Vera Gheno on the ethics of words and images in the digital age

Sociolinguist Vera Gheno, known for her podcast 'Amare Parole', discusses the intertwining of language and images in constructing reality. In an interview at her home in Florence, she references Italo Calvino's 1984 'Lezioni americane' on the 'plague of language' and the endless flood of images lacking internal necessity, which she sees as a prescient diagnosis of today's social media ecosystem. Gheno draws a parallel between words and images, arguing for an ethical reflection that goes beyond mere legality to consider deeper communicative intent and awareness of freedom, justice, and responsibility. She emphasizes the lack of critical image education, especially given the 'prosumer' identity—people are both consumers and producers of images in the digital era. Gheno also highlights the importance of silence and emptiness in both verbal and visual language, quoting linguist Giorgio Raimondo Cardona that silence is the setting for words. The interview was conducted by Silvia Camporesi, a photographer and video artist born in Forlì in 1973, who constructs narratives from myth, literature, religion, and real life.