360 GRADI MAGAZINE January/February 2021

360 GRADI 

Magazine 

ARTISTA 

CHERRY MANGA 

Cherry Manga is a well-known artist in 

the virtual world of SL. 

She creates works that have an 

extraordinary visual and emotional. 

SADYCAT LITTLEPAWS: 

THE VERSATILE STYLE 

OF A SUCCESSFUL 

BLOGGER 

P hotography 

NEUROESTHETICS: BRAIN, 

EMPATHY AND EXPERIENCE 

OF BEAUTY 

Second Life VALENTINA E. 

Why do images attract the viewer so 

much? One of the main activities in 

SL is the photographer: have we ever 

wondered what attracts us most to 

photographs? 

A dress store with an unmistakable 

style, which is characterized by class, 

elegance and originality. We know 

Valentina in this exclusive interview. 


JANUARY FEBRUARY 2021 - N. 3 

1

CONTENT 

18 

Why 

NEUROAESTHETICS: 

BRAIN, EMPATHY 

AND EXPERIENCE OF 

BEAUTY 

do images attract 

the viewer so much? One 

of the main activities in 

SL is the photographer: 

have we ever wondered 

what attracts us most to 

photographs? 

54 

A 

HAZELNUT’S 

KINGDOM 

refined location, 

with Mediterranean 

style and vintage 

French-style 

buildings. There are 

many activities to 

entertain the visitor. 

74 

A 

SLICE OF 

HEAVEN 

charming winter 

destination that 

will soon change to 

its spring version. 

Let’s get to know it 

through the eyes of 

Serena Amato. 

92 

Cherry 

CHERRY 

MANGA 

Manga is a 

well-known artist 

in the virtual world 

of SL. She creates 

works that have 

an extraordinary 

visual and emotional 

impact. 

126 

An 

DORIAN KASH 

important male 

voice in the Italian 

music scene. An 

artist that makes 

the musical evening 

a success in every 

occasion. 

142 

Style, 

VALENTINA E. 

class, originality 

are just some of 

the characteristics 

of Valentina E., a 

brand that shines in 

the scenario of the 

fashion world of SL. 

160 A 

SADYCAT 

LITTLEPAWS 

successful 

photographer, 

blogger and blogger 

manager, SadyCat 

has a versatile style 

that can adapt to the 

many demands of 

the fashion world. 

172 

Spectacular 

CHOSEN ON 

FLICKR 

images 

found on Flickr. 

Let’s explore new 

artists. 

360 GRADI MAGAZINE is the magazine that covers Second Life at 360°. Destinations, Art, Music, Fashion, Photography, Furniture and Decoration 

all in one bimonthly magazine. You can read the magazine on the web, visiting our YUMPU page. 

2 360 GRADI

Welcome to issue #3 of 360 GRADI MAGAZINE. 

92 126 160 

CHERRY MANGA 

DORIAN KASH 

SADYCAT 

LITTLEPAWS 

An artist capable of 

creating works that have 

an extraordinary visual 

and emotional impact. 

An important musical 

artist and reference in the 

Italian music scene. 

A successful 

photographer, blogger 

and blogger manager, she 

features a versatile style. 

WELCOME 

Welcome to issue 3 of the magazine. 

In this third issue, 360GRADI introduces 

Serena Amato, an occasional contributor 

to the “destinations” section who allows 

us to explore Luane’s World through her 

eyes. 

We’ll get to know Dorian Kash, an 

important musical artist on the Italian 

scene. 

We will explore the art of Cherry Manga 

capable of arousing great emotional and 

visual impact. 

For the area related to the human mind, 

which is of great interest, Degoya will 

talk to us about how the mind reacts to 

beauty and images. 

Finally we will meet in person Valentina 

Evangelista, one of the finest designers 

in Second Life. 

I invite you to be an active part, telling 

us your impressions and/or ideas/ 

suggestions. 

Enjoy reading! 


3

TEAM 

LADMILLA VAN MISOINDITE 

SERENA 

HEAD OF ART 

COLUMN 

HEAD OF MUSIC 

COLUMN 

HEAD OF 

FASHION 

COLUMN 

ASSISTANT 

DESTINATIONS 

COLUMN 

Artist and Owner of 

THE EDGE Gallery. 

Dj , Designer AND 

Architect Planning. 

Model and Fashion 

Event Manager. 

Occasional 

contributor to 

destinations. 


JARLA 

VIOLET 

DEGOYA 

HEAD OF 

PHOTOGRAPHY 

COLUMN 

Photographer. 

HEAD OF 

MARKETING 

COLUMN 

Social Media 

Marketing expert. 

HEAD OF BRAIN, MIND 

AND VIRTUAL REALITY 

COLUMN 

Psychiatrist. 


5

EDITOR NOTES 

We have reached the third issue of 360GRADI Magazine. 

The first novelty 

I would like to 

introduce is the entry 

into the team, albeit 

occasionally, of Serena 

Domenici. This is an 

exciting collaboration 

because Serena loves 

to write, and she does 

it with passion. I hope 

she will decide to be 

a permanent part of 

the team, giving the 

magazine a significant 

added value in the 

“destinations” sector. 

The first novelty I would like to introduce is the entry into the 

team, albeit occasionally, of Serena Domenici. This is an exciting 

collaboration because Serena loves to write, and she does it 

with passion. I hope she will decide to be a permanent part of 

the team, giving the magazine a significant added value in the 

“destinations” sector. 

The “brain, mind, and virtual reality” column has a huge success, 

thanks to Degoya Galthie’s professionalism. I’m getting a lot of 

positive feedback, and I’m delighted. 

In this issue, we will talk about the artistic side of Cherry Manga, 

a very well known artist in the Second Life scenario. Her 

extraordinariness is her ability to stir emotions and have a strong 

visual impact. In this issue, we will have the chance to get to know 

her better. 

On the musical front, Dorian Kash is the protagonist of this issue. 

A well-known Italian artist, each of his evenings is a moment of 

relaxation for the audience and a successful Dorian performance. 

On the fashion front, we delve into the knowledge of Valentina 

E., a brand appreciated and known for its originality and quality. 

I enjoyed personally interviewing Valentina Evangelista, who 

promptly answered questions while also giving valuable 

suggestions to all those who wish to pursue a career as a fashion 

designer. 

Jarla interviewed SadyCat Littlepaws, a highly regarded 

photographer, blogger, and blogger manager on the 

photographic front. It’s an opportunity to understand more 

about photography and how the world of bloggers and their 

recruitment works. 

In wishing you a good reading, I always invite you to collaborate: if 

we manage to improve, it’s also thanks to readers’ suggestions. 

See you at the next issue. 

WELCOME 

360GRADI is an interactive magazine 

available on YUMPU. Pick up your 

copy of the kiosk at the newsroom. 


Emotion is the clearest evidence 

that something has affected us 

deeply. All the talents we talk 

about in this issue reach our hearts. 

- Oema 


7

ART PROMOTION ON FACEBOOK 



9

VIOLET BOA 

My responsibilities include planning, implementing, and managing PR 

strategies and organizing and managing various PR activities. 

I use different channels to optimize the outreach and success of a 

campaign, with a customer-oriented focus and assured delivery that I 

represent unequivocally. I carry out the interests, wishes, needs, and 

expectations of my clients. 

Violet Boa, 

MARKETING 

Head Column 

A natural part of my work involves arranging interviews and 

coordination, researching and collecting opportunities for 

partnerships, establishing and maintaining relationships with 

journalists, influencers, and bloggers, and supporting the team 

members of my client in communicating and running a campaign. 

Through years of experience with social media management, which 

always requires excellent communication, presentation, leadership 

skills, and excellent organizational and time management skills, I 

have become self-critical and am still interested in new impulses. 

Learning, be it self-directed or through knowledge of apt sources, is 

part of the daily process. 

Observations and reflections (self-reflection) of the external and 

internal situations give me the chance to recognize problems and 

change them positively. 

I am a positive but also critical thinker and analytical problem solver 

who - with a lot of empathy - accepts conflicting interests, personal 

(in) tolerance, and others’ opinions. I am very adaptable and willing 

to compromise to get positive alternatives that make everyone happy 

and lead to the desired success. 

My top ten topics of interest are fine art, photography, design, digital 

art, music, performing arts, literature, science, mindfulness, and a 

positive attitude. 

I feel very honored and proud of the trust that Oema has placed in 

me and invited me in my role as PR to act for magazines from the first 

publication of their classy, stylish and elegant 360 GRADI Magazine. 

We have an exciting and excellent task ahead of us, and I am looking 

forward to it! 

Violet 



11

LUNDY ART GALLERY 

LUNDY ART GALLERY IS A CREATION OF LEE1 OLSEN AND PERIODICALLY 

FEATURES NEW ARTISTS. 

THE GALLERY BOASTS A VERY LARGE EXHIBITION SPACE, ALLOWING THE 

VISITOR TO APPRECIATE NUMEROUS WORKS OF ART. 


EXHIBITING ARTISTS 

Moya Patrick 

Etamae 

Ilyra Chardin 

Adwehe 

ZackHermann 

Sandi Benelli 

Jessamine2108 

Steele Wilder 

Adelina Lawrence 

Magda Schmidtzau 

Jos (mojosb5c) 

TELEPORT TO LUNDY ART GALLERY 


13

CAMP ITALIA 

CAMP ITALIA, EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT IN ONE DESTINATION. 

COME VISIT US! 

Camp Italia is an educational sim in Italian language with an international vocation, where 

you can find a warm welcome, artistic and musical events, many lessons to learn how to use 

Second Life and breathtaking landscapes for a wonderful experience of your SL. 

Visit Camp Italia & Enjoy! 

Slurl 

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Camp%20Italia/127/64/23 

Official Website 

https://campitaliasecondlife.org 



15

DEGOYA GALTHIE 

Since the beginning of his appearance in the world, man has tried to 

represent and tell his experience with different tools such as drawing, 

photography, and cinema; at the base of this incessant search is 

the desire to describe one’s inner world with ever greater levels of 

fidelity. In our post-modern society, the most advanced frontier of 

this research is represented by virtual reality. This technology allows 

us to “immerse ourselves” in a computer-generated environment, in 

which it is possible to move and interact as in reality. 

Degoya Galthie, 

Head Column 

BRAIN, MIND AND 

VIRTUAL REALITY 

Virtual reality has numerous applications ranging in different fields 

and represents an advanced communication interface that allows 

people to interact naturally at a distance. It is now a technology 

growing in popularity in the entertainment industry, where it finds 

applications and the video game sector, cinematography, theme parks, 

and museums. Social networks, e-commerce, education, sport are just 

some of the many areas that virtual worlds promise to revolutionize. 

In the medical field, virtual reality is demonstrating excellent 

potential with applications in neuroscience and psychotherapy. 

In light of these premises, the goal I set myself in this section of the 

magazine is to tell the “virtual revolution” through a perspective 

that highlights the transformative impact of this technology on 

the brain and human experience. In particular, I will investigate the 

effects of virtual experiences on one’s real-world and highlight the 

opportunities that virtual technologies can offer, and highlight the 

potential risks they imply through a survey of the most advanced 

research in psychology and neuroscientific field. Finally, I will try 

to explain how simulation technologies are changing how people 

communicate and interact, analyzing the opportunities and challenges 

implied by the emergence of virtual worlds. 

Degoya 



17

NEUROESTE 

THE BRAIN, EMPATHY AN 

OF BEAUTY 

Written by DEGOYA GALTHIE. 

Images by JARLA CAPALINI. 


TICS 

D THE EXPERIENCE 

Why do we like images so much? What effects 

do they have on our minds? Let’s delve into this 

fascinating topic. 


19

NEUROESTETICS 

THE BRAIN, EMPATHY AND THE 

EXPERIENCE OF BEAUTY 

If cognitive neuroscience studies human cognition and mind, what is so uniquely 

human as the obsession to create images? On the one hand, the obsession with 

creating images, and on the other hand, the power these images exert on the 

viewer. 

The words that make up the title of 

this article: art, empathy, aesthetic 

experience and neuroscience, that is 

the study of the brain, constitute topics 

that in the space available I will not 

be able to deal with in a serious and 

exhaustive way. First of all, I will try to 

explain the fact that a neuroscientist 

applies his research methodology to 

fields that, traditionally and apparently, 

seem so distant; especially in the 

last 70 years the field of science has 

been considered other than that 

of aesthetics and art. The human 

sciences and cognitive neuroscience, 

however, share a fundamental object 

of investigation: understanding what 

makes us human. Obviously, they do 

it with very different approaches and 

with different description languages. 

If cognitive neuroscience studies 

cognition and the human mind, what is 

so uniquely human as the obsession 

with creating images? On the one hand 

the obsession with creating images 

and on the other the power that these 

images exert on the viewer. Within 

these topics that will often recur in 

the course of my exhibition, I decided 

to start from a theme that I consider 

central to approaching the question 

of aesthetic experience: why we like 

images and what we feel in front of an 

image, especially when this image was 

created by man. 

To this end, I believe it is 

essential to deal with the 

theme of empathy; empathy 

is a terribly complicated 

concept with numerous 

synonyms (identification, 

emotional contagion, perspective 


Why do we like 

the images so 

much? 

taking, theory of mind) 

or presumed so. These 

concepts are used by 

many scholars in an 

interchangeable way, 

mistakenly when they 

confuse empathy with 

the theory of mind, that 

is, with a cognitively very 

sophisticated way of 

entering the other’s 

mind and taking its 

perspective. There are 

those who have felt the 

need to talk about a 

cognitive empathy to be 

distinguished from true 

empathy and there are 

those who confuse 

empathy with sympathy. 

A simplistic way that 

helps us clear the ground 

from misunderstandings 

could be this definition: 

empathy means feeling 

with the other, while 

sympathy means feeling 

for the other. So, it’s hard 

to sympathize with 

someone without being 

able to feel empathy, but 

the reverse isn’t 

necessarily true; we can 

empathize with the other 

without passing through 

the hall of the brain to 

sympathize with or even 

to help. There is a dark 

side to empathy, even a 

torturer and a sadist must 

be empathic if they want 

to do their job well; if I 

serve someone, I have to 

understand where he 

hurts the most. Somehow, 

I have to put myself in his 

shoes imaginatively and 


21

emotionally to get the worst effect of 

the intervention I am applying to him, as 

often happens in confessions extracted 

with torture. 

In starting from the term empathy, 

obviously I am not referring to the 

classical empathy of the Greeks, but to 

the term that was born and developed 

in Germany at the end of the nineteenth 

century within an aesthetic debate. 

