Conference

About

Conference

About

Erica Biolchini, MSc

University of Amsterdam

Speaker Bio

Erica Biolchini is a lecturer in Media Studies (with specialisation in Film Studies) at the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests range from Film-philosophy, Film aesthetics, and Neuro-philosophy, as well as New Materialism, Media Ecologies, and Eco-critical Media. Currently, Erica is working on her PhD project titled “Aesthetics of the Psychedelic Revival: Relational Healing Practices in Decolonial Expanded Cinema” which examines non-Western art practices for relational healing through non-ordinary states induced by psychedelic aesthetics. Erica’s works appear in the special issue Deleuze and Guattari and the Psychedelic Revival of the Deleuze and Guattari Studies Journal and in the special issue (Eco)Traumatic Landscapes in Contemporary Visual Culture of Iluminance: Journal of Film Theory, History and Aesthetics. She is one of the founding members of Fuck Healing (?) Collective (https://www.fuckhealing.nl).

ICPR 2024 Abstract

Between Psychedelics and Aesthetics: Cinema-Trance as Relational Healing Practice

This paper examines the potential of aesthetics for inducing altered states of consciousness of (cinema-)trance as an alternative practice and experience of healing. Such healing therapeutics are important in order to find new ethical modes of relating to each other, the Earth, and nonhuman beings in a time of staying with the trouble (Haraway 2016); in a time when nonhuman landscapes are traumatised by ongoing and impending ecological emergencies (Tsing et al. 2018). Therefore, the purpose is to dismantle the anthropocentric mastery (Taussing 2020) by starting from a position of ‘learning to unlearn’ the Eurocentric praxis of conceptualizing the Anthropos with the consequential nature/culture and human/nonhuman divides (Tlostanova and Mignolo, 2012). On the one hand, the presentation will unfold how ayahuasca, with its evoked affective and aesthetic qualities, provokes what Van der Braak defines as an ‘ontological shock’: a dissolution of the corporeal boundaries between self and nature (van der Braak 2023). On the other hand, such ontological shock of ayahuasca will be mobilised in conjunction with the aesthetic and affective qualities practiced by and experienced through the experimental artworks of Ana Vaz and Colectivo Los Ingrávidos where   images of flowers and plants, fire and water, healers and rituals create a cosmic and ecodelic dance on the screen. Deeply mesmerizing, hypnotic, and ecstatic, these images urge to bring attention to the bodies and the environment in new ways disclosing alternative modes of deep listening through cinema-trance as an aesthetic practice for relational healing.

© 2007-2024 ICPR by OPEN Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
© 2007-2024 ICPR by OPEN Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
© 2007-2024 ICPR by OPEN Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands