Empathy and Agency in Motion Pictures

Motion pictures are endowed with a phenomenal efficiency in eliciting empathic reactions among the viewers towards fictional characters. Fictional events can trigger deep empathic worries or relief, which in some cases, may be more powerful than those experienced by the individual spectator towards her/ his flesh-and-blood peers. We will discuss the empathic power of film and television to recruit the human empathic mechanisms. The discussion will be based on recent developments in the neuroscientific research of empathy on the one hand, and on theoretical models of cinematic empathy on the other. Lastly, we will learn about recent findings on the phenomenon of virtual body ownership illusion and its physiological aspects, and discuss the artistic and political potential of new media platforms of virtual and augmented reality in this context.