Theoretical Framework. The massive global diffusion of "radical" technologies (AITs) permeates the daily life of families and children (Floridi, 2017, 2020), bringing enormous potential but at the same time opening wide problematic spaces (Malavasi, 2019; Revelli, 2020); spaces among which homologation, synchronisation of conscience and unique thinking are the most insidious and worrying problems (Abott, 2014; Stiegler, 2014, 2015). These spaces are often difficult to manage for families, who find themselves displaced in their task of guiding (and containing) the relationship that children have with the AITs. Although the complexity of the current relationship between children and AITs is therefore undeniable, it is actually thanks to it (e.g. the use of stick, stone, graphic tools, ...) that human beings originally initiated and cultivated an extraordinary process of humanisation of themselves and the creative world (Ferraris, 2020; Remotti, 2011). Despite the fact that this original humanising function is still potentially quite alive, the evolution of technologies places in the foreground not only the current problems of homologation, but also real future risks. These risks are associated with the ever more unlimited power of the human being – and especially of future adults – to use technologies for the destruction of the self and nature as well as for the indiscriminate overcoming of the boundaries of the human condition (Brooks, 2017; Turing, 1950). There follows an important and urgent need for formation, a formation that guides the new generations in an early and universal way from primary school onwards to cultivate those particular human qualities - of thought and judgment (Arendt, 1978; Ricœur, 1995, 2001; OECD, 2019; Schleicher, 2020; Unesco, 2021) - necessary for the critical, creative and ethical orientation of the new AITs, so that they are still an opportunity for self-humanisation in an absolutely unique way. It is also an early formation that cannot exclude the involvement of families and community, precious educational spaces for the nourishment and direction of children's thought and judgment.

This training can find a particularly promising opportunity in visual aesthetic experiences (Dewey, 2005), exercising in children the ability to think and feel the experience (captured within the image) in a comprehensive and integral, critical and creative way (Bertin, 1974; Balzola & Rosa, 2011), allowing them to reconstruct the full sense of it, valuing aspects of diversity and divergence. They do so by promoting unique and individual processes of problematising and creative discernment and deliberation; the beginning of a new, revolutionary thought. The aesthetic-visual experience in fact nourishes the ability of children to value "diversities", which in turn become drivers and mediators for cultural and social change.

Among the aesthetic-visual experiences that can be proposed to children, one that can be particularly promising for education towards a critical and creative relationship with AIT is a digital art experience generated with AI. It is indeed a well-known experience at European and international level, still pioneering in primary school, which exercises children in a critical and creative relationship with the AITs not only evoking this same relationship (through the image), but making children have an active and personal experience of it (Fahlén, 2021).

Research Questions. How to train children in primary school to develop a critical and creative relationship with the AITs through aesthetic experiences of visual art generated with AI? How to involve families and community in this formative process? What specific educational outcomes can be achieved through these experiences?

Objectives. The paper aims at understanding whether, how and under what circumstances aesthetic experiences of visual art generated with AI can train children and families in a critical and creative relationship with AITs.

Starting from this theoretical framework, the presentation will aim at analysing and discussing the method and results of the international research project funded and led by the University of Turin during the 2022-2023 academic year, in partnership with the University of West Timişoara and Middlesex University of London. The project involves three Primary Schools (in Timişoara, Turin and in London) and involves six teachers, five classrooms and children's families. The research methodology refers to the art-based participatory action-research (Asakura et al., 2020; Crobe, 2020; Hiltunen, 2009; Huckaby, 2018; Knowles & Cole, 2008; Leavy, 2017; Melkas & Harmaakorpi, 2011; Prior, Kossak & Fisher; 2022; Rubesin, 2018; Seppälä, Sarantou & ‎Miettinen, 2021; Shelton & Mallon, 2021; Wang, Siegesmund & Hannes, 2017). It is a particularly fertile research methodology in the field of scholastic education especially because of its capacity to actively involve teachers and children and to promote critical and creative processes of human experience understanding and social contexts transformation. Processes activated and nourished precisely thanks to art-based experiences. Within this methodological perspective, the research planning is articulated in three phases: First phase (March-April 2023): to realise a formative path with the involved teachers in order to share and reflect on the issue of the development of a critical and creative relationship with AITs, through aesthetic experiences of visual art generated with AI; to design the aesthetic experience to be undertaken with children, through the use of the Artivive tool. Second phase (May-September 2023): to implement the aesthetic experience with children (10-11 years old). The aesthetic experiences will be designed by teachers and researchers referring to three formative steps, based on experiential learning theory (Kolb, 2015): aesthetic experience; personal and collective reflection on critical and creative aspects of the relationship with experimented AIT (e.g., Artivive Tool); conceptual framework (Video Pill) on the ancient relation Human-Technology and some open questions on the current problematic aspects of this relationship; group and plenary discussion. Third phase (November 2023): to organise an international online conference and a virtual exhibition with the children's artworks, directed at teachers and researchers, children and families. This opportunity facilitates the sharing with parents and communities the children's core reflections on their relationship with AITs and to develop some of the most critical points for families and communities in guiding the relationship that children have with the AITs.

The art-based participatory action-research presented seeks to identify: specific formative outcomes achieved by children through this formative experience; a first pilot “model” of formative experience for children/families in primary school (steps, methodology and evaluation plan), to develop a critical and creative relationship with the AITs through aesthetic experiences of visual art generated with AI; potentialities and criticalities of the entire formative process. In order to recognise, analyse and discuss these expected outcomes, there will be (Efrat Efron & Ravid, 2019): a pre and post evaluation through qualitative questionnaires with the children on the topic of the relationship with AITs (criticalities and potentialities) (Beed, Stimson, 1985; Ammuner, 1998), before and after the formative experience; a hermeneutic analysis on the dialogues (among children-teachers-researchers) recorded during the activities in the classroom (Kvale, 1996; Betti, 1987) ; an analysis of the artworks created by the children during the activities in classroom (Barone & Eisner, 2012; Efrat Efron & Ravid, 2019; Eisner, 2002, 1991); an analysis of the logbooks written by the teachers and the observer; a content analysis on individual semi-structured interviews with the participating teachers after the completion of the formative experience (Brown & Danaher 2019; Souliotis; 2022).

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