The discussion was about what makes 

the difference when I confront a work 

of art: is it the formal characteristics of 

the painting, sculpture or fresco that 

make the difference or is it what that 

particular object makes me feel, the 

ability of that object to evoke something 

in me as I look at it. 

Within this comparison, the 

German philosopher Robert 

Vischer published a small 

book, destined to exert an enormous 

influence on the aesthetic debate in the 

decades to come, entitled: On the 

Optical Sentiment of Form (Über das 

optische Formgefühl, 1873). The author 

makes his contribution to aesthetics by 

emphasizing the centrality of Einfühlung 

that we translate empathy (Einfühlung 

literally means to feel inside, 

identification); this is a quote from his 

book: “I move into the inner essence of 

the object I contemplate (the object is a 

work of art) and explore its formal 

characteristics, so to speak, from the 

inside”. This type of transposition can 

take a motor or sensorial form even in 

the case of lifeless and immobile forms, 

in practice when I put myself in front of 

a painting some of the characteristics 

of those images are such as to arouse 

in me an empathic reaction; a reaction 

that most of the time is only internal 

and that in certain situations can 

surface on the surface of my body with 

behaviors and attitudes that we will 

see. 

In this work Vischer distinguishes the 

mere perceptual process of seeing 

from the pragmatically active one of 

looking. According to Vischer, the 

aesthetic use of images, in general, and 

of the work of art, in particular, implies 

an empathic involvement that would 

appear in a whole series of physical 

reactions in the observer’s body. 

Particular forms observed would 

arouse reactive emotions, depending 

on their conformity to the design and 

function of the body muscles. 

According to Vischer, the symbolic 

form, far from being pure as Kantian is 

transcendental, derives its nature in 

the first instance from its 

anthropomorphic content; it is through 

the unconscious projection of the 

image on one’s body that the observer 

is able to establish an aesthetic 

relationship between himself and the 

image. A few years later this same logic 

of Einfühlung, thanks to Lipps, will be 

transferred to the domain of the 

psychology of interpersonal relations, 

exerting a considerable influence on 

Freud as well. Vischer’s work exerted a 

great influence, among others, on two 

very important figures in the history of 

art: the sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand 

and the art historian Aby Warburg. 



23

The theme of 

empathy was at the 

center of Edith 

Stein’s doctoral thesis, a student of 

Edmund Husserl, German philosopher 

and founder of Phenomenology; Stein 

made some statements in this thesis 

that I could not fail to subscribe with 

enthusiasm. She was a Christian nun, 

German philosopher and mystic of the 

Discalced Carmelite Order, victim of the 

Shoah. She of Jewish origin, she 

converted to Catholicism after a period 

of atheism that lasted from 

adolescence. She was arrested in the 

Netherlands by the Nazis and locked up 

in the Auschwitz-Birkenau 

concentration camp where she, 

together with her sister Rosa, was 

murdered in 1942. In 1998 Pope John 

Paul II proclaimed her saint and the 

following year he declared her 

patroness of Europe. When 

phenomenologists speak of the human 

body, they make a distinction, or rather 

they argue that this body has a dual 

nature. We have a physical body made 

of bone and flesh that has weight and 

occupies space; if we look at our body 

from this point of view, 

phenomenologists call it Körper. This 

Körper, however, (brain, liver, heart, 

muscles, bones, joints, all organs and 

our physical body structure) is at the 

same time leib: it is a living body, that 

is, it is the source of our experience; all 

that is psychic is consciousness linked 

to the leib, the living body. 

Neuroscience today has the 

opportunity to shed light on Leib by 

questioning Körper. The point is not to 

flatten the Leib on the Körper, but to 

understand that the empirical 

investigation conducted on the Körper 

can tell us new things about the Leib. 

You have often heard parallels 

between the human mind and 

computer software in the way in which 

the ways in which certain mental 

processes are believed, rightly or 

wrongly, are described. Words and a 

vocabulary taken from the language of 

computers and artificial intelligence 

are used, so many talking about the 

brain say that it is a biological machine 

that does things not very different from 

what a processor does: it processes 

information and it is possible to 

refer to our mental activities such as 

processing information. If it were only 

this, in my opinion, it would leave 

out the most relevant aspect that 

describes us as human beings, namely 

the domain of experience. By knowing 

the world, opening ourselves to the 

world, entering into a relationship with 

the world, we feel something and have 

an experience. One of the compasses 

that has guided and continues to 

guide research and my studies is the 

ambition or perhaps only the illusion 

of seeking the bodily origins of this so 

fundamental aspect of our life, which 

is experiencing something. In this 

specific case, experiencing images and, 

among the thousands of images we 

experience every day, those particular 

images that we have historically begun 

to define as works of art. 


Stein argued that the notion of 

empathy, hence the feeling inside 

the other, should not be limited to 

the mere sharing of emotions and 

feelings, a partial vision that often 

dominates. Stein and Husserl with her 

defined empathy as something even 

more fundamental than a mechanism 

that allows me to understand if the 

person in front of me is angry, happy, 

sad, surprised or disgusted. We 

experience the other, says Stein, as 

another human being like us, thanks 

to the perception of a relationship of 

similarity. So I don’t have to reinvent 

myself every time the discovery that 

Mrs. Rossi or Mr. Bianchi standing in 

front of me are human beings like me 

at the end of a complicated path of 

logical inferences; empathy is at the 

basis of this detection of similarity in 

otherness, it is another not me, it is 

another human being like me, if this 

were not the case we would enter 

the domain of psychopathology. This 

perception of similarity, this other 

that speaks to me in a language that 

is more or less familiar to me, that is 

understandable to me, this creature in 

which I find myself, which is not alien, 

always within certain limits and with 

enormous inter-individual variability, 

is the product of this basic mechanism 

that allows me to detect this similarity 

which, I repeat, is not only a similarity 

of affects, emotions and sensations 

but which is global. Stein has also 

specifically emphasized the domain 

of action, comparing the hand of the 

child, the hand of the monkey and the 

hand of the elderly: even if visually 

they have different dimensions, 

different colors, different levels 

of hirsute certainly very different 

nevertheless for us they are all hands; 

their characteristic of belonging to 

this same semantic category derives 

precisely from the common domain of 

movement, of action that we recognize 

regardless of age, genus or even 

species. 

In Germany, the character 

who has ferried the 

notion of empathy from a 

debate totally within aesthetics to 

psychology is Theodor Lipps. Theodor 

Lipps is an author that Freud read 

avidly, for whom he felt a great 

esteem, and whom he mentioned in 

many passages in his writings about 

him. For example, in Inhibition 

Symptom and Distress, an essay he 

published in 1926, he argues that it is 

only thanks to empathy that we know 

the existence of a psychic life different 

from ours. Therefore, empathy is the 

fundamental element that allows us to 

relate to the other, certainly not the 

only one but, probably from an 

evolutionary point of view, the much 

older one and also present in animal 

species that have not yet reached the 

language. 

Now we see how the theme of 

empathy, of this direct resonance 

between me and the other, 

becomes a crucial aspect of my 


25

elationship with others; it allows us 

to better understand the question of 

intersubjectivity, the possibility, by 

relating to the other, to recognize a 

mind in the other, someone who thinks 

and feels emotions, someone who if 

he gets hurt will probably feel pain 

like me. Let us therefore examine how 

these aspects relate to the aesthetic 

experience; this word, the history of 

words is always very important, it 

comes from the Greek aisthesis and 

refers to bodily sensitivity. So, this 

term has a close link with our bodily 

nature. The first hypothesis I want to 

discuss is this: by creative expression 

I mean the ability, since the origins of 

the human species, to create objects, 

images, sculptures and paintings that 

did not have a utilitarian purpose, for 

which our ancestors did not build only 

tools to kill a mammoth or skin animals 

just to get the skins to build a tent. 

These artifacts, these objects, these 

sculptures and these paintings, which 

archaeologists probably tell us were 

already part of the cognitive skills of 

the Neanderthals, allow us to backdate 

the origin of our symbolic and artistic 

expression. 

The hypothesis is that this 

expressiveness and this symbolic 

creativity are some of the 

characteristic brands and fundamental 

interpretations that make us 

understand who we are and what it 

means to be human beings; they are 

peculiarities closely intertwined with 

the performativity of the body, that is, 

with the movement potential of our 

body. We do not find this performative 

aspect only in the production of images 

but, here lies the novelty, we also find 

it in their reception. I anticipate what I 

am going to say shortly: when we place 

ourselves in front of a body depicted 

two-dimensionally on the wall of a 

cave, on the fresco of a cathedral or on 

the canvas of a painting, when we place 

ourselves in front of the image of a 

body that someone else has made with 

brushes and colors, there is a part of 

our corporeality that resonates. 

Even when we’re not moving, there is 

a sensorimotor part of our brain that 

simulates what we are seeing on the 

canvas or wall. So the history of man is 

a history in which nature and culture 

are intertwined, they are two terms 

that we have tried desperately to keep 

distinct; however, what biology tells 

us more every day is how they are 

two sides of the same coin. Beyond 

this discourse, the history of nature 

and human culture is a history that 

proceeds in a progressive process of 

distancing from the body, perhaps as 

an instrument to somehow exorcise 

the awareness of our finite nature and 

the awareness of death; therefore the 

desperate attempt to leave a trace 

that is not the footprint imprinted 

by the animal on the ground, but 

an intentional trace that we leave 

voluntarily, with the hope that this 

sign then survives us and continues to 

speak about us in some way. 

Art becomes the mature fruit of 

the new and different way in which 

man, at a certain point in his own 

evolution, relates to the “reality” of 


the outside world. The material world 

is no longer considered exclusively 

as a domain to be bent utilitarianly 

to one’s needs. The material object 

loses the exclusive connotation of 

an instrument to become a symbol, 

a public representation, an eidos 

capable of evoking the presentification 

of something that, apparently, is not 

present except in the mind of the 

artist and in that of the beholder. This 

“mental tuning” between creator and 

user has deep roots in the shared 

experience that we all have of the 

natural evidence of the world, probably 

even if not completely, thanks to 

some neural mechanisms. Art distills 

and condenses this experience by 

universalizing it and, at the same time, 

affirming a new possible way of looking 

at reality by staging it. The artistic 

object, which is never an object in 

itself, is the pole of an intersubjective, 

and therefore social, relationship which 

excites as it evokes sensorimotor and 

affective resonances in those who 

relate to it. 

Think of those 

temples of human 

creativity that are 

natural 

environments such 

as the Lascaux 

Caves, a cave complex found in 

southwestern France (Upper Paleolithic, 

approximately 17,500 years ago) or, 

closer to us, the Chauvet cave where 

during the Paleolithic a character 

unknown to us, a man or a woman, we 

do not know who this artist was, 

suddenly draws animals as he sees 

them in the surrounding environment; 

he draws figures that still amaze us 

today with their beauty and their 

expressive effectiveness. The brain of 

that Homo Sapiens was a brain that had 

felt the deep need to represent 

something that he saw with which he 

was in relationship; this is to say how 

basically an artistic manifestation is an 

expression of our brain function. This 

process goes through the engravings of 

ocher blocks of 70 thousand years ago 

in the cave of Blombos near Cape Town, 

the Paleolithic paintings in the south of 

France or Spain that today we date back 

in some respects also 70 thousand 

years ago (so they were certainly not 

Sapiens not yet arrived in Europe, but 

Neanderthal), up to the invention of the 

alphabet, writing, printing, 

photography, cinema, television and 

this electronic gadget that allows me to 

navigate in virtual worlds. Despite this 

process of moving away from the body, 

the link with our bodily nature also in 

these artifacts external to our body 

remains intact, this is what 

neuroscientific research seems to 

suggest. 

A famous art historian, 

Heinrich Wölfflin, in 1886 

published his doctoral thesis 

entitled: “Prolegomena to a 

psychology of architecture”; 

the author has made statements that 


27

are still extraordinarily modern today 

and that are even more relevant if we 

reread them in the light of what, in the 

meantime, we have learned about our 

body and our brain. Physical forms, 

Wölfflin here referred to the columns 

and structure of a Greek temple, can be 

characteristic for the viewer only to the 

extent that we ourselves possess a 

body; if we were purely optical entities, 

the aesthetic judgment of the physical 

world would be precluded from us. It is 

our bodily nature and our being subject 

to the physical laws that, governing life 

in this particular world that we inhabit, 

dictate some of the characteristics that 

distinguish the way we relate to these 

particular images which can also be 

architectural images (the Cathedral of 

Ferrara, the Estense Castle or any 

product of human architectural 

ingenuity). 

Another essential aspect 

for understanding the 

artistic experience, which 

I mentioned earlier, is 

that the body is not only 

the tool for producing 

images, it is also the 

fundamental tool for their reception; 

these things have already been said, 

written and repeated several times in 

the history of human culture. Adolf von 

Hildebrand was a German sculptor, in 

my view not particularly exciting as a 

sculptor and much more interesting as 

an art theorist. As a theorist of 

aesthetics, he published in 1893 the 

book “The Problem of Form in Figurative 

Art” where he argued that the reality of 

artistic images lies in their 

effectiveness, both as the consequence 

of actions of the artist who produced 

them both in light of the impact these 

images have on the viewer. The 

aesthetic value of works of art resides 

in the power they have to establish 

links between the artist’s intentional 

creative acts and their reconstruction 

by those who put themselves in front 

of these images, therefore their 

reconstruction in the mind of those 

who see them. look. Hildebrand in this 

book argued that the perception of the 

spatiality of the image is the result of a 

sensorimotor constructive process: 

space would not constitute an “a priori” 

of experience, as suggested by Kant, 

but would be a product of it. He also 

affirmed that the reality of the artistic 

image resides in its effectiveness, 

conceived twofold both as a result of 

the causes that produced it and as an 

effect it provokes in those who observe 

it. According to the same 

“constructivist” logic, the value of a 

work of art would consist in the ability 

to establish a relationship between the 

artist’s intentional planning and the 

reconstruction of such planning by 

those who benefit from the work. In 

this way a direct relationship is 

established between creation and 

artistic fruition. Knowing the image is 

equivalent, according to Hildebrand, to 

knowing the process that creates it. 

Even more in line with my perspective 

is Hildebrand’s idea that the aesthetic 

experience is fundamentally connoted 


in motor terms. He supported 

Andrea Pinotti in the presentation 

of Hildebrand’s work to the Italian 

edition, which he edited with Fabrizio 

Scrivano: “For Hildebrand, everything 

begins with the movements of the 

hands and eyes; that is, when the body 

reaches out towards the construction 

of space. [...] Movement is what allows 

the articulation of meaning, it is what 

allows you to connect the elements 

available in space, it is what allows the 

object to be formed, it is what allows for 

representation and representation. [...] 

