Arts & Enaction Dialogue with Prof Alva Noë & Dr Nicole Peisl

Alva Noë is Professor of Philosophy, and Chair of the Department of Philosophy, at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also a member of the Center for New Media, the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, as well as the Program in Critical Theory. Professor Noë is a 2012 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2018 recipient of the Judd Hume Prize in Advanced Visual Studies. Until the end of 2026, he is an Einstein Visiting Fellow at the Free University in Berlin. He is the author of Action in Perception (2004), Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness (2009), Varieties of Presence (2012), Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature (2015), Infinite Baseball: Notes from a Philosopher at the Ballpark (2019), and Learning To Look: Dispatches from the Art World (2022). His latest book is The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are (2023). He is currently writing about love, life, perspective, and AI.

Nicole Peisl, PhD is a choreographer, dancer, educator, and dog trainer whose work bridges performance, somatic practice, and human–animal relationships. She holds a PhD in Performance Studies from UC Davis and is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), Polarity Coach, and certified dog trainer (CTC, CBATI-KA). Drawing on her background as a dancer with The Forsythe Company, Nicole creates performances, installations, and collaborative research projects that explore perception, presence, and connection. Her work centers embodied experience and the cultivation of felt sense as a meaningful way of knowing. Alongside her artistic practice, she teaches internationally, engaging diverse communities in creative processes that integrate movement, somatic inquiry, and relational awareness. She is committed to embodied practices that support transformation and make change visible.

Photo: Hillary Goidell