Daniel Fraga de Castro
Daniel Fraga de Castro has a degree in Law (PUCRS) and in theater – with a specialization in Theatrical Staging (UFRGS). He is currently pursuing a teaching degree in Philosophy (UFRGS). He holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in Literature, with specialization in Literary Theory (PUCRS). He completed a course on Neuroscience applied to learning (UEL) and worked as a substitute professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (2012–2013) and at the Center for the Arts at the Federal University of Pelotas (2016). He is an assistant editor for the academic journals “Cadernos Zygmunt Bauman”and “Húmus”. He researchs Theatre, Literature, Philosophy, and Art, focusing on themes like “Imaginary”, “Performance” and “Aesthetics”. His academic publications include the entry on Bertolt Brecht in the book “100 Poetas que você precisa ler” (LP&M, 2015); the article "Literatura, Teatro e Psicanálise – Quando Ansiedade é Influência" in the book “Literatura e Psicanálise” (edited by Ricardo Timm de Souza, Ana Lisboa Mello, et al.; FAPA); and articles such as "O Espectador Inconformado" (*Cena em Movimento*, PPGAC-UFRGS, 2011), "Formas de Contradição em Hegel e Lupasco" (*Opinião Pública* [online], 2014), and "Uma Educação Performativa: possíveis abordagens críticas e criativas atravessadas por Barthes (e Butler & Derrida)" (*Evocatio: Revista luso-brasileira de Filosofia, Artes e Cultura, 2024). He works as a theater director, cultural producer and audiovisual screenwriter in Porto Alegre/Brazil.
Articles of Daniel Fraga de Castro
A inteligência artificial como ficção teratológica. Imagem, imaginação técnicae criação em Vilém Flusser
This article examines generative artificial intelligence through Vilém Flusser's philosophy of language, imagination, and technics, proposing to understand it as teratological fiction. In contrast to approaches centered on machine autonomy or the possibility of artificial consciousness, it argues that generative AI should be interpreted as a modality of technical imagination produced through the objectification of human imagination in technical apparatuses. Methodologically, the study combines a historical reconstruction of the development of technics with an analysis of Flusser's concepts of Language, translation, imagination, apparatus, and freedom, while engaging with Monster Studies to provide a philosophical account of monstrosity. It argues that artificial intelligence does not generate original meanings but probabilistically reorganizes linguistic translations accumulated within culture, remaining dependent on human interpretation to acquire significance. Fritz Lang's Maschinenmensch in Metropolis (1927) is interpreted as the paradigmatic philosophical image of this condition, condensing the tensions between creation, fascination, alterity, and freedom that characterize modern technical artifacts. The article concludes that the monstrosity attributed to artificial intelligence is not an intrinsic property of computational systems but a cultural experience arising from the objectification of human imagination in technical devices. Its principal contribution is to shift the philosophical debate on artificial intelligence from the question of intelligence to that of technical imagination, proposing the concept of teratological fiction as a conceptual framework for understanding the contemporary relationship between technics, culture, and human freedom.