For this reason the work of art always 

contains the indications of mobility, 

because it is itself a product of its own 

and at the same time asks the user 

to set in motion his own perceptive 

activity that allows him to break down 

/ recompose the ‘image”. In a nutshell, 

for Hildebrand the body is the set 

of structures that make sensible 

experience and the significance of the 

image possible. In chapter VI, entitled 

“Form as functional expression”, 

Hildebrand wrote: “In a state of total 

stillness, a tendinous hand with long 

fingers remembers so much the image 

of the hand that is stretched out to 

grasp that it expresses the tendency 

of grasping and the bodily sensation 

that connects to it. It bears, so to speak, 

the imprint of a latent state activity. 

Strongly developed jaws give the 

impression of strength and energy [...]. 

In this way certain forms, even if they 

are not thought of in motion at all, come 

to express inner processes, because they 

recall forms in motion. On the basis 

of this method of transposition, the 

artist succeeds in fixing and configuring 

formal types that have a certain 

expression and that arouse certain 

bodily and psychic sensations in the 

observer “. 

In Neuroscience when we talk about 

art, creativity, symbolic faculty, 

aesthetics, empathy it is like seeing 

the world looking through a keyhole, 

that is, limiting the variables to the 

maximum in a completely artificial 

environment that is that of the 

laboratory, taking one element at a 

time because otherwise we would not 

be able to master these variables all 

at once. On the basis of the results we 

obtain, with each small brick we build 

something incrementally; the results of 

each experiment give partial answers, 

raise new questions that stimulate us 

to do new experiments, that give us 

other partial answers that raise other 

questions and in doing so, I assure you, 

the pay is low, but the fun is maximum 

and it is a beautiful job. 

For what has been said previously, 

we can see the aesthetic experience 

of images as a mediated form of 

intersubjectivity; every time I place 

myself in front of a painting, a 

sculpture or a fresco, I do not relate 

exclusively to an object of the physical 

world provided with some formal 

characteristics such as color, shape, 

features, mass and volume, I also relate 

every time with another human being, 

he or she who made those images. The 

work of art becomes the mediator of an 

interpersonal relationship between me 

and what today, from the Renaissance 

onwards, we have learned to call as 


29

an artist. This distinction between art 

and craft is historically determined; 

there are many anecdotes that testify 

it, Leonardo, for example, when he 

delivered the first version of the Virgin 

of the Rocks, the one exhibited in the 

Louvre, was very angry to discover that 

the friars of Milan paid him little more 

than what they gave to the one we 

would now call the craftsman to whom 

they had commissioned the frame that 

was to enclose his painting. “I am who 

created the work”, he probably did not 

say artist, but this is where the idea 

comes that not all manual activities 

are the same and therefore these 

terms (beauty, artist, creative genius or 

creator) are all terms that have come 

to be determined historically. Below 

this historical determinacy there is the 

flesh, there is our intimate corporeal 

nature which, although historically 

modulated, determined and culturally 

educated, in one way or another, 

retains common roots which are the 

ones we are interested in investigating. 

To study the mechanisms underlying 

the aesthetic experience, we turn 

our attention to this object which is 

precisely the brain; however, we must 

frame the brain linked to the body, 

the brain is not clear if we approach 

it as a computer built on a biological 

substrate. The brain does the fantastic 

things it does and allows us to exist, 

to experience the world only to the 

extent that it is interfaced with the 

world through the body. Not everyone 

shares this vision, when many of my 

colleagues decide to deal with art and 

aesthetics as neuroscientists, they do 

so from a perspective that, borrowing a 

term from art history, we could define 

as pure-visibilist; between the serious 

and the facetious I say that we have 

to fight visual imperialism. I mean, 

more or less explicitly, that many of 

my colleagues say that when we put 

ourselves in front of a painting, we are 

looking at an image, consequently if we 

wanted to understand what happens in 

our brain when we look at an image, we 

should study the part of the brain. socalled 

visual which is largely located in 

the back of the brain. 

I support and not only say it, 30 years 

of results obtained in all sauces and 

all over the world say it, this is a wrong 

view of the functioning of the brain. 

Observing the world and therefore 

the objects we find in the world, in 

particular those characteristic objects 

that we have learned to recognize 

as artistic artifacts and works of art, 

triggers much more complex processes 

than simply activating the visual part 

of the brain. Observing the world not 

only activates the visual part of the 

brain, it also activates the emotional 

part, the tactile part and the motor 

part; therefore, we are all synaesthetic 

when we face any object. By placing 

ourselves in front of an object and 

looking at it, we do not only exercise 

a single sensory channel which is that 

of vision; as we will see, the areas that 

map tactile sensations are activated, 

the parts of the brain that allow us to 

experience emotions and the parts of 

the brain that allow us to move our 

body, that is the motor part of the 

brain. 


In the last 30 years, 

although we still know 

very little about it, we 

have made some 

progress in our 

knowledge of how the 

brain works; one of the 

things we have 

understood is that the 

motor system is not just 

a machine designed to send impulses 

to the muscles to make the different 

parts of our body move. The same 

neurons that guide my hand to grab a 

glass are also activated when I stand 

still and just look at that glass. They 

transform the three-dimensional 

characteristics of the object into the 

motor pattern that I normally use to 

interact with that object, for example, 

if I want to grab it to drink; this they do 

every time I look at this glass even 

when I have no intention of taking it. 

Other motor neurons (for example, 

those that command my reaching 

movement with the arm that I have to 

stretch to take objects that are not 

directly within reach) react to tactile 

stimuli carried on my arm, respond to 

visual stimuli that only move if they 

move around my arm and sound stimuli 

that occur in the vicinity of my arm. 

Therefore, these tactile, visual and 

auditory stimuli are mapped by motor 

neurons which organize them, in some 

way, providing a glue. The horizon of 

my world, I do not say only, is also 

constituted by the motor potentialities 

that my body makes available to me; a 

way of knowing the world that is what 

Merleau Ponty has defined 

“practognosia”, that is, a knowledge 

that derives from the motor potential 

of my body. 

Among these motor 

neurons, which are not 

satisfied with producing 

movements and which 

also respond to sensory 

stimuli, are mirror neurons. They are a 

class of motor neurons that are 

activated involuntarily both when an 

individual performs a finalized action, 

and when the same individual observes 

the same finalized action performed by 

any other subject. They were 

discovered in 1992 by a group of 

researchers from the University of 

Parma (team coordinated by Giacomo 

Rizzolatti and composed of Luciano 

Fadiga, Leonardo Fogassi and Vittorio 

Gallese). If I had to condense into an 

expression what this process allows us 

to do, to use a metaphor dear to 

Vittorio Gallese, the mechanism that 

these neurons realize is not very 

dissimilar from what Dante, in Paradise, 

attributes to a blessed soul. In 

addressing Folco da Marseille, we are in 

Paradise, therefore he is a disembodied 

entity, Dante tells him: I am an earthly 

creature in transit, if I were a blessed 

soul like you and not burdened by this 

earthly corporeality I would not need to 

wait for you to ask me something to 

guess how you immii, “If I guess how 

you immii” (Cfr Paradiso IX, 81). Dante’s 

linguistic creativity transforms you and 

me into two verbs. Insight into another 

is empathizing with the other, it is 

somehow being aware, within certain 

limits, of what is going through the 

mind of another and what the other is 


31

feeling. 

The term mirror neurons 

is simply a metaphor: we 

have no mirrors in our 

heads, there is no 

reflective surface in 

these neurons. The same 

neuron that allows me to perform an 

action is also activated when I see that 

action performed by someone else; 

somehow it implicitly establishes an 

interaction without my having to 

concentrate or think complicated 

thoughts, it makes me recognize in that 

movement something with which I 

resonate: it is a take or put, a move, a 

hold, a breaking, etc. First discovered in 

apes, this mirroring mechanism is even 

more extensive in humans; it is not 

limited to actions with a purpose and we 

can see it being activated when we 

perform actions on objects, 

communicative actions, but also 

movements apparently devoid of any 

purpose. If you now saw me raise my 

arm while I raise my arm, there are 

thousands of neurons in your motor 

brain that are firing at the same time 

even if your arm is still; you are 

simulating or rather your neurons are 

behaving like when 

you lift your arm. An 

even more 

interesting fact is 

that this also 

happens when we 

imagine performing an action while 

remaining still; if you imagine carrying 

two cartons, of six bottles each, of 

mineral water to the seventh floor of a 

building, going up step by step, at the 

end of this imaginative activity if I 

measure your blood pressure and heart 

rate you will have an increase in values 

blood pressure and heart rate; this 

happens in a similar way to when we 

see particularly engaging films. Below, 

we can have a demonstration of the 

extraordinary power that images have, 

not only when they are in motion, but 

also when they are still images. 

Observing the incredibly expressive 

details traits of the Lamentation over 

the Dead Christ by Niccolò dell’Arca or 

the Memory of a pain or Portrait of 

Santina Negri by Giuseppe Pellizza da 

Volpedo, despite being static images 

anyone who looks at this gesture, this 

hand, the way in which this hand grabs 

the arm of the chair, it is not simply the 

registration of a three-dimensional 

object with a certain color, it is an 

image that gives us a sense of 

movement; this sense of movement, in 

turn, transmits emotions and makes us 

attached. 

Daniel Stern, 

unfortunately passed 

away a few years ago, 

was a famous American 

psychiatrist, one of 

those people who 

revolutionized the way we look at 

children and an important protagonist 

of Infant Research. One of his bestknown 

books is “The Interpersonal 

World of the Child”, published in 1985. 

“The vital forms. Dynamic experience in 

psychology, art, psychotherapy and 

development” is the title of the last 


ook he wrote shortly before his death 

and it is a book that he dedicates to a 

concept he already talks about in 1985, 

in that his first very successful book, 

which is the concept of vital form. The 

vital form is the emotional outline of 

every movement. If my wife 

comes home and closes the 

door in a certain way and 

throws the keys on the 

dresser in the hall in a 

certain way, I already know 

what awaits me; I draw these 

conclusions from the fact 

that that way of moving a 

part of her body, that way of walking in 

the corridor, that prosody with which she 

asks me if I’m at home, communicates 

something about her affectivity and her 

emotionality; she tells me something 

that is perhaps not translatable with 

words, as words are always tight in some 

situations. Stern argued that there is a 

temporal boundary or temporal profile of 

the movement that marks its beginning, 

its flow and its conclusion. This temporal 

profile was masterfully made with wax 

by Medardo Rosso, we see the snapshot 

of the laugh that illuminates the face of 

this little girl; if we turn her head, we 

almost have the impression of her and 

we are curious to see if we find that smile 

in that face of her because the dynamics 

of facial expressions are such that that 

smile can appear and disappear. We turn 

around and she is still there, her stillness 

transmits a wealth of emotional content; 

the hypothesis is that much of this 

affective content passes through this 

emotional prosody of movement. 

Some researchers 

have conducted an 

experiment in 

functional magnetic resonance by 

making videos in which the subjects 

saw communicative actions without 

sound, therefore gentle, irritated or 

angry gestures; the instruction given 

to the subjects was simply to observe 

these acts and in two different 

conditions to say what was the 

purpose of the action or what was the 

affective tonality of the action. So, the 

what: what is that gesture there? 

Towards the how: how that gesture 

was made, in a kind way, in a grumpy 

way or in an angry way. What emerged 

is that a portion of an anatomical 

structure that is in the depth of our 

brain is activated which is called the 

Insula of Reil. It was named after a 

Prussian doctor who went down in the 

annals of medical history for treating 

Goethe for kidney stones and who 

died of typhus in the Battle of Leipzig 

(October 16-19, 1813), also known as 

the Battle of the nations. Reil was the 

superintendent of Prussian field 

hospitals and gave his name to this 

deep structure for first describing it. 

The insula, which has a fan-shaped 

structure, very beautiful anatomically 

to see, is a hinge between our internal 

world and the world outside of us; that 

is, between our feeling inside the 

heartbeat, breathing, intestinal 

motility and everything that moves 

inside us and outside of us when some 

things happen rather than others. A 

specific part of this structure is 


33

activated when we factor in the how of 

the action and this same area is 

activated regardless of whether we 

observe or execute the how of the 

action; it is also activated not only if we 

make the gentle gesture or the brusque 

gesture, but also when we imagine that 

we are performing that gesture in a 

gentle or brusque way. You see how 

again these mechanisms hold together 

doing, seeing done, and imagining 

doing. 

So far, we have only talked about 

actions, but this represents only the 

tip, we have noticed over the years, of a 

much larger iceberg: in other words, we 

find these same mirroring mechanisms 

similar also in the domain of emotions 

and in the domain of sensations. Trying 

to put together the tiles of this mosaic, 

Vittorio Gallese proposed the model of 

the “Embodied Simulation” which is a 

model of perception and imagination; 

part of our brain mechanisms that we 

normally use to perform actions or to 

experience emotions and sensations, 

we also reuse them to map the actions, 

emotions and sensations of others. 

Embodied simulation represents a 

format of representation: neurons 

actually represent nothing are all 

metaphors, neurons only fire action 

potentials, neurons do not feel, do not 

love, do not get angry, do not feel envy 

or jealousy, do not have the sense of 

beauty, all these are characteristics 

that belong holistically to the owner 

of those neurons. There are various 

ways to represent the world, one of 

which is language, but it is not the 

only one; language is probably the last 

way we invented to represent things. 

If you want to explain to someone 

how to get from your home to the 

subway stop, this is the content, you 

can communicate it in various ways; 

you can explain it with gestures: “when 

you get out of here turn left then 

turn left again and when you arrive 

at the traffic lights go straight ahead 

and you will find the stop on your 

right”. Or you can send him a Google 

map with a text message or you can 

explain it over the phone using only 

words without making gestures. The 

content is always the same, the format 

in which you have represented that 

particular content, such as going from 

your home to the subway station, is 

variable. Our mind has a variety of 

representation formats, for many there 

is only language, for many others, 

including myself, it doesn’t. There are 

much older representation formats that 

are the first that develop when we are 

small and over which, then, language 

exercises its power of domination and 

conditioning. We reuse our states or 

mental processes in body format also 

to attribute them to others: to others in 

flesh and blood or to static images. 

The dialogue between 

human sciences and 

neuroscience is not new; 

without going too far in 

time, in the period 

between the end of the 

nineteenth century and the beginning 

of the twentieth, many scholars of what 

we now call the human sciences have 

drawn relevant ideas for their studies 


and their reflections by comparing 

themselves with contemporary 

scientific thought, especially with 

physiology and biology. 

