Human Perception and Performance

In the book Magnetic. The choreography composition of Cindy Van Acker published by Quodlibet, and released in 2015, the lecturer and researcher Enrico Pitozzi analyzes the works of the Belgian artist, thought exploring the fields of science, philosophy and art, bringing out hidden and secrets details of this prismatic dancer. TEXT The magnetism is the phenomenon where a body provided with special properties, generates a force such as to attract other bodies, so to creating a magnetic field in which they act and operate certain electrical charges. This concept of attraction / repulsion exceeds the scientific boundaries, and comes even to touch the humanistic world where certain notions seem to have no space; and it is following this line of thought that Enrico Pitozzi (lecturer in multimedia art at the University of Bologna) has analyzed and read the works of the belgian choreographer Cindy Van Acker in his book " Magnetica " edited by Quodlibet in 2015. It's not a coincidence that the title chosen by the author for his book in fact is: " Magnetica ". Pitozzi breaks the levees of the categorization and brings, in an artistic and performative context, axioms and principles coming mainly from the scientific universe, by making them interact and communicate with those of dance. In this text Pitozzi waiver of a representative and traditional reading, to assume a radiographic perspective that breaks the surface to look into the matter, and then to see the processes. The denial of Pitozzi about the study of style and of the possible meaning / message , does justice and consistency at Van Acker's practice, which is in fact positioned outside of the representative and dramaturgy dynamics standard, in favor of a relationship with the scenic space which is, in her practice, purely visceral and sensitive. In Cindy Van Acker's opinion, her dance is not merely a set of techniques and styles to combine on a stage during a representation and therefore to be admired through her capabilities. No, for the Belgian artist being on stage is first of all a continuous exercise of feel and perception that happens at mental and physical level, inside those bodily knots destined to become movement and visible actions. To quote Berthoz, recalled also by Pitozzi in his book: "The perception is already an action" because the choreography created by Cindy Van Acker arises from an internal score; it is the eye of the mind that generates the future movements, in practice, the brain mentally organizes what muscles and limbs will accomplish later, coming true in the real ... in this case on the stage. Pitozzi's vision of Van Acker's artworks is absolutely fascinating, because unlike the classic theories focused on the forms or on " what the artist wants to communicate " , here, the protagonist is not the composition in itself or the subject of art; but the process that determines certain actions and why the body act and reacts in a particular way if placed in specific conditions.

Observation and observability represent a crucial topic in the philosophy of science, as the huge production of papers and books on the subject attests. Philosophy of perception, on the other hand, is a field of study that took root effectively in the last decades. Even then, apparently, the main theories on observation have neglected the issue of determining which is the object of a successful perception. As a consequence, some theses that have recently been proposed are actually paradoxical, despite deriving from renowned and, prima facie, satisfactory and complete theories. This is the situation of van Fraassen’s assertions on the (putative?) observation of images and rainbows (see 2001 and 2008) and of Sorensen’s claims on what one actually sees during a solar eclipse (see 2008). After putting forward a possible characterization of the object of perception, with no need of discussing the issue of intentionality, in this paper it will be shown that devoting adequate attention to this topic, together with acknowledging that observation is an action, in which the subject plays an indeed active role, would make it possible to avoid drawing conclusions that do not seem to be correct, such as the ones just mentioned. Any theory about observation will only be complete and adequate provided the object of perception is taken into account.

Failure to identify fractures is the most common error in accident and emergency departments. Therefore, the current research aimed to understand more about the processes underlying perceptual expertise when interpreting skeletal radiographs. Thirty participants, consisting of ten novices, ten intermediates, and ten experts were presented with ten clinical cases of normal and abnormal skeletal radiographs of varying difficulty (obvious or subtle) while wearing eye tracking equipment. Experts were significantly more accurate, more confident, and faster in their diagnoses than intermediates or novices and this performance advantage was more pronounced for the subtle cases. Experts were also faster to fixate the site of the fracture and spent more relative time fixating the fracture than intermediates or novices and this was again most pronounced for subtle cases. Finally, a multiple linear regression analysis found that time to fixate the fracture was inversely related to diagnostic accuracy and explained 34 % of the variance in this variable. The results suggest that the performance advantage of expert radiologists is underpinned by superior pattern recognition skills, as evidenced by a quicker time to first fixate the pathology, and less time spent searching the image.

I will be discussing the aftermath of the last century demise of the gap from our life, work, and environment. To become aware that nowadays most people are, how it reminds us the American proverb “Not see the forest for the trees”. The following pages will content opinions from different author, time and field. Images to visualize the theme. Funny metaphors and similarities as the one among gap and gape to entertain the reader and clarify the subject. A brief overview which will have the intents of define the gap as, something to feel, appreciate, and search; not something to fill.

Having celebrated its success in understanding most of the objective phenomena in the world, modern science is now trying to tackle problems concerning the nature of life and consciousness. But, because of the reductionist approach it has embraced to understand the workings of the physical universe, it has failed to capture any living entity in its totality. Also, since each biological species perceive reality differently, what we perceive as humans can't be claimed as the absolute reality. This brings us to the concept of absolute reality and the question of what it would be like to perceive reality in the absolute sense. In this context, the present paper is an attempt to analyze a few shortcomings in the way science addresses biological entities. This effort calls for a new science of subjective experience that might be able to capture the unique fingerprint of life.