Music, marbling and multisensory trancing
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Subjective experiences of participatory arts are inevitably multisensory and multimodal, arising from systemic interactions between individuals, stimulus attributes (affordances of the artform(s) with which they engage) and environment. This article considers an ongoing immersive multisensory participatory arts initiative for adults living with mental ill health, taking place in both community and healthcare settings, utilizing Turkish water marbling (ebru) and musical sound generation. Marbling and music are shown to simultaneously mobilize and synthesize different senses and modes of experience in ways that can be conceptualized as a low arousal mode of immersive trancing. Motion, repetition and pattern emerge as key stimulus attributes facilitating immersion. Psychological qualities of experience include narrowed attentional focus, heightened sensory acuity, reduction of thought, present-centered conscious awareness. Shifts away from baseline states of consciousness provide temporary respite from aspects of self (such as overthinking/emoting). Perspectives from consciousness studies and psychological phenomenology highlight the self-regulatory potential of multisensory arts-based engagement.
Source: The Senses and Society
Authors: Ruth Herbert, Jackie Walduck
Institutions: University of Kent, Royal Academy of Music
Language: English
Subfield: Conservation
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funder: Research England
OpenAlex ID: W4402235312