interfaceing 2025
Embodied Experience, Emotions, and Creativity
We are pleased to announce the upcoming 2025 INTERFACEing conference, titled “Embodied Experience, Emotions, and Creativity.” We invite scholars, practitioners, and artists to engage in a multidisciplinary dialogue that bridges literature, linguistics, media, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and the arts.
Phenomenological and Rhizomic Explorations
In contemporary research, the exploration of intricate connections between the mind, body, emotions, and creativity has experienced substantial growth. Within this epistemological context, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s seminal work, Phénoménologie de la perception (1945), serves as a preliminary foundation for exploring the insights offered by phenomenology on the nature of perception, embodiment, and consciousness. His emphasis on the primacy of perception and the embodied nature of human experience, questioning what one might call “traditional Cartesian dualism”, offers a more integrative understanding of the body-mind relationship. This inquiry into the connection between mind and body, and this consideration of the intentionality and relational nature of perception, provide a first framework for examining how human bodily experiences shape mental processes and vice versa.
Indeed, Merleau-Ponty argues that perception is the fundamental way humans engage with the world, challenging the idea that it is merely a passive reception of sensory data. Instead, he suggests that perception is an active, generative, and interpretative process that shapes the individual experience of reality. This means that the human understanding of the world is rooted in perceptual experiences, which precede and inform abstract thought and scientific analysis. Merleau-Ponty emphasises that the human body is not just a physical object, but a lived, experiential entity: bodily sensations, movements, and interactions with the environment are integral to how one perceives and understands one's experiences of the world. This embodied perception means that the body is both the subject and object of perception, leading to an intertwined relationship between the perceiver and the perceived. Merleau-Ponty proposes that mental and physical experiences are inseparable, with consciousness arising from the embodied interactions with the world. That is why he discusses the intentional nature of perception, which means that consciousness is always directed towards something. This intentionality is not abstract but rooted in bodily existence. This viewpoint led him to introduce the concept of a “phenomenal field,” which refers to the world as a perceiving subject perceives it. This field is where meaning and significance emerge, highlighting the subjective nature of experience and the idea that the self and the world are interwoven. Merleau-Ponty’s ontological views suggest that being is not a static, isolated entity but a dynamic, relational, and continuous process.
Building upon this, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (Mille Plateaux, 1980) highlight the importance of decentered perspectives and perpetual becoming in the fabric of life. Indeed, they introduce the idea of “rhizome” to describe a non-hierarchical, interconnected network of relations that defies traditional linear structures. Unlike the tree-like model of knowledge, rooted and branching out hierarchically, the rhizome is characterised by multiplicity, heterogeneity, and continuous variations and connections. This model emphasises the fluidity and dynamism of life, where entities constantly interact, transform, and evolve without fixed boundaries. Existence is thus perceived as a complex, ever-changing assemblage of forces and flows, rethinking the relationships between individuals, society, and the environment.
Embodied Experiences of Creativity
From this perspective, emotions and creativity serve as means to express the human relationship with the world. They are also embodied experiences. The perception of the world is thus always situated, that is to say, constructed from a particular standpoint, shaped by one’s body-mind existence. This knot challenges the idea of an objective and detached viewpoint. It is therefore natural that phenomenological insights are also applied to the arts, especially to painting. For Merleau-Ponty, artists like Cézanne illustrate the embodied nature of perception through their work. More recently, researchers have been delving into the relationship between emotions and creativity, e.g., in the Cambridge Handbook of Creativity and Personality Research, highlighting how emotional states can influence creative processes and outcomes, also discussing the role of emotional regulation in sustaining creative work (Feist, Reiter-Palmon, & Kaufman, 2017). Literature, the arts, stage and in situ performances, intermedia creations, ‘new’ media publications, technotexts, etc., may, of course, be considered, from a phenomenological perspective, as a way to explore and express the lived experience, revealing the depth and complexity of perceptions. However, they may also be seen as a process where the creator’s body-mind engagement with the medium is fundamental, potentially opening discussions on how physical movement and sensory experiences contribute to creative thinking and problem-solving.
In other contexts, it has indeed been demonstrated that integrative body-mind training (IBMT) can enhance creativity, performance, and emotional regulation (Ding et al., 2014). Furthermore, numerous holistic investigations have highlighted that these practices promote emotional and creative resilience in various settings, including among medical professionals, children, students, and others (Tsachor & Shafir, 2017; Shuper-Engelhard & Vulcan, 2022; Soulé et al., 2022; MacAskill et al., 2023). The exploration of trauma and technology can also inform considerations of how emotions and creativity are shaped by, and in turn shape, contemporary social and technological contexts, thereby relating to what has been called the affective turn. The term has been coined by Patricia Ticineto Clough and Jean Halley in The Affective Turn: Theorising the Social (2007). The edited book explores the significance of affect in social theory. It marks a shift in scholarly focus towards understanding how affect–preindividual bodily forces, linked to autonomic responses, shape social, political, and cultural phenomena. The essays collectively argue that affect plays an essential role in shaping human interactions and social structures. This perspective allows us to move beyond traditional psychoanalytic and representational frameworks to consider how affect operates at a more fundamental, body-mind level. One of the key premises is the importance of the body in understanding affect. Many therapists, including kinesitherapists, bodyworkers, shiatsu practitioners, and MTC practitioners, ground part of their practices on this same consideration, with significant benefits for their patients. Undeniably, affect can be seen as a bodily force that can augment or diminish a body’s capacity to act or engage with others. This focus on the body challenges, again, the mind-body dualism and highlights the holistic aspects of physical and emotional experiences. Recent academic studies provide further insights into the body-mind connection and its impact on and relation to emotions and creativity. For instance, it has been demonstrated that cognitive and emotional processing through inward-focused attention, specifically interoception, is valuable for better understanding the body-mind connection and enhancing it (Van Bael et al., 2023). Similarly, several recent studies on neural mechanisms have provided a scientific basis for the therapeutic and creative benefits of embodied practices (Gomes et al., 2020; Barnett & Vasiu, 2024). Another significant matter is the relationship between technology and affect. Indeed, the exploration of the influence of recent technological advancements on bodily experiences and affective responses includes discussions on how digital media, information technologies, and biotechnologies shape affective engagements with the world, as well as interactions and power dynamics.
Call for submissions
We invite submissions that explore these themes and contribute to a deeper understanding of the relationships between body, mind, emotions, and creativity. Topics of interest might include, but not exclusively, the affective turn about body-mind and creative practices, the embodied cognition and its impact on mental processes, the role of mindfulness and somatic practices, the expression and impact of emotions through bodily experiences, the interplay between physical health and emotional states, artistic processes and the role of the body-mind in creative expression, and interdisciplinary approaches to understanding human experiences.
Proposals for panels (instructions here) or individual papers of 25 minutes or less (instructions here) should be submitted to both Prof. Charlène Clonts (clonts.charlene.248@m.kyushu-u.ac.jp) and Prof. Barış Çoban (bcoban@dogus.edu.tr) by July 30, 2025
The papers should be presented in any of the following languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian.
The conference will take place on September 17-19, 2025 at Doğuş University, Istanbul, Turkey. It is organized as a physical face-to-face conference; however, it will also be possible to present and participate remotely.
Papers presented in the conference can be submitted for publication in the Special Topic issues of INTERFACE to be published in 2026 (subject to double-blind peer review).
INTERFACE would like to thank Trier University (Centre for Advanced Studies "Poetry in Transition”), Kobe University (Graduate School of Humanities), and Seoul National University (Institute of Classical Studies) for their kind support and co-operation in organizing this conference.