FILM IN MIND:
TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING EXPERIENTIAL HEURISTICS OF PROFESSIONAL FILMMAKING

FILMIND aims to address challenges for artistic research - such as defining and assessing artistic research, and overcoming resistance in more traditional academic settings - by embracing embodied, experiential heuristics of practicing filmmakers as a legitimate form of inquiry. Building upon the success of the FilmEU_RIT-supported ARCF pilot (2022-2024), which brought together filmmakers and film scholars from three FilmEU alliance schools to explore cognitive neurocinematic methods and embodied cognition, the CoE will expand and capacitate the network.

The ARCF pilot established a foundation for integrating filmmaking experimentation with scientific research. Taking these efforts further, the CoE FILMIND will produce an extended series of pilot experiments together with professional filmmakers to demonstrate that filmmaking as research not only answers existing questions but also generates new ones. By combining accumulated knowledge from cognitive science, philosophy, and perceptual psychology with experiential heuristics of filmmaking, the CoE FILMIND assumes a dynamic feedback loop where the findings from artistic practice inform scientific inquiry, and the insights from cognitive science and film studies influence filmmakers’ creative processes. Focusing on the embodied, emotional, and experiential dimensions of filmmaking practice, the CoE seeks to redefine filmmaking as research, contributing to both the practice of filmmaking and broader discussions about film’s epistemological role in generating knowledge.