The fictional nature of image with regard to neurosciences

Abstract

From the point of view of empiric Aesthetics and leaning on actual neuroscientific experiments, sight is deeply linked with touch, synaesthesias and mirror neurons. I will deepen this scientific knowledge basing on neuroaesthetics studies and I will argue that a careful discussion of the aesthesiological qualities of images claims to develop a new definition of image and a fresh conception of spectatorship. The image does not ask just to be seen from an abstract eye. It asks rather to be felt by the living onlooker. I will then describe how active the spectator involvement is in seeing an image insomuch as we can talk about an “embodied image”. I will propose that image is a dynamic form, an energetic dimension of vision, in order to conclude that every image, even the still one, is a performing image.