The Screen and the Soul

Watch the recording

The Screen and the Soul: Virtual Reality, Real Reality and How It Is

with Christopher Hauke

Saturday July 3
9:00am PDT  | 12:00pm EDT  | 5:00pm BST  |  6:00pm CEST

Free Online Pari Dialogue

The Covid pandemic has required us to keep a broader social distance from one another; for psychotherapists this should be less of a problem. With reliable broadband making therapy sessions (and presentations like this one) possible online, why do so many people still find the virtual session falls so far short of the ‘real’ meeting in person? Maybe our assumption that there is a ‘real’ version and there is an inferior ‘virtual’ version is wrong to begin with. Christopher Hauke will lay out three approaches to this question.

The first derives from quantum theorist David Deutsch and his book The Fabric of Reality (Deutsch, 1997). The second approach digs further into philosophical implications around the idea that material reality is not an objective fact and consciousness is all there is. This is known as metaphysical idealism as analysed by Bernardo Kastrup’s (Kastrup 2020, 2021) work especially his understanding of Jung’s metaphysics.

Lastly, film narratives, as well as factual ‘reality’ films, have long been delivering ‘reality’ to us on screens in their own virtual way. So Chris will finish by discussing the bio-evolutionary ideas around visual perception, affordance (Gibson, 1979) and the central role of meaning in both film and the therapy session. In doing so, he will bring us back to the definition of ‘virtual’ which flagged it as something in essence or effect. In this way he brings a new perspective to the idea of ‘real reality’ and ‘virtual reality’ in our new way of working.

On Saturday July 3, Chris will open our monthly Community Call with a presentation and followed by discussion and Q&A.

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE!

Join our Zoom meeting via the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83111513487

If you would like to participate, have any questions or need any help just contact Eleanor Peat: eleanor@paricenter.com

Christopher Hauke is a Jungian analyst in private practice and Senior Lecturer emeritus at Goldsmiths, University of London interested in the applications of depth psychology to a wide range of social and cultural phenomena including film. His books include Jung and the Postmodern: The Interpretation of Realities, (2000); Human Being Human. Culture and the  Soul  (2005) Visible Mind. Movies, Modernity and the Unconscious.(2013). He has co-edited two collections of Jungian film writing: Jung and Film. Post-Jungian Takes on the Moving Image(2001) and Jung and Film II – The Return (2011).

His short films, documentaries One Colour Red and Green Ray and the psychological drama  Again premiered in London venues and at congresses in Barcelona, Zurich and Montreal.

In addition to new film projects he is now researching the limits of rationality, and the place of the irrational in our lives.