La tecnomagia nel metaverso. Riti, corpi e giochi nella società digitale Michelle Grillo

Abstract Technomagic in the Metaverse. Rituals, Bodies, and Games in Digital Sociality Digitalization has generated a rethinking of languages and forms of communication, influencing and changing various areas of life, from social relations, to work, to education and consumption of art, music, and fashion. Words like Metaverse and Artificial Intelligence, although they are not new, have entered forcefully into the common language only in this last year, thanks to the hype around the metaverse and the introduction and diffusion of generative AI, thanks to which we witness a real transition to increasingly immersive forms of consumption and experience. The metaverse, in particular, manifests itself in four dimensions: A new idea of presence and forms of cultural participation within metaverse platforms. Communion around the products. The return to a playful dimension. The sacrifice of the body. This article aims to analyze the four dimensions above to list and investigate how consumption and experiences in the metaverse lead towards the techno-magic paradigm that develops around “nuovi riti dei media e della socialità […] basati sulla condivisione di segreti, di emozioni e stili di stampo comunitario, fondati sulla dimensione del “comune” (Susca, 2022: 21), in which it does not matter the game itself, but how we show ourselves inside it and where contemporary technomages (ibid, 2022) move in the digital spaces of the metaverse passing between the immersive Worlds of Roblox and Decentraland, covering the sparkling bodies of their avatars