Empathy

Cinema, evoluzione, neuroscienze. Un’estetica naturalizzata del film

27 Nov , 2022 Books,Empathy,Neurofilmology

Cinema, evoluzione, neuroscienze. Un’estetica naturalizzata del film

In che modo la scienza può contribuire ad arricchire l’analisi dell’esperienza della visione di un film? Fino a che punto è possibile spingersi nella cooperazione tra le discipline umanistiche e le scienze naturali e sociali? Quali sono i vantaggi e i rischi di tale interazione? Come reagire e rispondere allo scetticismo che aleggia attorno a questa proposta? Fra ardite manovre teoriche e approfondite analisi di film classici e contemporanei, Cinema, evoluzione, neuroscienze cerca coraggiosamente di rispondere a queste domande e delinea un nuovo modo di concepire il coinvolgimento dello spettatore cinematografico. Se vedere un film è sperimentare la vita in una forma più intensa, questo libro dimostra come un’estetica naturalizzata del cinema possa aiutarci a comprendere il desiderio di abitare i mondi della finzione e della narrazione audiovisiva a partire dallo studio della nostra natura umana.

Murray Smith, Cinema, evoluzione, neuroscienze. Un’estetica naturalizzata del film
Prefazione e cura di Adriano D’Aloia
Dino …

Enactivism and Inactivism. Media, Migrations, and the Rhetoric of Empathy

11 Jun , 2021 Conferences,Ecology,Empathy,Virtual Reality

It is in the nature or media to provide mediation, that is, a paradoxical and oxymoronic experience that, simultaneously, grants access to inaccessible or distant worlds, and prevents us from its actual dangers; exposes to the thrill of strong emotions and protects from the physical injuries and psychical trauma that they would cause; allows us to meet and interact and yet keeps us at a distance, socially separate, as in the pandemic era we are facing right now.

With the advent of immersive digital media, this dynamic has become more evident. And in front of global crisis and issues, such as migration, media offer empathy as a way to fill the gap, a remedy to the lack of direct experience, allowing people to “share” such suffering. I would like to intervene on its general and generic meaning (putting oneself in the other’s shoes to understand him or her) as it is used to propel …

Virtually Present, Physically Invisible

13 Aug , 2018 Empathy,Immersion,Relocation,Virtual Reality

Virtually Present, Physically Invisible

The freezing cement stings my heels while, in total solitude, I find myself looking at a pair of sneakers, abandoned beneath a shiny metal bench. The bench sits against the wall of a tight and low space, almost like a container, which is illuminated by a cold, hissing neon light. They are a child’s shoes, thrown in a messy heap of other old shoes, covered with dust and abandoned in this space of suspension and waiting, the first direct reference to the hopeful yet desperate journey undertaken by many migrants across the border between Mexico and the United States, which I too, in a way, am experiencing. I too wait barefoot, in the reconstruction of a hielera in which the police have kept the migrants cramped up for days, for a red light and a siren that will tell me to go through a door. Once I pass the threshold, …

Giornalismo immersivo

26 Feb , 2018 Empathy,Virtual Reality

Giornalismo immersivo

Nel corso dell’ultimo decennio si è affermata, parallelamente all’avanzamento delle tecnologie applicate all’edutainment e l’infotainment, una nuova forma di giornalismo e di fruizione delle notizie basata sull’uso della realtà virtuale. In questo intervento propongo alcune riflessioni sul cosiddetto “giornalismo immersivo” in realtà virtuale e sulla problematicità che esso innesca rispetto al falso e alla falsificazione dell’informazione, in un gioco di tensioni che lo strattona da un lato verso il realismo (che non è la realtà), dall’altro verso la finzione (che non è il falso), innescando una serie di questioni di natura deontologica ed etica. Fondandosi, almeno retoricamente, sull’immersività intesa come possibilità di calarsi direttamente nella notizia, il VR journalism si distanzia dal giornalismo tradizionale basato sull’oggettività e la “freddezza” dell’informazione per offrire un’esperienza empatica di comprensione diretta della notizia. Ma fino a che punto le nuove forme di storytelling giornalistico possono spingersi nel (ri)costruire il mondo della …

Virtualmente presente, fisicamente invisibile

12 Jan , 2018 Empathy,Immersion,Relocation,Virtual Reality

Virtualmente presente, fisicamente invisibile

A piedi nudi sulla sabbia, indosso un visore per la realtà virtuale e comincio a muovermi nello spazio. Scorgo alcune luci all’orizzonte, tutt’attorno una scarna vegetazione, sono nel deserto. Tra i cespugli un gruppo di persone – migranti che cercano di varcare il confine tra Messico e Stati Uniti – si avvicina risalendo un dosso. La polizia piomba sul posto e un elicottero volteggia minaccioso sopra la scena. Vengo investito da un fascio di luce accecante, dal rumore assordante del motore e da folate d’aria fredda smossa dalle pale del velivolo. È il caos, i militari con i fucili spianati gridano ordini. Un uomo tenta di fuggire, ma viene colpito. Ci sono delle donne, un ragazzino, un neonato tra le braccia del padre. Sui loro volti la stanchezza e la disperazione. Dopo un secondo passaggio dell’elicottero, d’improvviso tutto tace. Ora i migranti siedono attorno a un tavolo; minuscole figure umane …

