# PEA Project Work Packages **Opening (not a real abstract):** Host Institution: Università di Genova, Italia Project duration: 60 months Ancient Greeks used one word, techne, to designate both technique and art. It is only in modern times that art gained autonomy, becoming the object of one philosophical discipline: aesthetics. However, the emergence of mass media, and then of digital media, has brought art back to technique, challenging its autonomy. In this situation, some basic philosophical questions about art regain centrality: Why art? What is art for? Which is the role of art in a technological society like ours? The traditional answer stresses the uniqueness of art, pointing to the essential difference between artworks and technical artifacts. The increasing interchange between art and technology, however, encourages us to question this statement, pursuing an alternative strategy. The hypothesis is that artworks belong to a technical kind **Authors:** [[PI: Enrico Terrone]]