artistic research, digital art practices, sound, performance, code and arts, free/libre open-source software (FLOSS), media theory, critical code studies, philosophy of art, phenomenology, embodiment, individuality, self, artistic self

Giuseppe Torre is a digital artist, composer, and researcher whose interdisciplinary practice investigates the aesthetic, ethical, and ontological dimensions of digital technologies. Working with generative systems, live coding, and real-time media, Torre explores how code can serve not merely as tools for expression, but as sites of critical inquiry and embodied reflection. His approach merges digital art with philosophical traditions—especially phenomenology, media theory, and continental thought—to examine how technologies of creation shape our sense of self.

Torre’s creative practice foregrounds Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) as both an artistic methodology and an ethical position. By embracing open systems, he resists commodification and promotes transparency, collaboration, and artist agency. His performances, installations, and compositions challenge dominant narratives of efficiency and automation, cultivating moments of ambiguity, interruption, and introspection. His recent EP Incidental Effects (2024), released under the moniker “handsandnumbers” by the label Stochastic Resonance, reflects his focus on minimalism, live coding, and the aesthetics of real-time computation.

Torre’s scholarly work complements his artistic practice. He is the author of An Ethico-Phenomenology of Digital Art Practices (Routledge, 2021), a critical investigation into the experiential and ethical dimensions of digital creativity. His academic publications have appeared with MIT Press, Springer, and Taylor & Francis/Routledge, contributing to fields such as media philosophy, critical code studies, and artistic research.

A notable example of his conceptual art-research practice is “The ‘No’ core-(f)utility and the Impossible Refusal”, commissioned by transmediale for its 2021–2022 Almanac of Refusal. This project imagines a counterpoint to the GNU/Linux yes command—a fictional no utility that endlessly outputs refusal. In doing so, Torre critiques the implicit logic of computational affirmation and highlights the absence of built-in resistance within dominant digital infrastructures.

Currently an Associate Professor at the University of Limerick, Torre continues to advocate for a critical, situated, and ethically responsive approach to digital arts—bridging creative production with philosophical analysis and technological critique.