La vertigine e il volo. L’esperienza filmica fra estetica e neuroscienze cognitive

7 Jan , 2014 Books,Empathy,Falling,Grasping,Gravity,Neurofilmology

La vertigine e il volo. L’esperienza filmica fra estetica e neuroscienze cognitive

Dalla camminata in precario equilibrio di un funambolo alla passeggiata spaziale di un astronauta sospeso nello spazio siderale, questo libro offre un vertiginoso percorso nelle forme con cui il cinema contemporaneo continua a coinvolgere lo spettatore intensificando le sue percezioni e le sue emozioni. Per la prima volta nell’ambito degli studi sull’esperienza filmica, il paradigma della cognizione incorporata e il concetto di simulazione incarnata vengono adottati per descrivere la relazione dello spettatore con i personaggi e con i mondi della finzione cinematografica, in un serrato dialogo fra teorie del cinema, estetica e neuroscienze cognitive. Acrobazia, caduta, impatto, capovolgimento, deriva sono le cinque tappe di questa esplorazione, quasi un unico movimento che si origina nella capacità del film di stimolare la corporeità dello spettatore e precipita verso il senso più profondo e umano dell’atto di partecipare empaticamente alle vicende del personaggio.

La vertigine e il volo. L’esperienza

Neurofilmology

18 Jul , 2013 Call for papers,Empathy,Neurofilmology

Neurofilmology

Neurofilmology. Film studies and the challenge of neuroscience

Cinéma&Cie. International Film Studies Journal
Special Issue no. 22/23
Edited by Adriano D’Aloia and Ruggero Eugeni

Call for Essays [pdf]

Over the last two decades, discoveries made in the field of cognitive neuroscience have begun to permeate the humanities and social sciences. In particular, the philosophical and psychological implications of the function of so-called ‘visuomotor neurons’ have caused a breakthrough in the understanding of the mind-body relation and of phenomena such as human consciousness, empathy, intersubjectivity, affect, and aesthetic response to works of art. This special issue of Cinéma&Cie aims to evaluate, from a multidisciplinary and critical perspective, both the relevance of the neurological approach for the psychology and the aesthetics of the film experience and, more generally, the epistemological consequences of this approach in the humanities.

The fundamental (and controversial) insight behind neuroscientific findings is that the complex processes of the …

Cinematic Empathies

22 May , 2011 Empathy

Cinematic Empathies

I wrote one of the chapter (‘Cinematic Empathies. Spectator involvement in the film experience’) of the book Kinesthetic Empathy in Creative and Cultural Practices, edited by Dee Reynolds (The University of Manchester) and Matthew Reason (The University of York). The aim of my chapter is to bring to light the central role of empathy in spectators’ involvement in narrative fiction film. I recall some of the main contributions of film theorists of the 1920s and 1930s (Freeburg, Epstein, Balázs, Arnheim, Eisenstein), with the aim of demonstrating that empathy is inherent in the nature of narrative cinema itself and is pivotal to describing the variety and complexity of film spectatorship as an intensified experience involving the film’s body and the spectator’s body.

Kinesthetic Empathy in Creative and Cultural Practices
edited by Dee Reynolds and Matthew Reason
Publisher: Intellect
Paperback 224 pages
ISBN 9781841504919
Click here to order the book.

A …

The Semiotics of Video Games

15 Jan , 2011 Empathy

The Semiotics of Video Games

My essay Adamant Bodies. The Avatar-Body and the Problem of Autoempathy has ispired one of the themes of Chistophe Bruchansky and Mathias Jansson online exibition The Semiotics of Video Games, realized starting from some suggestions of E|C, No. 5, “Computer Games between Text and Practice” (edited in 2009 by Dario Compagno and Patrick J. Coppock). The Semiotics of Video Games is a miscellany that investigates the production of meaning in videogames and “wants to uncover the ambiguous interdependence that exist between our everyday cultural reality and the rhetoric manifesting itself in video games”. In Theme 1: Avatars and Empathy in video games, Kei Houraku’s Gomba’s lifetime (2007) and Brody Condon’s KarmaPhysics < Elvis (2004) videos are cited as examples in order to discuss the role of empathy in video gaming practice.

Edith Stein Geht ins Kino

26 Oct , 2010 Empathy

Edith Stein Geht ins Kino

My paper on Edith Stein’s theory on empathy and its pertinence in both film theory and film experience has been published in the montage AV issue on “Erfahrung”.

