Enacting Moving Images

Film Theory and Experimental Science within a New Cognitive Media Theory

in Projections
Author:
Joerg Fingerhut University of Munich, Germany joerg.fingerhut@hu-berlin.de

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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9021-9617
and
Katrin Heimann Aarhus University, Denmark katrinheimann@cas.au.dk

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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6524-7408
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2022.160107
Keywords:
4E cognition; editing; enactivism; expansive habits; micro-phenomenology; neuromediality; new cognitive media theory; predictive processing
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Abstract

This article highlights ways to relate psychology, neuroscience, and film theory that are underrepresented in the current debate and that could contribute to a new cognitive media theory. First, we outline how neuroscientific approaches to moving images could be embedded in the embodied, enactive cognition framework and recent predictive processing theories of the brain. Within this framework, we understand filmic engagement as a specific way of worldmaking, which is co-constituted by formal elements such as framing, camerawork, and editing. Second, we address experimental progress. Here we weigh the promises and perils of neuroscientific studies by discussing the motor neuron account to camera movements as an example. Based on the limitations we identify, we advocate for a multi-method study of film experience that brings cognitive science into dialogue with philosophical accounts and qualitative in-depth explorations of subjective experience.

Contributor Notes

Joerg Fingerhut is currently Professor for Philosophy of Mind at the University of Munich (LMU). He is also research group leader at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain/Department of Philosophy at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He holds a PhD in philosophy and works in an empirically engaged way on cultural artifacts (such as architecture, film, visual art) and the models of the world they embody. Email: joerg.fingerhut@hu-berlin.de https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9021-9617

Katrin Heimann is a postdoc at the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University and a researcher at the Max-Planck-Institute of Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt. She is educated in philosophy (MA) and in cognitive neuroscience (MSc and PhD), and after years of neuroscientific praxis has specialized in experimental approaches to explore subjective experiences, such as micro-phenomenology. Email: katrinheimann@cas.au.dk https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6524-7408.

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Projections

The Journal for Movies and Mind

Cover Projections
Article Category:
Research Article
Page Count:
19
Keywords:
4E cognition; editing; enactivism; expansive habits; micro-phenomenology; neuromediality; new cognitive media theory; predictive processing
Print Publication Date:
01 Mar 2022
Online Publication Date:
01 Mar 2022
Copyright:
© The Author/s 2022

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