The latest film in our Phenomenology of Perception Around the World series, Imagerie par Résonance Corporelle by María Clara Garavito, Verónica Cohen, Ariela Battán Horenstein, will launch April 30th!

Given the current context of experiencing virtuality as a familiar way of intersubjective encounter, we take the challenge of using Merleau-Ponty’s work as a point of departure for thinking about intercorporeality in virtual contexts. The leading question of our project was: “What are the virtual encounters made of?” Virtuality, understood as a kind of interruption of the habitual relationship between bodies and environment, has a history in our development in a cultural context. We introduce the notion of “phantom Other” for understanding this phenomenon. The “phantom Other” is linked to the phantom limb syndrome presented by Merleau-Ponty in PhP. While a specific situation summons the limb through a habit, in virtuality, the other is summoned by the phantom Other constituted by a sedimentation of the elements of past lived intercorporeal encounters (gestures, synchronicity, warmness, affectivity, closeness, intimacy).

The film will debut online on 30 April 2021 at 2:00 PM EDT as part of a Zoom webinar. The launch event is free to attend but registration is required.