book chapter

What Is It Like to Be a Hawk? Inter-specific Empathy in the Age of Immersive Virtual Environments

Andrea Pinotti

Oltre la vergogna. Lo sguardo sul corpo tra dispositivi indossabili e realtà virtuale

Federica Cavaletti

La grille comme interface entre le corps et l’espace, du classicisme hollywoodien à la réalité virtuelle

Barbara Grespi

Immersi nelle immagini. Idee per un lemmario visuale contemporaneo

A. Pinotti

Silhouette di mercenari. Lo stile di Team Fortress

E. Modena

The Architectural Relevance of Virtual Reality

Fabrizia Bandi

Riflesso di immersione

Andrea Pinotti

Avatars: Shifting Identities in a Genealogical Perspective

Andrea Pinotti

Images qui se nient elles-mêmes. Vers une an-iconologie

Andrea Pinotti

book chapter

What Is It Like to Be a Hawk? Inter-specific Empathy in the Age of Immersive Virtual Environments

Andrea Pinotti

“What is it like to be a bat?”. Asking this question in 1974, American philosopher Thomas Nagel raised the issue of the possibility of a human comprehension of non-human experience. Many years earlier – between the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, Jacob von Uexküll had intensely worked around a paradox: on the one side, every animal species is confined within its own perceptual bubble; on the other side, the theoretical biologist must try to understand the world-view as experienced by non-human species. Within this conceptual frame, my paper will address the issue of aesthetic a priori and conditions of possibility of perception. I will propose a comparison between the view from above of the hawk and other aerial views performed by contemporary technical dispositifs such as satellites and drones. In order to question the problem of the sensory filtering of reality, I will finally address bird flight simulators offered by VR technologies.

book chapter

What Is It Like to Be a Hawk? Inter-specific Empathy in the Age of Immersive Virtual Environments

Andrea Pinotti

“What is it like to be a bat?”. Asking this question in 1974, American philosopher Thomas Nagel raised the issue of the possibility of a human comprehension of non-human experience. Many years earlier – between the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, Jacob von Uexküll had intensely worked around a paradox: on the one side, every animal species is confined within its own perceptual bubble; on the other side, the theoretical biologist must try to understand the world-view as experienced by non-human species. Within this conceptual frame, my paper will address the issue of aesthetic a priori and conditions of possibility of perception. I will propose a comparison between the view from above of the hawk and other aerial views performed by contemporary technical dispositifs such as satellites and drones. In order to question the problem of the sensory filtering of reality, I will finally address bird flight simulators offered by VR technologies.

Book/magazine/Issue

Visual Engagements. Image Practices and Falconry

publisher

De Gruyter

place of publication

Berlin-Boston

year of publication

2020

Citation

A. Pinotti, "What Is It Like to Be a Hawk? Inter-specific Empathy in the Age of Immersive Virtual Environments", in Y. Hadjinicolaou, ed.,Visual Engagements. Image Practices and Falconry, (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter, 2020), pp. 30-47.