Guillaume-Benjamin- 

Amand Duchenne de 

Boulogne was a French 

neurologist who, through 

electrical stimulation of 

the face with electrodes, 

built an atlas of emotions 

(1855), an atlas that 

influenced Darwin’s work. Darwin’s real 

best seller was “the Expression of 

Emotions in Man and Animals” that he 

published in 1872 where, among other 

things, he wrote: “Facial expressions are 

an essential component of human social 

and emotional behavior”. It is good to 

remember that the idea that the face is 

the mirror of the soul is a concept that 

is historically affirmed only starting 

from humanism. 

This dialogue was 

particularly important in 

the aesthetic field: from 

this point of view the 

figure of Aby Warburg is 

paradigmatic. Aby 

Warburg, founder as he 

himself said of a science without a 

name, as a good German to learn the 

History of Art he went to Florence 

where he met Darwin’s book; after 

reading the book “The Expression of 

Emotions in Man and Animals”, in his 

diary he noted: “finally a book that 

helps me”. In this book by Darwin, 

Warburg, who wrote the famous essay 

on the frescoes of Palazzo Schifa 

noia, saw the 

possibility of 

broadening the 

horizons of the 

History of Art by 

including the 

transmission of 

emotions and the 

power of images 

proper. According to Warburg, a theory 

of artistic styles must be conceived as a 

pragmatic science of expression; the 

etymology of the word style is quite 

significant, style derives from stilus, 

that is the wooden stick with which one 

wrote on the wax-coated tablets. You 

see how even in a term whose 

performative origin has been forgotten, 

this performativity is always there, just 

go and look for it. Empathy is a styleforming 

power and therefore these 

aspects in Warburg are fully connected, 

so connected as to lead him to the 

formulation of the idea of the formulas 

of pathos (Pathosformeln), this basso 

continuo, these postural attitudes that 

re-emerge several times in the history 

of art, from classical to Renaissance art 

(for example, in the Ghirlandaio 

frescoes in Santa Maria Novella). These 

formulas of pathos are a variety of 

body postures, gestures and actions 

that exemplify the aesthetic side of 

Einfühlung, of empathy as one of the 

most creative sources of artistic style. 

In Darwin’s book he found the role of 

the central nervous system in directing 

the unconscious execution of bodily 

gestures expressing a given emotion. 

He also found the role of habitual 

practices in associating a given bodily 

expression with a given emotional 


35

state, underlining the biological 

usefulness of this association. Finally, 

thanks to Darwin, Warburg discovered 

the evolutionary need for the bodily 

expression of emotions, transmitted in 

the form of non-conscious memory. The 

notion of imprint (Prägung) was used 

by Warburg to characterize the survival 

in the history of art of particular 

gestures and body postures. The 

drapery, the body movements, the hair 

moved by the wind that characterize 

the figures of Botticelli are not only and 

exclusively the result of the conscious 

mimetic reproduction of the classical 

models, they are more significantly the 

evidence of the survival of the human 

imprints of expression 

(Ausdrucksprägungen). In fact, Warburg, 

who was not afraid to cross the fences 

that separate different disciplines, 

conceived the history of art as a means 

of shedding light on the typically 

human power of expression. By doing 

so, he extended the methodological 

frontiers of the study of art in a 

completely new way, opening it to the 

contributions of science. Also, from this 

point of view, Warburg’s contribution 

should today be carefully re-evaluated. 

Aby Warburg was also a keen admirer 

of Hildebrand, an omnivorous reader 

who therefore ranged from Darwin to 

his contemporary physiologists such as 

Helmoltz, Hering, and Semon, 

indifferent to the disciplinary barriers 

that, unfortunately still today, often 

prevent a dialogue between life 

sciences and human Sciences. Warburg 

conceived the history of art as a tool to 

clarify the historical psychology of 

human expression; according to him, it 

is necessary to extend the 

methodological frontiers of the study 

of art so as to put the history of art 

itself at the service of “a psychology of 

human expression that has yet to be 

written”. His notion of “patemic form of 

expression” (Pathosformel) shows 

extraordinary assonances with the 

formal types described by Hildebrand. 

For Warburg, certain bodily attitudes, 

gestures, actions and postures 

resurface several times throughout the 

history of art precisely because they 

exemplify the aesthetic act of empathy 

as a creative power of style. In the 

wake of Hildebrand, Warburg has 

developed a theory of style as a 

“pragmatic science of expression” 

(pragmatische Ausdruckskunde). 

Empathy plays on two tables, on the 

table of the expression of the creation 

of the artistic object and on that of 

its reception. When we look at a face 

to express joy, sadness or fear if we 

record what happens on the surface 

of our face, in particular if we go to 

record the activity of our muscles 

with electromyography, we see how 

we all, some more or less, respond 

unconsciously in a congruent way; if I 

see someone laughing, the cheekbone 

contracts a little, if I see someone 

expressing a negative emotion, the 

eyebrow muscle contracts a little. The 

more empathic I am, the greater the 

entity of this mechanism and, turning 

everything around, we could argue 

that the stronger this mechanism is, 

the more empathic I am, applying the 

scales for evaluating people’s empathic 

skills. 


In recent decades, neuroscientific 

research has shown a growing interest 

in art and aesthetics. The crucial 

point is not to use art to study the 

functioning of the brain, it is to study 

the brain-body system to understand 

what makes us human and how. More 

than Neuroesthetics, we should speak 

of experimental aesthetics, where 

the notion of “aesthetics” is declined 

according to its original etymology: 

Aisthesis, that is, multimodal 

perception of the world through the 

body. Thanks to the contributions 

of cognitive neuroscience, we have 

learned that human intelligence also at 

the sub-personal level of description, 

that is, at the level of description that 

relates to neurons and brain areas, 

is closely linked to the corporeality 

located in the world of individuals. 

This corporeality is not exclusively 

reducible to a physical object with 

extension and is fully realized in the 

sphere of experience. The body is 

always a living body (Leib) that acts 

and experiences a world that resists 

it. The concepts of being, feeling, 

acting and knowing describe different 

ways of our relationships with the 

world. These modalities all share a 

constitutive bodily root, in turn mapped 

into distinct and specific modes of 

functioning of brain circuits and neural 

mechanisms. At the level of the brainbody 

system, action, perception and 

cognition share the same carnal root, 

although they are differently organized 

and connected at the functional level. 

These recent acquisitions make it 

possible to address the themes of art 

and aesthetics from a new perspective, 

that of an experimental aesthetic that 

investigates the responses of the brain 

and the body together. 

Cognitive 

neuroscience has 

progressively 

extended its field of 

investigation to the 

domain of artistic 

creation, both in terms of music and 

that of the visual arts. For reasons of 

space, I will focus here only on the 

latter. The term used to define this 

approach is “Neuroesthetics”. This term 

was originally coined by the 

neuroscientist Semir Zeki, referring to 

the study of the neural basis of the 

ability to appreciate beauty and art. 

Zeki has so far focused this approach 

exclusively on the relationship 

between aesthetics and vision. In any 

aesthetic experience, according to Zeki, 

the brain, like the artist, must eliminate 

any inessential information from the 

visual world in order to represent the 

real character of an object. It would be 

by virtue of this ability that artists, 

according to Zeki, can be defined as 

“natural scientists”, capable of evoking 

an aesthetic response in the creative 

brain. In 1994, the British 

neuroscientist published a book 

entitled “The neurology of kinetic art”, 

written in collaboration with Matthew 

Lamb, starting a series of studies aimed 

at understanding the biological basis of 

aesthetic experience, which in fact laid 

the foundations of Neuroesthetics. 

Scholars of the humanities, for their 

part, have shown and, in large part, 

continue to show great distrust, 


37

evaluating Neuroesthetics as an undue 

interference or, at best, as an approach 

with little or no heuristic value. I 

believe that this reaction is premature 

and fundamentally wrong, deriving on 

the one hand from a lack of knowledge 

of the potential and limits of the 

neuroscientific approach, sometimes 

combined with a corporate defense of 

one’s own disciplinary fields. On the 

other hand, the excessive 

neurodeterminism often shown by the 

neuroscientific approach to aesthetics 

and art, ready to flatten and reduce the 

concepts of beauty or aesthetic 

pleasure exclusively to the 

functionality of neurons contained in 

specific brain regions, did not help. the 

dialogue. Unfortunately, among many 

lovers of the human sciences there 

remains, as a sort of conditioned reflex, 

the tendency to connect everything 

that has to do with naturalization to a 

mechanistic and innatistic perspective. 

This is not the case. Epigenetics shows 

not only how the environment is able 

to condition the expression of genes, 

but also how this modified gene 

expression can be transmitted to 

offspring. This demonstrates how the 

various social constructions are in any 

case attributable to biological 

perspectives of naturalization. We 

should get out of this dichotomous 

perspective and finally accept the idea 

already supported in the past, for 

example by Helmuth Plessner, that man 

is both naturally artificial and 

artificially natural. 

Neuroesthetics is 

studied above all 

through brain imaging techniques, 

mainly through Functional Magnetic 

Resonance Imaging (fMRI), to 

understand how the brain responds to 

beauty. Particular sensory sequences 

can be applied through which it is 

possible to see which areas of the brain 

are particularly stressed while the 

subject is subjected to stimulation 

(tactile, visual and acoustic stimuli are 

presented or subjected to a specific 

task). When the person performs these 

tasks, his brain uses certain areas in a 

particular way and we, through the 

metabolic consumption that requires 

an increase in oxygen, we can see what 

these areas are. Resonance is a 

frequently used technique because it 

allows us to observe the brain and its 

functions in vivo; it is not invasive, so 

much so that it is also used regularly in 

the clinic. In a typical experimental 

setting, the subject is placed on the 

resonance couch, he is made to wear 

headphones to isolate him from the 

resonance noise and 

to transmit acoustic 

stimuli and he is 

made to wear a 

viewer to send him, 

through optical fiber 

cables, of images 

with specific timings. In most cases, the 

subject is equipped with a button panel 

that allows him to express a judgment 

or perform a task, when he is inside the 


MRI. Once prepared, the subject is 

inserted inside the tube, where there is 

a magnetic field. Overlooking the 

resonance room there is a console 

room, where several computers are 

active; in some of them the brain 

activity is recorded by others, instead, 

the stimulation is sent (for example, 

the visual stimuli, simultaneously 

recording the times of sending of the 

stimuli). This is because, knowing when 

the brain has been stimulated, we are 

able to align brain activity with the 

type of stimulation and therefore to 

isolate those effects that interest us. 

With this experimental methodology, 

the group of prof. Rizzolatti conducted 

a study which wanted to generate 

a genuine experience of disgust in 

subjects, placed in magnetic resonance, 

making them inhale disgusting 

odorants through a mask; later they 

were shown video images in which, 

among other things, they saw a man 

who, after inhaling the contents of 

a glass, made the typical expression 

of disgust. In both situations, the 

same part of the anterior insula was 

activated, it was activated for my 

disgust and it was activated even when 

I saw the disgust of others. This has 

somehow consolidated the idea that 

emotion is something that happens 

like a two-stroke engine: first there is 

the inner feeling, what I feel which, 

then, finds a bodily translation that 

is externalized. When the idea of 

subjectivity took hold in Humanism, 

Petrarch fled the crowd because he did 

not want his inner feelings to shine 

through, being seen by others: “... I 

can’t find another screen that escapes 

me, from the manifest accorger de le 

genti, because acts of dullness, from the 

outside you can read like me inside the 

forepart …”. 

Recently, at the Niguarda 

Hospital in Milan, 

electrodes were implanted 

for epileptic patients 

waiting to undergo surgery 

aimed at ablation of the 

diseased part of the brain 

that cannot be treated with 

drugs; stimulating a particular region of 

the brain with these electrodes 

produces laughter and joy and, by 

recording from the same electrodes, 

this same region is activated even 

when these same people see someone 

laughing. This is an empirical 

demonstration of what many 

theoretically had already guessed. Max 

Scheler, philosopher of the current of 

phenomenology, already at the 

beginning of the twentieth century 

argued that affective and emotional 

states are not mere qualities of 

subjective experience, something that 

occurs exclusively in my interiority, but 

are given in expressive phenomena 

that is, they are 

expressed in 

gestures and bodily 

actions and because 

of this they become 

visible to others. In 

the second part of 

Robert Musil’s Man without Qualities, 

you can read some pages that I find of 


39

an extraordinary modernity on what 

emotions are. This is why we only 

genuinely recognize emotion after it has 

been shaped by the world, we don’t 

know what we feel before our actions 

have made a decision. This also leads us 

to say that the two aspects are probably 

two sides of the same coin, the same 

brain structures that are activated when 

I express the emotion are also those that 

are activated when I experience that 

emotion or see it try to somebody else. 

We live in a world populated by images 

made by us, probably from the time 

when the planet was trodden not yet by 

the Sapiens, but by the Neanderthals; 

moreover, today we live in an age in 

which we are bombarded daily and 

massively by images. There are those 

who speak of fetishism of images and 

it is no coincidence that Freud spoke 

of scopophilia (from scopeo which 

means to look), he speaks of Schaulust, 

therefore the desire to look with 

curiosity, which he attributed to a sexual 

perversion (Tre essays on sexual theory, 

1905) when this morbid curiosity of 

the gaze is mainly concentrated on the 

body and in particular on one part of 

the body, the genital one. Freud also 

maintained that our curiosity to look 

at other objects, such as works of art, 

is a sublimation of this instinct. Not 

only that and he added: up to a certain 

point, touching is indispensable for the 

attainment of the sexual goal, the same 

thing is true for seeing. An activity is 

seeing, in the final analysis, which is 

derived from touching, so you can see 

how this synesthetic idea of a tactile 

vision, of a prehensile eye is already 

rooted in Freud; language testifies to 

it every day when we say: “I have laid 

my gaze on…”, we attribute to the eye 

properties that are not those of the 

eye, that is of an optical instrument 

but are those of the hand. 

We go to the 

museums, we 

queue in the sun 

and pay the ticket 

to contemplate, as in this photo by a 

contemporary German artist Thomas 

Struth, artistic objects. The simulation 

somehow frees itself from the 

inhibitions and becomes an imitation 

of what the image transmits to us; 

today more and more often in 

museums we see scenes like this, here 

we are at the Rijksmuseum in 

Amsterdam, this is the Night Watch 

and, hopefully, visitors are 

documenting themselves on the first 

work, perhaps, to observe it. Imagine, 

however, what a man of the 

nineteenth century could understand 

of an image like this in which 

Schaulust’s object, of desire, curiosity 

and craving not only to look but 

to capture the 

image, is realized 

by turning away 

from it; because in 

reality each of 

these ladies does 

not want an image of Hillary Clinton 

but she wants an image of herself 

together with Hillary Clinton and, 

therefore, to take her selfie they turn 

their backs on her. 


