Immersion and distance : : aesthetic illusion in literature and other media / / edited by Werner Wolf, Walter Bernhart and Andreas Mahler.

• TeilnehmendeR: Wolf, Werner, 1955-; Bernhart, Walter.
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Studies in intermediality, 6; Studies in Intermediality 6.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (388 pages)

Readers who appear to be lost in a storyworld, members of theatre or cinema audiences who are moved to tears while watching a performance, beholders of paintings who are absorbed by the representations in front of them, players of computer games entranced by the fictional worlds in which they interactively participate – all of these mental states of imaginative immersion are variants of ‘aesthetic illusion’, as long as the recipients, although thus immersed, are still residually aware that they are experiencing not real life but life-like representations created by artefacts. Aesthetic illusion is one of the most forceful effects of reception processes in representational media and thus constitutes a powerful allurement to expose ourselves, again and again to, e.g., printed stories, pictures and films, be they factual or fictional. In contrast to traditional discussions of this phenomenon, which tend to focus on one medium or genre from one discipline only, the present volume explores aesthetic illusion, as well as its reverse side, the breaking of illusion, from a highly innovative multidisciplinary and transmedial perspective. The essays assembled stem from disciplines that range from literary theory to art history and include contributions on drama, lyric poetry, the visual arts, photography, architecture, instrumental music and computer games, as well as reflections on the cognitive foundations of aesthetic illusion from an evolutionary perspective. The contributions to individual media and aspects of aesthetic illusion are prefaced by a detailed theoretical introduction. Owing to its transmedial and multidisciplinary scope, the volume will be relevant to students and scholars from a wide variety of fields: cultural history at large, intermediality and media studies, as well as, more particularly, literary studies, music, film, and art history.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Aesthetic Illusion / Werner Wolf -- On the Emergence of Aesthetic Illusion An Evolutionary Perspective / Katja Mellmann -- The Role of Participation in Aesthetic Illusion / Richard J. Gerrig and Matthew A. Bezdek -- Pictures and Hobby Horses: Make-Believe beyond Childhood / Kendall L. Walton -- Impossible Worlds and Aesthetic Illusion / Marie-Laure Ryan -- Aesthetic Illusion in Theatre and Drama An Attempt at Application / Andreas Mahler -- Aesthetic Illusion as an Effect of Lyric Poetry? / Werner Wolf -- Aesthetic Illusion and the Breaking of Illusion in Painting (Fourteenth to Twentieth Centuries) / Götz Pochat -- Wilful Deceptions Aesthetic Illusion at the Interface of Painting, Photography and Digital Images / Katharina Bantleon and Ulrich Tragatschnig -- Aesthetic Illusion and the Breaking of Illusion in Ambiguous Film Sequences / Jocelyn Cammack -- Architectures of Immersion: The Material Fictions of the ‘New’ Las Vegas / Laura Bieger -- Columns of Figures as Sources of Aesthetic Illusion Browser-Based Multiplayer Online Games / Christian Wessely -- Aesthetic Illusion in Instrumental Music? / Walter Bernhart -- Notes on Contributors -- Index.