It was a challenging period, but I managed to balance studies and motherhood, completing my master’s and doctoral degrees and building my career as a lecturer and researcher.

Even before my second daughter arrived, I had already stepped away from teaching to dedicate myself fully to my PhD. Other labor-related issues are not relevant here, but they likewise contributed to this distancing from the job market. When that journey came to an end, a new reality imposed itself: alongside the post-PhD professional transition, there was now a baby in my arms - and without a support network, the career pause became inevitable.

Breastfeeding, moreover, demands from me not only time but also physical and emotional energy at a level rarely acknowledged. Sleepless nights accumulate, turning exhaustion into a permanent state. Sleep deprivation affects both body and mind, yet we carry on - because that is what mothers do.

And in the midst of this intense routine, one thought keeps resurfacing: what if I can’t re-enter the job market? What if opportunities don’t appear? Time is passing, I am getting older, and I think about this every single day.

I have read many LinkedIn articles about motherhood and career paths, especially those discussing the “Children on the CV” initiative, and I notice how this pause is still seen as an obstacle - when, in fact, it is an experience of growth. The market can be harsh, but it is also changing. Gradually, companies are beginning to recognize that mothers develop skills no course can teach: resilience, organization, adaptability, and decision-making under pressure.

I don’t know when I will return, nor what that return will look like. Perhaps my professional path will take a different direction. But I do know that when the time comes, I will be even more prepared. Because this pause is not an ending - it is a moment of learning and transformation.

(I write this text with my baby resting on my chest and with only a few accumulated hours of sleep, because motherhood never pauses, not even for a second.)

Aline Corso
April 13, 2025

This text was originally published on my Substack. 

The explosion of AI-generated portraits in South Korea is no coincidence. In a culture deeply shaped by a highly codified visual aesthetic - largely molded by the K-pop industry and cosmetic culture - beauty ideals have become not only aspirational but technically replicable. Applications such as EPIK and Snow offer users the chance to see themselves through the lens of the Korean beauty standard: translucent skin, softened features, precise symmetry, cinematic atmosphere. In this context, AI does not invent a new aesthetic; it reinforces and automates an already hegemonically constructed ideal. The face, once singular, is adjusted to the contours of a widely disseminated and consumed “ideal self.”

I am a white woman. And by using this filter, I move closer to a racialized and geoculturally situated beauty ideal. What does this mean? It is not simply about “liking” Korean aesthetics. It is about seeing myself - and being seen - through a piece of software embedded with layers of desire, exotification, and standardization. AI does not create from nothing: it reproduces patterns, trains on datasets, and repeats what has already been culturally valued. In this technological mirror, the face returned to me is not neutral. It is a produced face. It is the face of an industry. It is the face of the other.

This movement, however, does not occur in a vacuum. It is traversed by technical, symbolic, cultural, and political dimensions. In Software Takes Command (2013), Lev Manovich describes how software has become not merely a medium, but the dominant form of cultural production. By offering tools that operate on images, sounds, and texts, software also establishes the parameters of what can be created - and what is considered culturally valid or attractive.

In the case of AI-generated images, it is the very concept of the “face” that is being redesigned. Clarissa Daneluz, in her dissertation Antiface / Imaginary Face (2021), proposes a critical reading of these faces not as representations, but as visual fictions. They are ways of experiencing the image of the self as a hypothesis - an aesthetic that, rather than mirroring, projects.

Within this context, the act of taking a photograph also becomes an act of imagining oneself otherwise: more aligned with dominant aesthetics, idealized models, and socially desirable possibilities of appearance.

Meta’s decision to discontinue the Meta Spark program and remove, in January 2025, user-created filters on Instagram fits within this same landscape. The official justification was strategic: a renewed focus on generative AI and augmented reality. Yet the background is also ethical—and political. Public pressure regarding the harmful effects of filters on self-esteem and body standards reached a critical point, turning aesthetics into a field of dispute.

It is precisely this dispute that is now becoming an object of state regulation. The South Korean government has been discussing measures to control the use of AI-generated images, particularly in light of the rise in fraud, identity misuse, and the growing difficulty of distinguishing between real images and AI-generated ones.

However, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety has not implemented specific regulations prohibiting the submission of such photos. Instead, the decision is left to the personal judgment of staff at district offices, without any official governmental guidelines.

The image, once understood as a representation, has become a legal problem. The face, once an expression of individuality, has become a site of algorithmic intervention. And aesthetics, once the domain of art or culture, has become public policy.

In a scenario where images are no longer merely captured but programmed, the central question may be this: who gets to decide how we should be seen?