In 2007 Vittorio 

Gallese and David 

Freedberg, art 

historian of 

Columbia University, 

published an essay that dictated the 

agenda of the studies that the authors 

then developed in the following years 

(Motion, Emotion and Empathy in 

Aesthetic Experience). This is a matter 

that concerns scientific research 

relating to the relationship between 

the sphere of brain functions and the 

use of the work of art. The authors state 

that research on 

mirror neurons 

has shown 

that 

even the 

observation of 

static images of 

actions 

stimulates the act of simulation in the 

observer’s brain. This interesting 

statement shifts our attention to 

another question. Even when faced 

with a static image (for example a 

photograph or any work of art), the 

process I have just talked about is 

triggered, producing an empathic 

reaction in the observer. As Freedberg 

and Gallese say referring to Goya’s 

work “Disasters of War” (it is the title of 

a series of 82 etchings): “(...) the 

physical reactions of the observers seem 

to be located precisely in the parts of the 

body threatened, oppressed, blocked or 

destabilized in the representation. 

Furthermore, physical empathy easily 

turns into a feeling of emotional 

empathy for the ways in which the body 

is damaged or mutilated (...)”. The user 

of the image (through mirror neurons 

and embodied simulation) when, for 

example, is placed in front of a bloody 

image will have 

an 

empathic 

reaction, 

including a 

physical one, 

which will 

produce an 

emotional reaction (emotion, from the 

Latin emovēre, that is to bring out, 

move). In the light of the research of 

recent years, the perceptual 

consequences in the context of the use 

of works of art and images would all be 

enclosed in this brain system and 

would cause substantially empathic 

and emotional outcomes (i.e., from the 

inside to the outside). In this sense, the 

perception of the image would be 

linked to a mechanism that we could 

consider pre-linguistic, pre-cultural 

and, in fact, totally automatic. Our 

aesthetic experience would be the 

result of a precise autonomous and, in 

part, involuntary physiological and 

biological device. Although obviously 

socio-culturally modulated, these 

mechanisms are universal. A crucial 

element of our aesthetic experience, 

therefore, is the activation of embodied 

(embodied) mechanisms which include 

the simulation of gestures, emotions, 

somatic sensations transmitted by the 

image and which 

constitute the content of 

the image.Another 

interesting aspect related 

to the images was 

observed by von 

Hildebrand at the end of 

the nineteenth century. 


41

This aspect, more linked to the style of 

the image and its artistic quality, that is 

to the unconscious simulation in the 

user, represents the resonance in the 

observer of the artistic gesture used to 

create the work of art. A study, also of 

magnetic resonance, has shown that 

the simulation of the movement I get it 

not only when you show me the film of 

a hand grabbing a bottle, but also when 

I see a photograph that statically shows 

me the final consequence of the action. 

In another work by Mado Proverbio di 

Bicocca in Milan, it has been shown that 

the more dynamic 

the static image 

describes the action, 

the greater the 

activation in the 

motor brain of the 

observer; the more 

dynamic the action taken in a static 

image, the stronger the stimulation of 

the motor simulation in the viewer. 

Gallese and Freedberg hypothesized 

that, even when the work of art has no 

content directly and analogically 

mappable in terms of actions, emotions 

or sensations, as it lacks a recognizable 

formal content (think of a work by Lucio 

Fontana or by Jackson Pollock), the 

artist’s gestures in the production of 

the artwork induce the empathic 

involvement of the observer, activating 

in simulation mode the motor program 

that corresponds to the gesture evoked 

in the artistic stroke or sign. The signs 

on the painting or sculpture are the 

visible traces, the consequences of the 

motor acts carried out by the artist in 

the creation of the work. And it is by 

virtue of this reason that they are able 

to activate the related motor 

representations in the observer’s 

brain. As I stated earlier, aesthetic 

experience is a mediated form of 

intersubjectivity. Gallese’s group 

conducted an interesting study using 

Ugo Mulas’ famous 

service that 

captures Lucio 

Fontana in his 

atelier. The gesture 

and the 

consequence of the gesture are 

therefore studied, that is the spatial 

concept of one of his famous cuts. The 

images of Fontana’s works were 

shown alternating with images in 

which the dynamic components were 

reduced, replacing the cut with a line 

of the same length and thickness, but 

erasing the shadow that gives the 

sense of depth. The recording of the 

motor activity of the brain of the 

participants in the experiment was 

carried out with a 128-channel highdensity 

electroencephalograph. Only 

when Fontana’s cuts were seen but 

not when the control stimuli were 

shown, the motor part of their 

brain was 

activated. This was 

seen in all subjects, 

both in those who 

turned out to know 

Lucio Fontana and knew that those 

were works of art, and in those who 

had never heard of him and who, 

often, took the stimulus of control for 


the ‘original artwork and the original 

artwork for the control stimulus. 

Therefore, a resonance and motor 

simulation mechanism were found in 

all of them, net of what they more or 

less knew about the artistic quality of 

the images. 

The same 

researchers have 

replicated the same 

results using the 

works of an 

exponent of abstract expressionism, 

Franz Kline; in these works, the 

dynamism is given by the materiality of 

the brushstroke, by the dripping of the 

color, by the dripping, by the trace left 

by the brush. Kline’s works were shown 

alternating with control stimuli in 

which all these dynamic categories had 

been removed, while maintaining the 

Gestalt complexity of the stimulus. 

Here too the simulation of the gesture 

was detected, obviously this is not all 

as what is in the experience, we feel in 

front of these works is a common 

element that we cannot pretend that it 

does not exist if we want to speak in a 

way holistic of what an aesthetic 

experience is in front of an image. 

I conclude by presenting a study, 

again by the Gallese group, where, this 

time, the expression of the face that 

expresses pain was taken into account; 

Six works from the Renaissance to the 

Baroque were selected that expressed 

alternating pain, in a random sequence, 

with faces instead with a neutral 

expression. Obviously, the real works 

of art are not these but they are simply 

the cut-out face; so, I don’t pretend 

to argue that these experiments fully 

explain why we like Caravaggio, as 

Caravaggio is the whole work. As I 

said earlier it seems literally that 

we are looking through the keyhole, 

here we focus on a particular aspect 

of the work: the face, the part that 

communicates an emotion, the pain. 

They are all faces of martyrs alternating 

with a face that shows no emotion. 

We arrived at these 12 stimuli starting 

from 100, shown to a very large sample 

of people and those who all recognized 

were chosen either as expressing pain 

or as not expressing any emotion: 

therefore, pain towards a neutral 

stimulus. 

I am interested in taking a step further 

than what I have told you about so far; 

so far, I have described an automatic 

mechanism probably modulated by 

many cultural factors of my personal 

history that is activated when I put 

myself in front of an image, in the 

specific case that is activated when 

that image is an image hanging on 

the museum. I asked myself another 

question, when after having seen and 

emphasized with that image someone 

asks me to give an explicit aesthetic 

evaluation; for example, the question 

may be: how artistically beautiful this 

image looks to me and do I have to rate 

it on a scale from 0 to 10. 

When I express an aesthetic judgment, 

according to many starting from 


43

Kant, I must somehow silence all 

these mechanisms of emotional and 

empathic involvement; this is because 

I no longer have to do with what that 

image moves in my body but I only 

have to give an aesthetic judgment. 

Therefore, to do this I have to abstract 

from the body dimension, using a 

much colder tool from a cognitive 

point of view and much more abstract. 

When I make an abstract judgment 

in terms of the artistic beauty of that 

image, do these bodily mechanisms 

play a role or not? To verify this, the 

researchers of Vittorio Gallese’s group 

presented these images alternately 

and the subjects saw them in two 

different experimental conditions: 

in one block they saw them keeping 

the facial muscles relaxed and, in 

another block, actively contracting the 

corrugator muscle, then assuming a 

facial posture similar to that depicted 

in the face expressing pain. The results 

obtained showed that the aesthetic 

assessment of the faces observed was 

significantly higher when given while 

the subjects actively contracted the 

corrugator muscle, but this was only 

true for faces expressing pain and not 

for neutral faces. When, on the other 

hand, the subjects gave an aesthetic 

judgment with a relaxed face, they saw 

equally artistically beautiful the faces 

that expressed pain and the faces that 

expressed no emotion. 

Obviously, it would be excessive to 

argue that Kant was wrong, but these 

data suggest that aesthetic judgment is 

not as detached as it seems, although 

we must contextualize the result to 

this particular category of stimuli. 

The aesthetic experience took place 

in a laboratory and not in a museum, 

above all the work was not shown 

in its entirety but only the face; 

made all these due clarifications, 

the data seems to me however very 

interesting. It tells us how, even when 

we are called to deliberate an explicit 

aesthetic judgment, that game of 

free imagination which Kant speaks 

of in the Critique is not absent; since 

imagination is one of the products 

of simulation activity, these two 

dimensions of my experience in front 

of the artwork are not as separate 

as most people still believe today. 

Reproducing the expression of pain 

depicted in the observed painted 

face significantly influences the 

explicit aesthetic evaluation of the 

same face; in addition, an equally 

interesting correlation was found with 

the magnitude of this correlation. The 

people who gave the highest aesthetic 

judgment to faces that expressed pain 

when contracting their muscles were 

those who were most familiar with the 

art and had the most empathic traits. 

Here I leave it to your imagination to 

determine if seeing art and going to 

museums makes us more empathic 

or if, when we are more empathic, 

we are more likely to have a greater 

attendance of museums. In science it 

is almost never possible to establish 

a cause-and-effect relationship, we 

consider ourselves extremely lucky 

when we can establish a significant 

correlation as in this case. 


Conclusions 

I hope I have explained it in an 

understandable way, but the 

complexity of the theme of images, 

aesthetics, feelings aroused by images 

and the power of images requires a 

very complex approach, certainly not 

reducible to a simplistic neuronal 

translation of the concepts involved; 

the work of art mediates the motor 

and affective resonance that arises 

between the artist and the user, 

becomes the privileged mediator. 

The sensorimotor aspects of the 

processing of the artistic stimulus by 

the observer represent the most direct 

and automatic level of processing that 

allows the user to feel the work in a 

bodily and embodied way; obviously 

we are talking about one of the many 

dimensions that we collect under 

this linguistic label of aesthetic 

experience. What I wrote about in this 

article is only one aspect of course 

but it is an unavoidable aspect; the 

observer’s sensorimotor and affective 

involvement also seems to influence 

the explicit aesthetic judgment. 

Therefore, the embodied simulation, 

as a model of perception and 

imagination, generates in my opinion 

this characteristic quality of seeing 

“as if” which plays an important role 

in our aesthetic experience of the 

image, in particular of the images that 

today we catalog as works of art. art. 

As such it is an important ingredient 

in our ability to appreciate images. I 

also hope to have convinced you of the 

importance of another point: if at all 

perspectives from which we face the 

problem of what art is, what artistic 

images are, why we look at them and 

why we like them we also add the 

perspective angle, the point of view, 

the keyhole of looking at these issues 

from the perspective of the brain, 

this can help us rediscover the role 

of the body in that immediate form 

of intersubjectivity which is artistic 

creative expression. 

Beyond the specificity of the different 

aesthetic forms, however, I think that 

the fruition of all forms of fiction share 

common aspects that can be usefully 

investigated by asking questions 

directly to the brain-body system. The 

feeling of bodily involvement aroused 

by paintings, sculptures, architectural 

forms, literary narrative fictions, 

cinematic arts or, even, by frequenting 

virtual worlds increases our emotional 

responses to those same media. A form 

of emotional knowledge constitutes 

a fundamental ingredient of our 

aesthetic experience. The theory of 

Embodied Simulation aims to capture 

these aspects and is relevant to define 

the aesthetic experience in at least two 

ways: 

• The first, thanks to the bodily 

feelings aroused by the works 

of art with which we relate 

by means of the mirroring 

mechanisms that they evoke. 

In this way the embodied 

simulation generates that 

particular “as-if” seeing that 

plays a fundamental role in the 

aesthetic experience. 


45

• The second, by virtue of the 

embodied memories and 

imaginative associations that the 

works of art awaken in those who 

contemplate them. 

Then there is a further aspect that 

characterizes the embodied simulation 

when it is activated by our immersion 

with the world of fiction of art, 

compared to when it is aroused by 

situations of everyday life. In fact, 

while we contemplate a work of art 

or immerse ourselves in a virtual 

world, we temporarily suspend our 

relationship with the world, releasing 

energies that, paradoxically, can be 

experienced more vividly than in 

the more prosaic everyday reality. 

According to this perspective, the 

aesthetic experience of works of art 

and the experience of virtual worlds 

can be interpreted not only or not so 

much in the terms originally proposed 

by Coleridge of a cognitive suspension 

of disbelief, but as a form of “liberated 

embodied simulation “. In looking 

at a painting, in reading a novel, in 

attending a play or in a film, or in 

immersing ourselves in a virtual world, 

the embodied simulation is relieved 

of the burden of modeling our current 

presence in the “real” world. We 

look at the forms of symbolic-artistic 

expression from a safe distance by 

virtue of which our openness to the 

world is amplified. When we direct our 

attention to the world of art or virtual 

worlds, we can fully use our simulation 

resources, defusing our defenses. 

Our pleasure in art is, therefore, also 

probably guided by the sense of secure 

intimacy experienced during the 

empathic relationship with the world of 

art. 

Creativity, aesthetic experience and 

virtual experience can represent 

the moment of suspension, the gap 

between actuality and potential that 

triggers the possibility of becoming 

what you are and allows you to 

conceive the world as an infinite series 

of possibilities that refer to other 

possibilities. Seeing the invisible, a 

feature that unites art and science, 

means filling a void, striving for what 

is not but can be, what, in a word, is 

desire. This suggests, as Girard has 

guessed in other ways, that art has its 

roots in rituality linked to the sense of 

the sacred, in the irrepressible human 

tendency to fill that void that at the 

same time terrifies us and constitutes 

the background and the objective. of 

our impulses and our projections. 

Through the gap between actuality and 

potential produced by artistic creation, 

both when it becomes cosmogonic, 

producing new worlds by reassorting 

the elements that characterize the 

“visible”, and when, thanks to narrative 

fiction or the use of virtual worlds, it 

creates apparent duplications of real, 

man is forced to suspend his grip on 

the world, releasing energies hitherto 

unavailable, putting them at the service 

of a new ontology that finally, perhaps, 

can reveal who he is. More than a 

suspension of disbelief, the aesthetic 

experience aroused by artistic 

production can be read as a “liberated 

simulation”. Why does a film, novel 


or virtual world potentially excite us 

more than a real-life scene that we can 

similarly be spectators of? Perhaps 

also because in the artistic and virtual 

“fiction” our inherence in the narrated 

action is totally free from direct 

personal involvement. We are free to 

love, hate, feel terror, doing it from 

a safe distance. This safety distance 

that makes mimesis “cathartic” can 

put our natural openness to the world 

into play in a more totalizing way. A 

further factor of amplification of this 

liberated simulation is constituted in 

certain forms of artistic expression, 

such as theater, dance, music, cinema 

and virtual worlds, by sharing with 

other individuals who, like us, are free 

from the obligations of supervising 

potentially fatal intrusiveness of the 

outside world, totally abandoning 

oneself to a full and unconditional 

experience of aisthesis. After all, 

enjoying art means getting rid of the 

world to find it more fully. 

