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Cinematic Qualia: When Movies Come Alive

Collective Perception and the Lost Art of Immersive Storytelling

“What I love about movies is that they can invoke deeper forms of realism, not just perceptual with regards to form and space, not just haptic in a material sense, but also in relation to states of being, to emotions, dreams, memories. You know, the physicality of a panic attack, the nostalgia for a half-remembered past, childhood nightmares about being alone in the dark. All the more abstract interactions and subjective phenomena that define the human experience, and that can be articulated through great filmmaking.” – Like Stories From Old

Cognitive Orientation

March 7, 2026
Movie theater interior
  • Man correcting another man who is sitting on a stool and appears unimpressed

    When Corrections Fail

    Cognitive Orientation

    Lost Luxury of Shared Reality

    “Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without all three, we have no shared reality, and democracy as we know it—and all meaningful human endeavors—are dead.” – Maria Ressa
  • Donald Trump Side profile against dollar bill backdrop

    The Big Stick US Detox

    Redistribution

    You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

    “Summarized by Singapore’s defence minister in Munich, the US “has changed from liberator to great disruptor to a landlord seeking rent”
  • Man rear view with dark smoke combusting out of his head

    Can’t Get You Out Of My Head

    Socialization

    Adam Curtis’ 20th Century Remix

    Slowburn Post-War Remix Weaving together seemingly disparate storylines from across the globe,  Adam Curtis’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’s is a meandering historical documentary that provides a greater challenge to piece together than his previous, Century of the Self and Hypernormalization. Not …

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by

Romina Wendell

March 20, 2021