Embodied Rhythms: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Perception of Rhythm in Audiovisual and Immersive Media. An Introduction

This article introduces an interdisciplinary framework for the study of rhythm in audiovisual and immersive media, reconsidering rhythm not merely as a formal property of media texts but as an embodied, multimodal, and relational process. Building on the recent experiential turn in rhythm studies, it examines how audiovisual rhythms emerge through the interaction of images, sounds, movement, bodily perception, and sensorimotor processes. Particular attention is devoted to neurofilmology as an integrative approach connecting film and media theory with cognitive neuroscience, phenomenology, semiotics, and empirical research. Findings on motor involvement, temporal prediction, entrainment, and multisensory integration provide a basis for understanding rhythm as a mechanism of coordination between media structures and spectators’ embodied experience. The article then extends this perspective to immersive and interactive environments, where rhythm increasingly emerges from bodily navigation, spatial organization, technological mediation, and collective interaction rather than from predetermined temporal structures alone. Introducing the contributions to the special issue, it outlines a trajectory from formal to embodied, ecological, and relational conceptions of rhythm and identifies a research agenda for developing transdisciplinary models of rhythmic audiovisual experience.