In this video, neuroscientist Emily S. Cross presents research on embodied cognition and neuroaesthetics, drawing on her background as a former professional dancer to show how bodily experience fundamentally shapes perception, learning, and aesthetic judgement. She demonstrates that audiences engage more deeply with art — particularly dance and performance — when they have embodied experience themselves, and that training can measurably alter both preference and brain activity. In conversation with Philip Ursprung, Cross expands these insights to visual art and AI-generated practices, addressing perspective-taking, empathy, and growing tensions around artificial intelligence in the arts. The exchange highlights the body as central to understanding what art does, how it is perceived, and how definitions of authorship and creativity may evolve.
“Doing things with our own bodies, experiencing things, being here —being physically situated — shapes our brain and our behaviour. Even if we have never performed a particular action ourselves, we use our embodied experience to make sense of what we see others doing. Embodiment changes how we perceive, understand, and value art.”
— Emily S. Cross
