Pia Tikka

10-11-2005 | Presentations at SK2 |

Pia Tikka

Doctoral researcher
Graduate School of Audiovisual Media – ELOMEDIA,
University of Art and Design, Helsinki

Dynamic Emotion Ecologies in Cinema
- Practical implementation: Enactive Cinema Installation Obsession

Abstract:

I introduce my view to cinema as a model system for describing mind. I’m inspired by Antonio Damasio’s approach (1999) to emotions and the conscious self. Damasio harnesses “movie” as a metaphor for the integrated unified composite of sensory images, visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory – the multimedia-show he calls mind. Assuming emotion as the foundation of any cognitive act, I discuss cinema as a metaphoric externalization of the embodied mind. I try to create a novel dialogue between the contemporary philosophy of embodied mind by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1999), and the practice-based cinematic thinking of Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein, dating from the fist half of the 20th century. The work Eisenstein did in order to construct an organic unity of cinematic form, will serve as a point of departure for modeling my enactive cinema project “Obsession”.

Keywords:

embodied mind, cognition, emotion, enactive cinema, generative narrative, simulation, integrated senses

Research project Obsession:

I will introduce the generative cinematic installation Obsession, which will have its premier in the Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA, Helsinki (10.6.-21.8.2005). The project Obsession concretizes my theoretical work on what I have defined as “Dynamic Emotion Ecologies in Cinema”. In other words, Eisenstein’s idea of multisensuous image is re-interpreted within the framework of the recent neuroscience and cognitive emotion research. The psycho-physiological unconscious reactions of the spectator, for example, are designed to have effect on the generative flow of the narrative, and vice versa.

The narrative story-world of Obsession constitutes an embodied interactive zone, a cognitive and conceptual landscape, termed here as manuscape. Each cinematic take is analyzed in advance by the author with respect to its 1) emotional parameter value, and 2) the orientation of the character with respect to the camera, reflecting the attitude attributed to the narrative. In turn, the participators‘ reactions as well as their densities are tracked and translated into symbolic parameters of manuscape, which further modify the authored narrative and its intensity. Manuscape works as an instrument for non-linear storytelling and allows development of a range of interactive multimedia applications. In addition, manuscape is as well a philosophical tool for describing a distinction or interaction between a subject and the environment, as it is a mental workspace to design, construct and control cinematic structures.

Story description of Obsession:

Obsession makes an attempt to describe, how the traumatic acts of violence not only affect the individual, but his or her family and the life-environment are also violated. The narrative level of Obsession, in regards to its subject matter of “sex and violence” in our representational culture, brings an important subject matter to the focus of discussion.
When a stranger enters a self-service launderette, Emmi’s (24) quiet workday moves on obsessive tracks.

Production: Oblomovies Oy in association with University of Art and Design, Helsinki (more details by req.). Pia Tikka © 2003. For more info on the Enactive cinema installation Obsession in Kiasma please see View_video,mov in http://www.crucible.lume.fi/obsession

References (selection):

  • Damasio, A. 2000 [1999]. Tapahtumisen tunne. Translated from Feeling of What Happens by Kimmo Pietiläinen. Helsinki: Terra Cognita.
  • Eisenstein, S. 1987. Nonindifferent Nature: Film and the Structure of Things. Translated by Herbert Marshall. Cambridge University Press.
  • Lakoff, G.; Johnson, M. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and it’s Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books
  • Varela, F.; Thompson, E.; Rosch, E. 1991. Embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Pia Tikka is a doctoral researcher in the Graduate School of Audiovisual Media – Elomedia, in the University of Art and Design Helsinki. Her background is in film, cinematography and graphic design. She has directed long feature films ”Daughters of Yemanjá“ (Brazil-Finland 1996) and ”Sand Bride“ (Finland 1998), and worked in a range of feature film productions, including all films by director Mika Kaurismäki since 1989. Currently Pia Tikka is in post-production of her interactive film project ”Obsession“, which puts into effect her practice based research ”Framing narrative spaces for enactive cinema“. The defense of the doctoral dissertation is scheduled to 2006.