Interdisciplinary Body research explored the relationship between bodies on screen, viewers, and cinematic conventions, asking how audiovisual works engage the body and how filmmakers shape this interaction. Drawing on psychoanalytic film theory, such as the mirror stage or the concept of gaze, the research examined how viewers identify with on-screen bodies. Identification, which operates not only through narrative empathy but also via pre-reflective, bodily resonance, informed by mirror neurons and haptic visuality.
The project combined audiovisual experimentation with theoretical reflection. Two core outputs – Bile, an essay film, and Limbo: The Earth Is Hard, a three-channel experimental installation – probe the cinematic gaze and the body’s vulnerability under extreme physical states such as illness, death, and suffering. Bile investigates illness and death, juxtaposing imagery from hospitals and morgues with personal narration and home video material. Collaborating with the Medical Imaging Research Center (MIRC) provided access to medical imaging, treated here as a hyper-documentary – objective yet alienating, reducing the body to visual objecthood while creating tension for empathy and identification. Limbo: The Earth Is Hard applies similar methods to experimental fiction, exploring the intersections of climate, death, and sexuality. Both works use disjunctive montage, fragmented narrative, sensorial sound, and haptic visuality to destabilize conventional viewer perspectives. Rather than asserting control, these films invite the spectator’s body and psyche to actively shape meaning.
The accompanying writing mirrors this process through essayistic, fragmented texts combining theoretical reflection with poetic and personal responses. References range from Cixous and Marks to Foucault, Mulvey, and contemporary film and performance art, all approached through current sociopolitical contexts (anno 2022).
The research outcomes have been presented internationally through film festivals (IDFA, Hot Docs, Imagining Science, et al.), exhibitions, publications and conferences.

