Sep 2, 2024 4:45 PM
To be confirmed
Cancelled

Digital face reproduction as a tool of re-signification and re-sensualization: the case of Avatar Therapy

Digital face reproduction as a tool of re-signification and re-sensualization: the case of Avatar Therapy

Panel:
[PA] Faces Reloaded: Rebirth, Reproduction, Revival, and Regeneration in Digital Semiotics (Massimo Leone, Cristina Voto)
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Speaker:
Giovanni Pennisi
University of Turin
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Avatar Therapy (AT) is a clinical protocol for the treatment of auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. It consists of the patient’s exposure, via Virtual Reality, to an avatar - co-designed by the therapist and the individual under care - that embody the facial features that the patient assigns to the voice he/she hears in the head. This therapy has for several years now shown promising results in reducing the onset and persistence of hallucinations. However, it deserves to be discussed not only in terms of its clinical efficacy but also for its philosophical and semiotic implications. The effectiveness of the treatment, in fact, correlates with processes of great interest to those involved in facial semiotics and embodied cognition: participatory sense-making, multimodality, forms of techno-disembodiment and re-embodiment. I will outline how these processes unfold during the AT sessions, and focus on the role that the digital face plays in mediating the relationship between the therapist and the patient, as well as that between the patient and reality itself. Particular emphasis will be put on the avatars themselves, which will be analyzed and framed as tools useful for assessing how the psychopathological experience can be given new meanings (re-signification) and sensorially restructured (re-sensualization).

Location:
0.410 room, WLS (Dobra 55 street)

Explore Sessions

02
September
9:30
-
10:30
Location:
Mickiewicz Hall, Auditorium Maximum (Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28 str.)
Congress events
Opening Ceremony

September 2, 2024
Congress events
Mickiewicz Hall, Auditorium Maximum (Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28 str.)
02
September
10:30
-
11:30
Location:
Mickiewicz Hall, Auditorium Maximum (Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28 str.)
From Signs of Language to Semioses of Life: Paradigms and Turns in Global Semiotics

September 2, 2024
Mickiewicz Hall, Auditorium Maximum (Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28 str.)
02
September
11:30
-
12:15
Location:
Australia Hall, WLS (Dobra 55 street)
Catering
Coffee break [catering]

September 2, 2024
Catering
Australia Hall, WLS (Dobra 55 street)
Giovanni Pennisi