The experience of “existence” with the cinematographic screen: the identification context

Abstract

The article provides a deep analysis of a vast range of human experiences by means of highlighting the mechanisms of identification and the ways of their conceptualization. The present study grounds on the assumption that contemporary screen theories regard screen experience as a broad concept rather than a bunch of processes of visual consumption. Consequently, a creative product is viewed as a means for enriching human experience through the interaction of two types of embodiment and subjectivity: a human and a screen one. Such experience is construed via games with material features of the environment. A game creates space that encourages convergence with the object and accounts for the identification with the film as an event rather than identification with characters that are in the centre of the plot development. Drawing on contemporary touch aesthetics, the authors of the article reveal tactile features of screen experience proving that tactility deals not only with skin or screen but permeates through all the parts of viewer’s body as well as the film body.