Philosophy of Spectatorship: A Phenomenological and Culturally Grounded Model
Cultural and Historical Roots of Spectatorship
Alireza Kaveh grounds his philosophy of spectatorship in Iranian intellectual and ritual traditions.

Ancient Rituals: From Zoroastrian fire temples to Mithraic sanctuaries, spectatorship is rooted in collective encounters with light, fire, and shadow. These early rituals framed seeing as a communal act tied to transcendence.

Proto-Cinematic Devices: Reflections on the fanos-e khiyal (magic lantern) in Persian culture, as discussed by Farrokh Ghaffari, reinforce the idea of spectatorship as historically layered and culturally specific.

Poetic Metaphors: The visual imagery of Khayyam and the narrative studies of Bahram Beyzai on shadow-play underscore a deep genealogy of image-experience in Iran.

The Primordial Encounter with Light: Kaveh emphasizes the phenomenological moment when early humans gathered around fire and shadow. This primal confrontation with light and image is, in his view, the true origin of cinematic spectatorship—an embodied, collective, and metaphysical encounter beyond theatrical mimesis.

Collective Spectatorship and Joint Action
Kaveh advances the notion that film viewing is not merely individual but essentially collective.

Joint Action: Watching a film together in silence constitutes a form of joint action.

Shared Activity: Spectators in a cinema are engaged in a shared intentionality, attending to one film as a common object of perception.

Implications: This perspective broadens film theory by embedding spectatorship within social philosophy. Spectators act jointly in meaningful ways, which redefines the ontology of cinematic audiencesWhat are his views on t….

Immersive and Phenomenological Spectatorship
Kaveh’s model resonates with broader philosophical debates on immersion and embodiment.

Beyond Passive Viewing: Drawing on Jacques Rancière’s The Emancipated Spectator, he affirms that spectatorship is not passive but active, with varying degrees of emancipation.

Embodiment and Awareness: In line with Maurice Merleau-Ponty, spectatorship is not disembodied perception but a bodily relation to images—viewers are both immersed (as in Deleuze’s flow of images) and self-aware of bodily shifts.

Phenomenological Turn: This hybrid model positions Kaveh alongside thinkers like Vivian Sobchack, who emphasized phenomenology in film studies. His distinct contribution lies in embedding this within non-Western cultural and ritual origins, thereby expanding phenomenological spectatorship into a cross-cultural discourse.

Conclusion: A New Genealogy of Spectatorship
Alireza Kaveh’s Philosophy of Spectatorship proposes:

A culturally grounded genealogy, rooted in Iranian rituals of fire, light, and shadow.

A socially embedded model, treating spectatorship as joint action and collective intentionality.

A phenomenological framework, highlighting embodied perception and sensory engagement.

This approach challenges Euro-American paradigms that prioritize disembodiment or distanciation, offering instead a culturally specific yet globally relevant theory. Kaveh’s spectatorship theory reframes cinema as both a phenomenological and collective act—an experience of light, body, and community.

References
[1] Watching a film with others: towards a theory of collective spectatorship
[2] Viewing and Acting (and Points in Between): The Trouble with Spectating after Rancière
[3] The Immersive Spectator
[4] Alireza Kaveh – Iranian Film Theorist | Genre Cinema Expert
[11] Bahram Beyzaie’s Dramatic and Cinematic Oeuvre | Iranica
Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (1945).
Sobchack, Vivian. The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience (1992).