The Neuro-Image: a Deleuzian Film-Philosophy of Digital Screen Culture, by Patricia Pisters

What is the difference between a mind and a brain or, more precisely, between a mind-image and a brain-image? Media and Film Studies professor Patricia Pisters of the University of Amsterdam engages in the monumental project of establishing, in over 350 pages of monograph, the idea that “[t]oday’s viewers no longer look through a character’s eyes; instead, they move through his or her brain or mental landscape”, as the text on the back cover argues. Either we literally enter brain-worlds, as happens for instance in Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010), or a brain enters a body, as in Avatar (James Cameron, 2009). In Inception individuals infiltrate the subconscious of their targets, while in Avatar a remotely controlled human brain enters an alien’s body. As a consequence, argues Pisters, “a transdisciplinary encounter between film, philosophy, and neuroscience is not only important but also necessary to pursue” (27)