Enactive Authorship

Abstract

The neurocinematic inquiry is extended in this article to the sparsely studied topic of the filmmaker (author) as an embodied agent. Departing from my concept of second-order authorship, and inspired by the second-person framework of intersubjectivity discussed by Michael Pauen and Vittorio Gallese, I propose a model in which the author simulates the viewer (experient) who further simulates the experience of the protagonist in the film. This chain of relations is described as enactive second-order simulation of the viewer experience. While the author does not have a direct key to influence the experient, there is a relation mediated by the protagonist’s situatedness in the film’s narrative context. I further trust the core assumption of the neurocinematic approach—namely, that film as a narrative medium provides a means to imitate contexts of life that condition the enactive simulation of both the author and the experient.