Thanks to the expression of artistic 

creativity, the human being acquires 

the ability to shape material objects, 

giving them a meaning that they 

would not have in nature per se. This 

meaning is the result of the action 

with which the artist spreads colors 

on a canvas or transforms a block of 

marble into a “David” or the “Rape of 

Proserpina”. Today neuroscience has 

the potential to illuminate, albeit from 

a different perspective, the aesthetic 

nature of the human condition and 

its natural creative propensity, even 

before addressing the specific theme 

of art and becoming Neuroesthetics. 

We thus have the opportunity to enrich 

our notion of artistic creativity and 

its fruition, multiplying the levels of 

description, trying to understand how 

artistic objects, rather than being a 

gift from the gods, are actually the 

paradigmatic expression of our human 

nature. 

From a certain point of 

view, art is superior to 

science. With less 

expensive tools from an 

economic point of view 

and with a synthesis 

capacity that is probably unattainable 

by science, artistic intuitions make us 

understand a lot of human nature, 

often much more than the objectifying 

orientation typical of the scientific 

approach. Being human means 

becoming capable of questioning who 

we are. Artistic creativity has always 

expressed this ability in the highest 

form. Some fear that addressing these 

issues with the prosaic arsenal of 

science could somehow diminish, if not 

even destroy the magic that invades us 

when we contemplate a work of art. If I 

shared this concern, I would devote my 

time to something else. On the 

contrary, it is precisely the belief that 

the neuroscientific perspective allows 

a further enhancement of the 

distinctive and extraordinary 

dimension of art and aesthetic 

experience that convinces me that we 

are moving in a direction potentially 

pregnant with interesting results for 

anyone interested in better understand 

who we are. I conclude with a quote 

from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg who 

wrote these words that sound more 


47

and more prophetic, current and 

familiar to me every day: “our body is 

halfway between our soul and the 

outside world, reflecting the effects of 

both”. 



49



51



53



55

HAZELNUT 

KINGDOM 

A brand new location, with a Mediterranean style. 

Elegant meeting place with many opportunities 

for socializing. 

Written by OEMA. 



’S 


57

HAZELNUT’S 

KINGDOM 

Hazelnut’s Kingdom is not yet in Second Life Destinations since 

there are some parts that need to be finished. However, it is an 

enchantment already. 

It is an articulated 

destination, created 

with care and 

meticulousness 

by an undisputed 

professional in the 

field of “landscaping”: 

Andy Warhol. 

As it often happens, seeing the beautiful 

photographs that virtual travelers of 

Second Life post on Flickr, I came across 

one in particular that caught my attention. 

It was a beautiful Mediterranean landscape 

perched on a hill. As an Italian, 

I’m naturally drawn to this type of vegetation 

and architectural style, so I 

didn’t miss the opportunity to visit the 

destination in question. 

Hazelnut’s Kingdom occupies three 

A beautiful Mediterranean landscape perched 

on a hill that offers multiple opportunities for 

entertainment and fun. 


You can visit 

on foot, flying is 

not allowed. 

regions, one of which is 

navigable by water. It is 

an articulated destination, 

created with care 

and meticulousness by 

an undisputed professional 

in the field of “landscaping”: 

Andy Warhlol 

(terry.fotherington). 

Who doesn’t know Frogmore, 

for example? Andy 

Warhlol has a great experience 

in the realization 

of destinations that have 

become an essential reference 

in the scenario of 

the most beautiful photographic 

regions in Second 

Life. 

Hazelnut’s Kingdom’s 

peculiarity is that, apart 

from being an enchanting 

destination, it also offers 

various entertainment 

opportunities for all those 

who love this type of 

landscape. 

You should note that the 

creator of Hazelnut’s is 

not also the owner. It is 

a work done on the commission 

of Noubeil (noubeil.alpha). 

Therefore, 

the management of the 

destination is the responsibility 

of the latter to 

whom one must refer in 

case of need. 

Hazelnut’s Kingdom has 

its inworld group, whose 

membership costs 1000 

L$. In the description of 

the group, we can find valuable 

information about 

the purpose of the destination 

and the proposed 

activities: 

“Welcome to Hazelnut’s 


59

I recommend accepting the region’s light settings 

for the best experience. 

In different points of the regions we can 

find signs indicating the main attractions. 

Kingdom! 

It’s a place of pleasure and nature. 

That’s why we thank you 

for your trust, and we will do 

everything to satisfy your stay. 

Hazelnut’s Kingdom is an area located 

on the Noubeillane estate, 

which means in Occitan “the house 

of hazelnuts.” Occitan is still 

spoken in the south of France, 

and the spirit of a mountainous 

region inspires our domain in the 

Aegean Pyrenees.” 

The aspect that fascinates me 

the most is that it is not a flat 

destination: I appreciate the 

differences in height, the mountains 

alternating with flat areas 

that make the landscape varied 

and believable. The way the decorative 

objects have been placed 

denotes an understanding 

of the common-sense rules that 

allow for a destination’s realism. 

Flying is not allowed, which 

could be a good thing because 

it induces visitors to explore on 

foot precisely as they would in 

reality. Some of the houses are 

also rented out, so the limited 

flying also finds its raison d’etre 

in need not to disturb the tenants. 

Talking with the owner, I learned 

that some areas are still to 

be created, so we will have the 

opportunity to appreciate newly 

landscaped corners in the coming 

months as well. 

Hazelnut’s Kingdom is not (yet) 

in Second Life Destinations, so 

it’s a scoop we reserve for our 



61

eaders. 

References 

Teleport 

Flickr Group 

Inworld Group 



63



65



67



69



71



73

MEDITERRANEO-OC 

TELEPORT 



75

SLICE OF H 

An enchanting winter destination that will 

soon be renewed in its spring version. 

IN S 

Written by SERENA DOMENICI 



EAVEN 

ECOND LIFE 


77

The creator is Luane (luane.meo) who has created a 

charming winter setting with a naturalistic style. 

SLICE OF HEAVEN 

IN SECOND LIFE 

Winter 


SEASONALITY 

SLICE OF HEAVEN will close in a few days. We suggest the reader 

to hurry up and enjoy for a while longer the winter climate that 

Luane wanted to give us. The winter style will soon be replaced 

by the spring one. 

Luane Meo has been giving visitors for 

years now beautiful locations perfect 

for photography and entertainment in 

general. 

The aspect of Second 

Life that I have always 

found wonderful is 

the possibility to 

travel and visit places 

borrowed from the real 

world and virtually 

reproduced in small 

masterpieces. Sites can 

masterfully combine 

the concrete with the 

imaginary: a significant 

art form - this - that 

deserves to be known 

by a wider audience of 

virtual users. 

I had been missing 

from Second Life for 

three years, and I must 

say that I found this 

beauty intact, this 

constant search for 

perfection on the part 

of people who devote 

their time to creating 

very suggestive spaces. 

My interest will focus 

on this aspect that will 

never cease to amaze 

me pleasantly from 

this point of view. 

I will speak only of 

what will succeed in 

capturing my curiosity, 

arousing emotions, 

and satisfying my 

aesthetic sense; it will 

be precisely this that I 

will like to share with 

you readers. 

My journey began in 

this movie location: 

Slice of Heaven. 


79

I happened upon it by 

chance, assuming chance 

can exist, and assuming 

it makes sense to talk 

about chance in Second 

Life, where everything is 

random but at the same 

time everything is driven 

by a fierce determinism. 

I found myself in a white 

winter landscape, with 

a lot of snow falling and 

pleasant background 

music that was the frame. 

Don’t imagine a place full 

of objects, and so on: it 

was a place bare, lonely, 

cloaked in mystery, 

desolate in its way, and 

perhaps that was what 

made it special. 

A long path lined with 

trees laden with snow, 

due to the season, 

houses, but you can also 

find stores, restaurants, 

and a small church at the 

top of a hill where you 

can gather in prayer or 

look for a little peace. 

Even an icy lookout 

where you can skate 

admiring the landscape 

lit by many small 

lights created a warm 

atmosphere, despite the 

scenario whitewashed by 

snow. 

Is that all? 

No, because more than a 

place, this is a feeling, a 

place where destinies or 

loneliness can cross. 

You can experience the 

path that leads to the 

houses as a place of life 

or “death”: people can 

write many plots, many 

stories, as the writer 

does on a sheet of 

white paper like snow! 

Satisfying loves that 

never blossomed love 

that ended, lovers who 

meet in secret, words 

spoken, whispered or 

only imagined, dreams, 

silences, muffled 

sounds like the snow 

that falls silent on the 

village and hearts... 

But it could also be the 

place of a family that 

loves to share its space 

with friends. 

And I, too, carried away 

by the wind of fantasy, 

found myself imagining 

in a dreamlike 

dimension, “seeing” 

myself reached in 

that solitary place by 

an old lover of mine, 

who came to warm my 

hands and my heart. 

And to whisper to me 

that time - at least here 

- can also be stopped, 

rewinding the film of 

life to recover the lost 

moments, sublimating 

them in an immutable 

and eternal present like 

the winter all around, 

eternally waiting to be 

defeated by the flame 

of love. 

The owner and creator 

of this beautiful place is: 

LuaneMeo. 

References 

Teleport to Slice of 

Heaven 



81



83



85



87



89



91

LADMILLA MEDIER 

Ladmilla Medier, 

ART 

Head Column 

“Art does not reflect what is seen, rather it makes the 

hidden visible.” 

(Paul Klee) 

I don’t think that there is an absolute definition of 

Art. Still, this short, famous quote represents the 

path that I will propose in this section dedicated 

to Art: together we will know the artists active 

in Second Life and their works, we will discover 

the study, the conceptual elaboration, and the 

artistic technique that gave rise to the creations; 

each of us will be able to listen to the whispering 

stories, awaken dormant memories and provide our 

interpretation, find the essence that goes beyond 

the visible. 

I am sure it will be a fascinating journey! 

Ladmilla 



93

CHERRY M 

Well-known artist whose works are characterized 

by a strong visual and emotional impact. 

A 

Written by LADMILLA MEDIER 

IImages by LADMILLA MEDIER 


ANGA 

RTIST 


95

CHERRY MANGA 

SENSITIVENESS, TORMENT, DARK 

PERFECTIONISM 

“I hav 

person lov 

Cherry Manga is a well 

known artist working 

in Second Life from 

long time, she always 

created and still creates 

impressive installations 

that have a strong visual 

impact and the power 

to hit the observer 

emotionally. 

The love for nature and for 

the Japanese culture made 

her choose her nice virtual 

name: 

When I created my Second 

Life account it was the 

season of cherries, as I 

love this fruit and I was 

eating some when was 

registering, I chose the 


NESS AND 

e a very simple life, I am a wild 

ing more Nature than human 

kind” 

name Cherry; the last 

name had to be chosen 

from a list, so I decided on 

Manga and thought that 

Cherry Manga could be a 

good name for someone 

loving Japanese culture. 

She is a sensitive, 

tormented, dark and 

perfectionist soul as she 

loves to define herself, 

and her artworks show 

well her temperament. 

Cherry had artistic 

experiences and 

performances in Real 

life also, despite her shy 

attitude that makes her 

prefer situations where 

she does not have to 

meet the public: 

I have a very simple 

life, I am a wild person 

loving more Nature than 

human kind, that is the 

reason cause it is easier 

for me to create in virtual 

worlds where I do not 

have to meet physically 

the audience... however 

I worked for a theater, 

made several creations 

LANDING POINT 

for Real Life, did a real 

live performance in 2017 

with “FrancoGrid” for “Le 

Hublot” in “Nice” but all 

that was not comfortable 

for a shy person like me. 

Cherry had enough 

artistic experiences in 

Real and Second Life 

so she can have a clear 

idea of the possible 

differences that can be in 


97

creating in these worlds; 

what she thinks is very 

interesting and I am in 

complete agreement with 

her: 

There is no difference, the 

computer is the medium, 

the tool; movies or music 

are also virtual, we cannot 

touch them, we do not have 

to place them in a category, 

Art is art, wherever it is. 

As we can see in the 

creations of every true 

artist, also her artworks 

are free from conditioning 

or standards, she puts 

herself in them, her soul 

and experiences: 

Almost everything I create 

is autobiographical, 

sometimes it is more or 

less evident, sometimes 

is hidden; in the two past 

installations is very evident 

cause “Endometriosis” 

is a disease I suffer 

from, “Monsters” is an 

installation about the 

monsters I met in my life, 

starting from the fears of 

my childhood to the social 

pressure I still experiment 

each day. 

Also the theme of 

Human condition is very 

important in most of my 

creations; regarding the 

actual pandemic I think 

it is a natural response 

to overpopulation, I 

am not frightened by 

the possibility to die or 

lose my close relatives, 

I am frightened by the 

politics, by the lobbies 

that are caging us in a 

dystopic condition, the 

future will be darker than 

a pandemic. Regarding 

the women condition in 

particular, we have a lot 

of work to do for changing 

the patriarchal system, 

but I must admit this is 

not my main fight, and I 

do not talk so much about 

it in my creations. 

MONSTERS 

“Monsters” is an 

interactive installation 

that Cherry created in 

a very interesting and 

impressive way; when 

you are at the landing 

point do not miss to 

activate Advanced 

lightning model, to 

set your Sounds on, 

your Audio stream off 

and to accept the Void 

experience pop-up, all 

that will let your avatar 

animate and let you have 

an immersive experience 

that I will not describe 

here, so you will be 

surprised and will enjoy 

at the best; be curious, 

touch things, read local 

chat, listen to the sounds 

and move around. 

What are those monsters? 

Each one of us can find 

our own monsters that 

can live inside us or 

torment us from the 

outside, we can choose 

to feed them or fight for 

escaping; Cherry gives 

us the best explanation 

about that with her own 

words: 

They are the monsters 

I met in my life, there 

is the primal fear: “the 

wolf in the wood”, there 

are the ghosts or the 

strange things you could 

experiment when you 

were a child, but also the 

monsters you can meet 

when adult: rape, suicide, 

social pressure, domestic 

violence... Why they trap 

us? Because it takes time 

to understand our own 

fears, our weakness, and 


turn them into strenght; we 

can experience the same 

things many times before 

recognizing the patterns and 

knowing how to improve 

ourselves. 

