In our second session we presented a 5 minute introduction to the group. We were asked to select a few key pictures that represented our work with a short statement about ourself and our work.
My pictures represented a mix of a) my experience working on Everpress, particularly the immersive gallery spaces, installations and events we hosted, and b) some key images from the books I’ve been reading on meditation & spirituality.
I briefly noted my objectives for the course, alongside the pictures:
MA vision & goals
- How to make sense of something outside the senses
- Exploring how perceptions can be challenged and altered
- Develop process & skills to uncover my artistic medium
- Immersive art that facilitates contemplative experiences
I’m sure I’ll have the opportunity to flesh this out further when we come to writing our personal statement in a few weeks time. But for now, this was really helpful in guiding my next steps.
Reflecting on these points, I feel the area I need to lean into in the next few weeks is: “Exploring how perceptions can be challenged and altered“.
I came across this scientific paper on “Self-Boundary Dissolution in Meditation: A Phenomenological Investigation” & was intrigued as (in plain language) the researchers found that:
Your sense of being a separate, bounded self isn’t a given – it’s something your brain actively creates through attention and body sensing. When you stop actively creating it (by letting go), it dissolves.
I’ve experienced this loss of boundary in meditation and so I was interested to learn more about the study and the experiments the scientists ran to verify this.
Essentially, they conducted a comprehensive phenomena inquiry with experienced meditators who were trained and then asked to perform two meditation tasks while having their brain activity measured: first envisioning boundaries between self and external world, then envisioning a loss of those boundaries.
The study identified six experiential features that systematically change during boundary dissolution: sense of location, agency, first-person perspective, attention, body sensations, and affective valence (emotional quality of the experience).
The central finding was that passive meditative gestures of “letting go,” which reduces attentional engagement and sense of agency, emerged as the primary driver of dissolution depth – this is what creates the deepest boundary dissolution.
And this aligns with the suggestions in many guided meditations I’ve listened to from experienced teachers.
Reading this study left me wanting to learn more about the science of how our normal human perceptions can be challenged and altered – using external stimuli – not just related to meditation techniques and letting go, however.
Reframing the 4 points from my original MA vision & goals, it could read as:
I want to explore how perceptions can be challenged and altered using external stimuli, to help make sense of something outside the senses. Which in turn will help me develop process & skills to uncover my artistic medium and may result in immersive art that facilitates contemplative experiences.