Adriano D’Aloia beschäftigt sich in seinem Artikel «Edith Stein geht ins Kino. Empathie als Filmtheorie» mit der Frage, wie Andersheit im besonderen Fall der filmischen Erfahrung funktioniert. Als Grundlage seiner Überlegungen nimmt er Edith Steins Theorie der Einfühlung aus dem Jahre 1917 und zeigt die Relevanz dieser phänomenologischen Gedanken für die Erklärung von Empathie auf. So erklärt, besitze das Kino die Fähigkeit, den Zuschauer Teil einer «lebendigen/ körperlichen Beziehung» werden zu lassen, die ihn auf ein Terrain der intersubjektiven Vermittlung führt. (Vinzenz Hediger)…

Kinæsthetic Empathy

26 Oct , 2010 Empathy

Kinæsthetic Empathy

In the last weeks I am working on an essay on Cinematic Empathies, in which I try to trace the theoretical roots of kinaesthetic empathy in the film experience (reading Freeburg, Epstein, Balázs, Arnheim, Eisenstein, and Michotte). This essays will be published as a chapter of refereed book Kinesthetic Empathy in Creative and Cultural Practices, edited by Matthew Reason and Dee Reynolds. The book is related to the Kinesthetic Empathy: Concepts and Contexts, organized by The Watching Dance Project team and held at University of Manchester on 22-23 April 2010. The conference aimed to “bring together researchers and practitioners in fields including neuroscience, dance, film, music, and contemporary embodied practices, to explore the nature and role of kinesthetic empathy. The conference provided a focus for “the growing body of research and the increasing number of scholars and practitioners who are engaging with kinesthesia, empathy and kinesthetic empathy …

Ph.D.!

9 May , 2010 Empathy

Ph.D.!

I have defended my dissertation on “Empathy in the Film Experience” and completed my Ph.D. in Culture della Comunicazione at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan on May 3rd 2010. Thanks to everyone who supported me through these three intense years!…

The Vault and the Fall

13 Oct , 2009 Empathy,Falling

The Vault and the Fall

Working hard on a paper on the querelle between Theodor Lipps and Edith Stein on the relationship between the acrobat and the spectator…

Suddenly, in the core of Edith Stein’s Zum Problem der Einfühlung (1917), the figures of both the acrobat and the spectator crop out. The young phenomenologist is discussing Theodor Lipps’s notion of Einfühlung and “internal imitation” [Nachahmungtheorie] in her doctoral dissertation: Einfühlung is a kind of act in which one “gets” the Other’s Erlebniss on the basis of psycho-physical and spiritual analogy. In his Grundlegung der Aesthetik, Lipps states that when the spectator is watching an acrobat walking on a suspended wire, he or she feels him/herself so inside the acrobat [ich fühle mich so in ihm] (1903), that his/her conscious self has sunk itself completely into that of the acrobat. On the contrary, Stein argues that Einfühlung is far from being a mere projective

Film and Philosophy

8 Jul , 2009 Empathy

Film and Philosophy

I am presentig my reasearch on the relevance of Edith Stein’s theory on empathy for film theory at the Second Annual Conference on Film and Philolosphy on the 18th of July at the University of Dundee. Here is the conference program >. The keynote speakers will be Alain Badiou (Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris), Edward Branigan (University of California, Santa Barbara), Caroline Bainbridge (Roehampton University), and Martin McQuillan (University of Leeds).…

Danza, Neuroscienze, Transmedialità

16 May , 2009 Dancing,Empathy

Danza, Neuroscienze, Transmedialità

Il Dipartimento di scienze sociali, cognitive e quantitative dell’Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia ospita una giornata di studi sul tema Danza, neuroscienze, transmedialità, lunedì 25 maggio 2009 (a Reggio Emilia presso l’Ex Caserma Zucchi, viale Allegri 9 – Aula 5b, primo piano). L’ospite principale è Sarah Rubidge (docente di “Choreography and New Media” alla University of Chichester, UK) e interverrà sul tema Practicing Arts using Understanding through the body a partire dalle ore 10.15. Discuterà l’intervento la professoressa Anna Borghi (Università di Bologna e Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, CNR, Roma). Il  sito web Sense of digital raccoglie i lavori e le riflessioni di Sarah Rubidge. Nel pomeriggio (ore 14.30-16.30) si svolgerà un workshop moderato da Nicola Dusi (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia) con i seguenti interventi previsti:

Anna Borghi (Università di Bologna): Perspectives on embodied and grounded cognition, Cristina Righi (Università di …

Empathic Kiss

28 Mar , 2009 Empathy

Empathic Kiss

— Professor Flostre is the greatest living philosopher, and father of empathicalism.
— Oh? What’s empathicalism?
— The most sensible approach to true understanding and peace of mind.
— Sounds great, but what is it?
— It’s based on empathy. Do you know what the word “empathy” means?
— No, I’ll have to have the beginner’s course on that one. Empathy. Is it something like sympathy?
— Oh, it goes beyond sympathy. Sympathy is to understand what someone feels. Empathy is to project your imagination so that you actually feel what the other person is feeling. You put yourself in the other person’s place. Do I make myself clear?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOjL6baOwu0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Euea%2Eac%2Euk%2F%7Em242%2Fhistorypgce%2Fempathy%2Fwelcome%2Ehtm&feature=player_embedded]

— Why did you do that?
— Empathy. I put myself in your place and I felt that you wanted to be kissed.
— You put yourself in the wrong place. I have no desire to be kissed by you, …