Let yourself be involved in 

this experience: meet the 

Monsters, face their thorny 

or giant shapes, walk on 

narrow bridges suspended 

above the void, run into 

tunnels, enter mysterious 

rooms, be lost in troubled 

waters and enjoy the games 

of lights and shadows… 

you will be captivated and 

impressed, but I do not need 

to tell more, just go and 

experience all that. 

MONSTERS 

THE GALLERY 

Cherry has an amazing 

Gallery in ADreNalin, a 

Second Life region; it is an 

evocative location built 

with moving lines and 

cubes, the color is mainly 

black and white with some 

tones of very soft colors, 

this interesting architecture 

fits perfectly Cherry’s art: 

her mesh and animesh 

creations, in fact, look very 

vivid and living. 

You can buy her art 

there, some very 

beautiful works are even 

free or sold for a single 

Linden, that shows the 

great generosity of this 

artist. 

The style of this artist 

is evolving, she likes 

always to try something 

new while remaining 

focused on the themes 

that she prefers and that 

characterize her art: 

I am evolving and 

experimenting, but still 

creating scenes almost 

always dark and/or 

poetic. At the moment 

I am working on mixed 

media and 3D printing 

models for making glass 

dome sculptures. 

We look forward to 


99

enjoy her future new 

creations. 

Thank you Cherry for your 

Art! 

References 

Monsters 

Gallery 

ADreNalin 


MONSTERS 


101

MONSTERS 



103

MONSTERS 



105

MONSTERS 



107

MONSTERS 



109

MONSTERS 



111

ADRENALIN - LANDING 

POINT 



113

GALLERY - GLUED 



115

GALLERY - THE PLANT 



117

GALLERY - SISTERS 



119

GALLERY - ENDOMETRIOSIS 



121

GALLERY - VR WOMAN NO 

ESCAPE FROM THE GRID MAN 



123

GALLERY - AVOIR LA MAIN 

VERTE A FLEUR DE PEAU - 

PAPILLON... 



125

VAN LOOPEN 

Van Loopen, 

MUSIC 

Head Column 

If I were not an architect in life, I would probably be a 

musician. 

I think in music. 

I live my daydreams in music. 

I see my life in terms of music. 

Since 2009 in Second Life, I try to share this emotion 

with others. 

As editor and music consultant for 360 GRADI, I would 

like to shed light on an often underestimated world, but 

which is instead one of the main activities in the “second 

life.” 

The message in music arrives more efficiently at its 

destination, touching the most intimate and personal 

chords, without the need for other intermediaries in 

communication. 

In the variegated musical world of Second Life, I will 

deal with emerging artists and those who are now well 

established and often do not know each other well 

enough. 

I take advantage of this space to give some point of 

reference in the music scene of Second Life because 

“people consume music as if it were a handkerchief for 

the nose.” 

(Zucchero) 

Van 



127

DORIAN KA 

LIVE 

Dorian is an Italian 

singer who has been 

known and appreciated 

for years. 

Written by VAN LOOPEN. 

Images by JARLA CAPALINI 


SH 

SINGER 


129

DORIAN KASH 

LIVE SINGER 

Dorian Kash is one of those 

performers/singers who where 

you put him can be a guarantee 

of success very naturally, with a 

very wide repertoire. 

Dear 360GRADI’s friends, in this 

issue I will talk about an Italian 

artist. The time has come, and I 

can’t put it off any longer because 

even the “bel paese” offers 

its essential contribution to the 

Essellian community of male 

and female live singers. 

The first characteristic I have 

always noticed is that few remain 

active overtime in the 

physiological alternation of new 

voices and historical ones, new 

performers who, however, after 

a while, disappear from the scene. 

And this is a pity. 

Perhaps this is due to the use 

that we Italians habitually make 

of SL. I mean, even in the music 

industry (excluding DJs who are 

much more constant and present), 

we do our best not as a 

real job but as a pure pastime, 

obviously leaving out the aspect 

of commitment and appointment. 

Among the Italian male singers, 

who have a reasonably constant 

presence, I will talk today about 

Dorian Kash. 


Technically he has a 

voice with a strong and 

warm tone, with an 

innate intonation, and at 

the same time manages 

to create intimate 

introspection in the 

listener. 


131

I chose to start with him 

because, after a period 

of inactivity (the first 

for him), he has recently 

returned to tread the SL 

lands’ stages, more motivated 

than before. 

And his return is an added 

value for everyone, 

Italian or not. 

Each artist has precise 

and well-defined prerogatives. 

Some choose to 

perform exclusively in 

Italian lands, others go 

beyond their borders, but 

all have very different 

characteristics that distinguish 

them. 

Dorian Kash is one of 

those performers/singers 

who, wherever you put 

him, can be a guarantee 

of success very naturally, 

with an extensive repertoire. 

Technically he has a 

strong and warm voice, 

with natural intonation, 

and at the same time, he 

can create intimate introspection 

in the listener. 

Singing is a hobby for 

him, and as with all the 

other hobbies he has in 

RL, he puts attention to 

detail and commitment to 

preparation. This aspect 

talks about his personality 

and sensibility. But 

then again, from someone 

who loves to be in the 

clouds, flying touring planes 

and skydiving, what 

can you expect if not careful 

preparation in things 

to manage even that 

little bit of madness? 

His vocal approach indicates 

his repertoire and 

musical preferences: 

musical introspection of 

Italian songs, interpretations 

of international 

songs between jazz, and 

the bubbly American musicals. 

Each evening is a musical 

journey through the most 

beautiful international 

songs known and niche Italian. 

He has fun and entertains, no 

doubt about it. 

From the interview he granted 

us, we learn interesting 

things about his personality. 

It’s up to you to discover 

them. 

Van: Dorian, as is our practice, 

we ask the artist to describe 

himself to make him 

better, also known in his personal 

aspects. Tell us about 

your origin, where you live, 

hobbies, work, etc. 

Dorian: Well, I am of Ligurian 

origin; I come from Lerici, an 

enchanting little village on 

the sea between the inlets of 

the Gulf of La Spezia. In front 

of me is Portovenere, the gateway 

to the Cinque Terre: in 

short, I’m a man of the sea, a 

heritage I cherish. As often 

happens, however, for the 

various cases of life, I found 

myself living for years now 

in Trento, between mountains 

and snow, surrounded 

no longer this time by saltiness 

and anchovies, but by 

the Dolomites and shin, my 

other passion! Laughs! Snow 

then now and lots of skiing, 

when I could, one of my 

favorite sports along with 

martial arts, skydiving, and 

piloting tourist planes. As 

far as my job is concerned, 

after having stopped being 

a musician, after twenty ye- 


ars, between trios, duets, 

bands, and work in the 

studio, I now work in a 

local company’s customs 

office. This exciting job 

leaves me time to play 

the music that entered 

my life as a child in the 

form of a piano and has 

never left. 

Van: Do you remember 

the first time you sang in 

SL and how it happened? 

Dorian: Yes, of course, it’s 

a very fond memory. I had 

my first night in a popular 

Italian land, “Zero Moda” 

at Miss Erya’s: it was extraordinary 

and exciting. 

I would have never thought 

to get excited singing 

in front of a screen, even 

after many concerts and 

nights in RL. I must say 

that the emotion was 

there, and even now, it is 

always present in all my 

sets. I will never stop putting 

myself out there and 

looking for an audience’s 

excitement, even on SL. 

It just so happened that 

I met someone who took 

me to a karaoke bar; I 

never thought there was 

such a thing as karaoke 

on SL. People spurred 

me to sing, and so, after 

trying to understand 

what the technical requirements 

were, I began 

to attend that land. I had 

discovered how to have 

fun with singing again. I 

was then convinced to 

do the first night I mentioned 

earlier, by a girl, 

Stupenda Flux, who put 

body and soul into getting 

me to pursue a singing 

career in SL. So she 

agreed with Erya, and 

everything was born! 

Van: In the panorama of 

Italian singers in SL, you 

have occupied an essential 

space for a long 

time. Is this success a 

goal for you, a stimulus, 

or are you not interested 

in gaining consensus? 

Dorian: Let’s be clear, 

receiving approval is 

beautiful, the applause 

and the “bravo” are the 

stimuli and the nourishment 

of that fundamental 

part of an artist 

that is his narcissism. 

The desire to give oneself 

and be listened to 

by the audience is a 

more potent drug than 

any other, but consensus, 

when it is true, has 

nothing to do with its 

frantic search. The more 

you chase it, the further 

away it gets. The only 

way to be accepted by 

people is to be me, true: 

certainly with the desire 

to amaze, but in the end 

giving myself without 

EVER trying to please, 

but rather opening my 

soul and trying to interpret 

with my heart in my 

hand, naked. Then what 

I feel when I sing I realize 

that it comes! And 

that’s when the magic 

happens, whether the 

audience is 100 people 

or 3. All this is true for 

me; I can only speak on 

my behalf without thinking 

of expressing who 

knows what truth if not 

my own. 

Van: Is SL a game for 

you, an opportunity to 

express your talent, or 

something else? 

Dorian: SL, for me, has 

been and is a very emotionally 

involved world. 

I can’t see it as a game, 

but as an opportunity, 

for those who want to 

express themselves. Singing 

in SL has allowed 

me to perform pieces 

that I have always loved 

and that I could never 

perform in RL for one 

thing or another. Perhaps 

yes, in that respect, it is 

an opportunity. 

Van: What message do 

you want to convey to 

others through your interpretations? 

Dorian: None!!! No, I 

don’t presume to give 

a message—anything 

more than a pleasant 

hour in the company of 

others. The only excep- 


133

tion is when I sing for 

charity at the fundraiser 

in favor of IKSDP Harambee 

Project Gwassi Kenya 

by Lorella and Lotrec and 

for research against Sla 

at the event Harvey by 

Electra: I think this is a 

way not only to send a 

message of brotherhood 

and love, acceptance and 

participation but being 

able, along with other 

various artists, to change 

the real lives of people 

starting from a project 

carried out in a virtual 

world is something that 

fills the heart that allows 

you to achieve something 

concrete and rewarding. 

Van: I have known you for 

many years in SL and, as 

far as I have been able to 

ascertain, your favorite 

interpretation, thanks to 

your warm voice, always 

in tune and decisive, seems 

to be the genre of 

American Musicals, with 

references to Ella Fitzgerald 

and Frank Sinatra, 

even if you pass from 

Jazz music to Italian songwriting 

with extreme 

ease. So I ask you, what 

is your musical influence 

and knowledge in RL? Did 

you do specific studies, or 

did you start as a hobby? 

Dorian: You hit the nail 

on the head! Jazz and 

swing are my musical 

loves. American music 

from the ‘20s on has 

always fascinated me, 

even before blues and 

spirituals. Singing Sinatra 

is lovely for me, even 

if it is unreachable, but 

playing with the anticipations, 

returns, syncopations, 

and accents of 

swing with the voice is 

fun. Here I have to open a 

parenthesis: my classical 

music studies, thanks to 

the study of piano, made 

me know the great music 

from which everything 

comes! Everything is 

there! People can find 

Puccini’s melody in the 

great Neapolitan music 

up to the traditional styles 

of Italian music, especially 

songwriting. We 

have masterpieces in the 

so-called light music that 

is incredible, beautiful 

poems. I think of lyrics by 

singer-songwriters such 

as Fossati, Dalla, De Andrè, 

and De Gregori Venditti, 

how many would be 

worth mentioning. Finally, 

the Italian Jazz trend 

from Rossana Casale to 

Nicola Arigliano, passing 

by Sergio Cammarere and 

Fabio Concato, absolute 

geniuses that I love unconditionally. 

Van: Would you like to 

sing together with other 

established singers in SL? 

If so, with whom? 

Dorian: Yes, I would love 

to sing with anyone who 

wants to! I would also 

love to do a USA FOR 

AFRICA type of project - 

that would be cool and 

interesting. As well as 

bringing around repertoires 

of three or four 

singers: I know there is 

the possibility of singing 

together, but I honestly 

never understood how 

(technically streaming, I 

mean). 

Van: What is your favorite 

song and why? 

Dorian: O Mamma Mia, 

this is the question of 

the century! There are 

so many masterpieces of 

Italian music that deserve 

mention. Still, suppose 

I have to look inside. In 

that case, I can tell that 

the song I would have 

liked to write is “when I 

will be able to love” by 

Giorgio Gaber: the reason 

lies in the beautiful simplicity 

and ability to synthesis 

a text that makes 

you fall in love immediately! 

How he was able to 

explain love in this song 

is a rare gem. 

Van: As already mentioned, 

you mostly perform 

in the Italian community. 

Have you ever thought 

of making yourself even 

better known to the other 

SL communities as well? 

Which stage would you 



135

prefer? 

Dorian: Yes, I am attracted 

to sing in other 

communities, and for 

some time, I have done 

so in American, Australian, 

and Argentinean 

lands, where I had built 

up a repertoire of tango, 

another genre that fascinates 

me and that still 

accompanies me in my 

evenings. Unfortunately, 

Italian singers abroad are 

tied to clichés that condition 

their repertoire, so I 

found myself once again 

singing pieces that I didn’t 

feel were mine and 

therefore pleasing rather 

than exciting, and this is 

not for me. Never say never 

anyway. 

Van: Dorian, while thanking 

you for your availability, 

I’m going to open 

a little personal joke. I 

admire your eclecticism 

of private interests, including 

flying in RL touring 

planes and skydiving. I’m 

curious when you’re in 

command of your aircraft, 

do you sing happily in the 

cockpit, as I would sing in 

the shower? 

Dorian: Absolutely yes, 

when I’m alone though, 

because if I’m taking someone 

for pleasure, I’m 

a serious and professional 

pilot...but alone...I go 

wild!! And land with no 

voice! 



137

LISTEN DORIAN KASH 

WHILE SINGING 



139

MISOINDITE ROMANO 

Misoindite Romano, 

FASHION 

Head Column 

I’ll make a short presentation of myself without wanting 

to bore anyone. 

I thank Oema and Van for giving me this space in their 

Magazine. 

Misoindite Romano, Miso for everyone (or almost), a 

model I think since always, I’ve never done anything but 

modeling and fashion show. 

Many people smile about this work in SL, unaware that 

a world of people and linden is going around on this 

activity. Stylists and agencies of various nationalities 

would not exist if there were no models or bloggers. 

I have 12 years of Second Life behind me, a lot of 

passion, and accurate work on my personality and my 

avatar, which I try to represent in the best way. 

