Designing Intercultural Empathy

JPL's Storytelling Community of Practice Presents: Designing Intercultural Empathy

Join doctoral researcher Gurachi Phoenix for a discussion of the role of empathy in intercultural communication on Nov. 17 at noon.

PUBLISHED ON NOVEMBER 10, 2022

Abstract:

Most storytelling, including TV and pop-culture cinema, is ethnocentric. And the fact that it’s designed around specific cultural and language traditions can present barriers to cross-cultural understanding, cultural diversity, and inclusivity. But a study of deep connections between Asian and Western cultures reveals that there may be avenues of engaging viewers viscerally and immersively in story, independently of their language and cultural background. There may be ways for two people from different cultures, who don’t speak each other’s language, to communicate through the language of story, by engaging their sense of empathy. In his presentation, Gurachi Phoenix will discuss ideas relating human behavior, immersive technologies, human-computer interaction, and synesthetic cognition.

This event is part of a series of informal gatherings to foster development of a storytelling community of practice that spans across JPL and Caltech. If you're engaged in (or just interested in) hearing how others meet challenges in creative communication, the organizers encourage you to join. The initiative is sponsored by the JPL Formulation Science Communications Office, a joint effort of the Communications & Education directorate (18x) and The Foundry (15x).

Speaker Bio:

Gurachi Phoenix is an alumnus of the Character Animation Program, CalArts, where he studied filmmaking and Asian Music Cultures. He specializes in developing original content involving cross-cultural aesthetics, multi-platform formats, and new methodologies for storytellers. In recent years, Phoenix was a creative consultant for story design on “Le Musk,” a pioneering multi-sensory cinematic experience, as well as a sensor-mediated animation R&D project at Intel. Phoenix is currently a Ph.D. student at the Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University, Japan, where he’s researching a methodology for designing intercultural empathy in extended reality storytelling.