My task will be to keep you informed, perhaps making 

you want to accompany me in the field of fashion in SL. 

Miso 



141

VALENTINA E 

DESIG 

Written by OEMA. 



. 

NER 


143

VALENTINA 

E. 

Valentina E, is a well-known brand 

in the Second Life fashion scene. The 

store is frequented by, among others, 

the Italian community. 

I discovered Valentina E.’s 

store just a few months ago at 

an event where participating 

brands were putting a garment 

on sale for the price of L$60. 

I also remember the garment 

I bought and the feeling of 

unusual familiarity when I first 

landed at Valentina’s store. 

Maybe it’s because the name is 

Italian, or perhaps it’s because 

the store’s style and the clothes 

on offer “fit like a glove” my 

needs for class and originality, 

Valentina Evangelista’s store is 

one of the ones I visit the most. 

So I decided to interview her 

on the occasion of releasing 

this issue of 360GRADI and 

getting to know her better. 

Among other things, Valentina 

Evangelista is also very much 

appreciated by Jarla Capalini, 

the magazine’s photographer 

and head of the photography 

department. 


Valentina E. is an original 

brand that knows how to 

present its own unique style. 


145

I noticed that the store 

is very well known and 

appreciated by the Italian 

community, maybe 

because of the brand 

name. However, Valentina 

is not Italian, so English is 

the preferred language if 

you want to communicate 

with her. 

Let’s see how to make her 

acquaintance. 

Oema: How long you 

create clothes for Second 

Life, and how have you 

started? (did you already 

know the software you 

use for creating?) 

Valentina Evangelista: 

I’ve been making mesh 

clothes in Second Life for 

about ten years. I had a 

few friends working fulltime 

as content creators 

in SL, and the idea 

seemed very appealing. 

I’d spent most of my 

working life in the field 

of visual presentation, 

so design wasn’t new to 

me. However, my skill 

set didn’t include any of 

the programs required 

to model, texture, and 

animate mesh. With a 

bit of direction from my 

before mentioned design 

friends, I began teaching 

myself how to create 

Second Life clothing. 

This was a painfully slow 

process filled with a lot 

of trial and error. My 

early creations are pretty 

hilarious to look back on, 

but I am proud of myself 

for sticking with it and 

getting to the point that 

I now love wearing my 

own designs. That said, 

education never ends 

with content creation. 

There are always ways to 

improve, and I still want 

to do so much more and 

learn. 

Second Life is such a 

wonderful platform for 

design. If you’re willing 

to put in the time and 

effort, the opportunities 

are endless. It’s one of 

the reasons, so many of 

us love SL. 

Oema: Your style is 

unique, and as several 

people tell about your 

brand, you are original, 

and you don’t copy 

from anyone. Do you 

find inspiration in RL 

magazines or others? 


I’ve tried to find a bit of 

a niche in the SL market 

and, most importantly, 

to make things I want 

to wear. I am definitely 

inspired by real-life 

designers, pop culture, 

etc., but also by the holes 

in my SL wardrobe. If you 

can’t find what you want 

to wear, you just have to 

make it! 

All fashion and art 

are derivative and 

collaborative somehow, 

but you always make 

something your own 

when you go from an 

idea in your head to the 

final product. Sometimes 

I surprise myself when 

I start to make one 

thing and end up with 

something completely 

different! 

Oema: You make clothes 

by yourself, or is there 

someone else you want 

to mention about your 

brand? 



147


Valentina E. is a onewoman 

show, which is 

why I am not always able 

to offer as many sizes 

and options as I’d like. 

I do everything from 

designing, modeling, 

texturing, rigging, 

packaging, promoting, 

and customer service. 

I’m fortunate that I do 

have one person helping 

my brand in a significant 

way. Lori Matthews has 

been shooting my ads for 

some time now and does 

such an excellent job 

showcasing my designs. 

She’s such a talented 

photographer and has a 

fantastic sense of style. I 

can send her anything to 

shoot, and she’ll take it to 

the next level. 

Oema: What suggestions 

would you give to 

someone who wants to 

start making clothes in 

SL? You would suggest 

joining some specific 

course, learning following 

youtube video tutorials, 

or other? 


If you’re willing to put 

in the time and the 

work, you can learn how 

to create high-quality 

content for Second Life. 

It’s not something you 

can do overnight, but 

everything is out there if 

it’s something you want 

to pursue. 

Many fantastic paid 

courses will teach you 

character creation, mesh 

modeling, etc. Paying 

for formal instruction 

will likely increase the 

speed at which you 

learn. However, that’s 

not the only route. I 

am pretty much selftaught 

via Youtube and 

various other free, online 

tutorials. There are also 

loads of inworld creator 

groups and discussion 

boards on the Second 

Life website that are very 

helpful. 

Regarding programs, you 

can spend thousands of 

dollars buying amazing 

software for all aspects 

of mesh creation, but you 

don’t need to. Blender is 

a free program that will 

cover much of what you 

need to do, and there 

are plenty of tutorials 

available. That should 

be the starting point for 

most people. 

If you decide to dive 

into content creation for 

Second Life, I wish you 

the very best of success 

with your efforts. It is 

lots of work, but it’s lots 

of fun as well. The world 

is at your feet, and your 

imagination can take you 

anywhere. 

References 

Valentina E. Store 



149



151



153



155



157

JARLA CAPALINI 

Jarla Capalini, 

PHOTOGRAPHY 

Head Column 

Writing with light, from the Greek φῶς, φωτός, “light” and 

γραϕία, “writing”, this is “photography”. 

Now I know that talking about photography in Second 

Life will surely make purists curl their noses or smile at 

the most benevolent professionals and enthusiasts. Still, 

once there were film and exposure meter, then came 

digital cameras and files today. We also use phones to take 

pictures, and thanks (maybe) to them, photography is now 

within everyone’s reach. 

Here then is that a “viewer,” with all its peculiarities 

techniques can become a perfect means to “write” with the 

virtual “light” the encounter between the subject and the 

eye of the photographer, from which a new possible vision 

is born. 

The imagination of reality, albeit virtual. 

This one we will do in our journey among the 

photographers of Second Life: we will talk about 

technique, composition, inspiration and 

passion, hoping to convince skeptics that our images, 

although depicting a world of pixels, 

can rightly be considered “photography.” 

Jarla 



159

SADYCAT 

LITTLEPAW 

SadyCat is a blogger, blogger manager and successful 

photographer. 

Written by JARLA CAPALINI. 

Images by SADYCAT. 


S 


161

BLOGGER 

SADYCAT 

SadyCat Littlepaws has been working 

in the Second Life fashion industry for 

several years and is one of the most 

trusted bloggers in the virtual world. 

SadyCat Littlepaws has been 

working in Second Life fashion 

industry for several years 

and she is one of the most 

accredited bloggers of the 

virtual world. Photography for 

fashion is her daily bread and 

we want to try to snatch some 

secrets from her. Of course, she 

is more than this so let’s meet 

her and have a little chat. 

Jarla: How was your start in 

second life? 

Sady: A real life friend pestered 

me every day for 2 weeks until 

one night when I couldn’t sleep, 

I gave it a try. That was in Nov 

2006 and I’ve been here ever 

since. She didn’t last six months. 

(chuckles) 

Jarla: When did you get into 

photography and what attracted 

you. 

Sady: I think my love for 

photography came from real life. 

I used to take tons of pictures in 

RL, even photo shoots with my 

friends and this was well before 

the days of Instagram and other 

social media. 


As a blogger manager she has the 

difficult task of selecting the best 

bloggers. 


163

Jarla: Have you blogged 

about both decor 

and fashion, do they 

technically have points 

in common or are they 

two completely different 

things? 

Sady: I have blogged 

both. I was told I should 

really focus on one genre 

for the longest time and 

I wanted to prove I could 

do both. And I did, but 

I got to the point that 

I couldn’t keep up the 

pace. Blogging decor 

is very different and 

in my opinion, more 

challenging. It takes a lot 

longer, that’s for sure. 

Jarla: What made you 

choose to dedicate 

yourself only to fashion 

... apart from the passion 

that every woman has for 

clothes? 

Sady: I just didn’t have 

the time to create the 

decor scenes anymore. 

I still love doing decor 

and will create scenes for 

my fashion shots, but to 

give decor the attention 

it deserves...well, I just 

don’t have that kinda 

time. Plus, I hate tearing 

down my scenes. (smiles) 

Jarla: It seems that the 

way of doing the fashion 

blogger has changed in 

recent years, now all is 

more about photography 

and not about writing. 

“ I’ve been 

involved in both 

furniture and 

fashion” 

SadyCat 

What do you think about 

it? 

Sady: I think fashion has 

always been more of a 

visual industry. When 

bloggers write, some 

talk about their lives... 

some talk about the 

items. To be fair, I think 

talking about the items 

and fashion is really the 

way to go, but I struggle 

with that. I honestly 

don’t know that more 

than a handful of people 

actually read my blog. 

Jarla: When there is a 

new release, how do you 

organize all the work to 

get to the shot? 

Each shot is different. I 

get ideas when I see the 

item(s), but sometimes a 

shot takes on a life of its 

own. I tend to jot down 

my ideas on post it notes 

and I have hot pink flags 

framing my monitor. 

Sometimes I’ll sit on an 

idea for months. 

Jarla: How much do you 

work on your photos after 

saving the shot? 

Sady: It depends on what 

I’m going for, but I do like 

the play with the lighting 

and getting a clear shot 

of what I’m trying to 

showcase. 

Jarla: Are you always 

satisfied with the result 

you get? 

Sady: I’d like to say that 

I never publish a photo 

that I’m not happy with, 

but there are times that 

time is of the essence and 

I need to get ‘something’ 

published. I am happy 

with most of my photos, 

but every once in a while, 

I do one and I’m just like... 

ugh, hate it. Of course, 

it’s those photos that 

everyone seems to love. 

LOL 

Jarla: How important is a 

well-made avatar for the 

success of a photo? 

Sady: In my opinion, 

it’s imperative. I’m not 

a good enough photo 

editor to make a system 

avi look fantastic in 

Photoshop. I don’t draw 

anything. The most I do is 

enhance things to being 

focus. I’m not a magician. 

Jarla: A fashion photo 

must obviously highlight 

the creation for which it 

is made, but according 


to you what is the thing 

or things that catch the 

public’s attention? 

Sady: Lighting and colour 

choices make a huge 

difference, next is the 

pose. You can showcase 

a top if your arms are full 

of flowers and food. You 

can’t showcase a skin if 

you’re covered in tattoos 

and heavy cosmetics. You 

can’t properly showcase 

a skirt if you’re sitting 

down. 

Jarla: How important is 

the artistic element in a 

fashion photo? 

Sady: The better the 

photo, the more people 

will want to look at it. At 

the same time, I think its 

important for brands to 

have different types of 

bloggers. For instance, 

a brand like Vinyl or 

Blueberry...they make 

clothes that look great 

on everyone, but the 

individual style is going 

to give viewers ideas. So, 

its good to have some 

dark/gothic like artists 

on their teams to show 

how their items can be 

versatile. You got your 

sex kittens and your 

urban girls and your 

basic girls (this is not an 

insult btw). The more 

versatile your team, 

the more versatility 

gets showcased and 

can appeal to a bigger 

audience. 

Jarla: Speaking of 

brands… Besides being 

a blogger, you are also 

a blogger manager for 

major brands in SL, I 

guess you also select the 

bloggers: what are the 

requirements they must 

have as photographers? 

Sady: The number 

one thing I look for is 

exposure. People get 

sooo mad about this, but 

the truth is... the whole 

point of having bloggers 

is to have the products 

seen by as many people 

as possible. Blogging is 

advertising. So, obviously, 

I’m looking for polished 

photographers with as 

much reach as possible. 

Like it or not, blogging is 

a numbers game. We’re 

not just handing out free 

products. We agree to 

give you these items if 

you agree to promote 

them. It’s that simple. 


165

Jarla: Would you like 

to share one of your 

“secret” about SL 

photography with us? 

Sady: I don’t know that I 

have a secret, per se. I get 

inspired by others and 

experiment a lot. If you 

look at my Flickr, you’ll 

see that I’m all over the 

place. 

Jarla: Your “best” flaw? 

Sady: Uhm... I have 

so many. I’m not sure 

which is the “best”. I 

guess I’d say that my 

experimentation has 

kept me from a lot of 

teams, because I lack a 

consistent look. However, 

I’m not ever going to stop 

trying new things. Not 

sure if that’s a flaw, really. 

“I don’t know if I 

have a secret. I get 

inspired by others and 

experiment a lot” 

SadyCat 

References 

Flickr 

Blog 

Instagram 

Facebook 



167



169

A special thanks 

Special thanks to our loyal readers who 

put the magazine kiosk on their land: 

Lee Olsen 

LUNDY ART GALLERY 

Tia Rungray 

STRUKTURO 

-Ñïéü- (nieuwenhove) 

NOIR’WEN CITY 

Dixmix source 

DixMix Art Gallery 

Anelie Abeyante 

La Maison d’Aneli 

Ilyra Chardin (ilyra.chardin) 

Emergent Gallery 

LIV (ragingbellls) 

Raging Graphix Gallery 

Michiel Bechir 

Michiel Bechir Gallery at Embrace 

Michiel Art Cafe 

Hermes Kondor 

Viktor Savior de Grataine (viktorsavior) 

SHINY (narayanraja) 

Bohemio Love 

Jaz (Jessamine2108) 

Art Promotion 

Camp Italia 



171

CHOSEN ON 

SL PHOTO 

“inside me ” 

MIna Arcana 


FLICKR 

GRAPHERS 

Editor’s Choice. 

Gorgeous 

photographs 

seen on 


Magazine’s Flickr 

group. 


173


Lilith 

Geordie 


175

Anto Haiku 



177


Santra 

Seranno 


179


Alba 

Silverfall 


181


Elaine 

Lectar 


183

ROXANNE 

MISS V 


ERROR 404 - 

NOT BOUND 


185


AshleyAlyson Yexil 


187


Lidiane 

Miller 


189


Santra 

Seranno 


191


Lilith 

Geordie 


193

ROXANNE 

MISS V. 



195


Lidiane 

Millerll 


197


Santra 

Seranno 


199

Lidiane 

Miller 



201


Santra 

Seranno 


203

Mina Arcana 



205

Thanks for reading, 

we hope you enjoyed 

this issue. 

Copyrighted. All rights 

reserved. 

We are not affiliated to 

Linden Lab. 


For advertising in 

360 GRADI Magazine, 

write to: 

360gradi.sl@gmail.com. 


207

360 GRADI MAGAZINE January/February 2021

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?