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by Kinda Studios
Kinda Studios is a collaborative partnership between Robyn Landau and Katherine Templar Lewis, uniting the realms of immersive arts with physiology, neuroscience, and play to explore beyond the horizon of the human experience → @kinda.studios
Transformation is often thought of as a dramatic, grand and exalted experience, yet it can also exist in the smallest of fragments. We need to reframe transformation to include all the tiny, incremental shifts that occur within the pockets of our daily lives. The meeting of eyes with a stranger, a feeling of being moved by art, the expanse of a new idea rooting into existence.
Transformation is any experience that creates a sense of being changed.
No matter how grand or how minute, transcendent moments can sometimes be difficult to describe in words. Often felt as deep bodily experiences, or the stopping of time, how can we grasp collective meaning or measure these ineffable, multidimensional states?
The heart of this question unlocks something deeper. A space that blends, and intersects schools of thought and methods of inquiry. The rapidly evolving interdisciplinary realm is advancing our ability to understand these invisible, deeply personal experiences, while still honouring the truth that we cannot possibly and do not want to quantify it all. Doing so may strip them of the magical essence and mystery that sits at the very heart of transcendence.
In our studio’s approach to Neuroaesthetics, we’re reaching to the edge of what’s possible through science, seeking to further understand that which cannot be touched, held or measured, but can only be felt through our body’s complex sensory system. This effort to reach the next dimension, enhancing our understanding of feeling states, connected spaces and viscerality is joined by leaders at the forefront of the creative arts, human technology and edge thinkers breaking out of the silos of current systems.
Amongst the senses, sound is spearheading the latest in interdisciplinary innovation. Neuroscience continues to unravel the vast power of sound on our human systems. From brainwave entrainment to shifts in our parasympathetic activity and vagal tone, studies continue to reveal sound not only helps heal us physically, emotionally and mentally, but supports people in accessing hidden parts of themselves.
While phenomenological reports and neurophysiological studies of sonic healing start to emerge, we still don’t yet fully understand how to measure the impacts of frequencies on the cellular level, hypothesised by many to be occurring. This includes the response of different body parts and their corresponding internal frequencies, and interaction with our musculoskeletal system through vibroacoustic means, the invisible process by which sound quite literally touches us. The work of our colleagues Fiona Miller, Rona Geffen, Paul Oomen and others seek to uncover this, and we acknowledge that reason may never be able to fully measure the invisible spaces that occur between what we can see and feel.
Our recent research collaboration with 4DSOUND contributed to this exploration, to help shape our understanding of how transformation occurs during immersive sound experiences.
Built on more than a decade of art-driven research, 4DSOUND Systems are spatial sound instruments with the ability to project Sound Holograms; sonic vibrations articulated through controlled dimension, position, movement and interaction within space. 4DSOUND has pioneered omnidirectional sound environments which render vivid listening areas without a ‘sweetspot’. Sound is not heard as coming from speakers, rather, sounds appear in space as entities with a tangible physical presence, depth and dimensionality.
This was brought to London audiences for the first time in the spring of 2023, who explored this new experience of listening through artistic creations from Max Cooper, Llyr, Suzanne Ciani, and more. Held at Stone Nest, an arts organisation and performance space inside what was once a church, tucked away in a hidden corner of Shaftesbury avenue. Here communities gathered to interact with space, sound and social listening in the sonic architecture built around them.
We launched a preliminary study on states of immersion, pleasure and neurophysiology within this collision of immersive space and sonic art. Across 6 events, we gathered a sample of 116 participants who answered a self-report survey on their states of embodiment, self-other relationship, empathy, awe and immersion both before entering and leaving the venue. We then analysed this data to uncover how these collective listening experiences fed into wider states of connectedness and transcendence. Did audiences feel changed from when they entered the space? And if so, where does this emerge from?
While we noted an 80% probability of slight increases in embodiment, the most important contributor to transformation appeared to be from interaction with others. Boundaries of self-other (r=0.33), feelings of empathy for those in need (r=0.39), and connection with other audience members (r=0.34), drove markers of awe, being moved and states of immersion.
While there is an undeniable power of experiencing the depth and dimensionality of sonic artworks and architecture on our own individual systems, it appears this is most potent when we do so with others, when our bodies share collective space, when we lay on the ground beside a total stranger in a non-verbal experience of human bonding. The power appears to be held in the space between.
This research presents the beginning of deeper and richer studies to uncover greater ways to access change, no matter how small and gradual. And richer collaborations between artists, scientists and technologists. And while we don’t seek to ever be able to fully measure these aetherial states of being, we can perhaps discover how to better integrate the scientific method with artistic and technological creations to enhance experiences and understand their impact on healing and transcendence.
Image: 4D Sound by Joris Takken @juuptakken
by Kinda Studios
Kinda Studios is a collaborative partnership between Robyn Landau and Katherine Templar Lewis, uniting the realms of immersive arts with physiology, neuroscience, and play to explore beyond the horizon of the human experience → @kinda.studios
Transformation is often thought of as a dramatic, grand and exalted experience, yet it can also exist in the smallest of fragments. We need to reframe transformation to include all the tiny, incremental shifts that occur within the pockets of our daily lives. The meeting of eyes with a stranger, a feeling of being moved by art, the expanse of a new idea rooting into existence.
Transformation is any experience that creates a sense of being changed.
No matter how grand or how minute, transcendent moments can sometimes be difficult to describe in words. Often felt as deep bodily experiences, or the stopping of time, how can we grasp collective meaning or measure these ineffable, multidimensional states?
The heart of this question unlocks something deeper. A space that blends, and intersects schools of thought and methods of inquiry. The rapidly evolving interdisciplinary realm is advancing our ability to understand these invisible, deeply personal experiences, while still honouring the truth that we cannot possibly and do not want to quantify it all. Doing so may strip them of the magical essence and mystery that sits at the very heart of transcendence.
In our studio’s approach to Neuroaesthetics, we’re reaching to the edge of what’s possible through science, seeking to further understand that which cannot be touched, held or measured, but can only be felt through our body’s complex sensory system. This effort to reach the next dimension, enhancing our understanding of feeling states, connected spaces and viscerality is joined by leaders at the forefront of the creative arts, human technology and edge thinkers breaking out of the silos of current systems.
Amongst the senses, sound is spearheading the latest in interdisciplinary innovation. Neuroscience continues to unravel the vast power of sound on our human systems. From brainwave entrainment to shifts in our parasympathetic activity and vagal tone, studies continue to reveal sound not only helps heal us physically, emotionally and mentally, but supports people in accessing hidden parts of themselves.
While phenomenological reports and neurophysiological studies of sonic healing start to emerge, we still don’t yet fully understand how to measure the impacts of frequencies on the cellular level, hypothesised by many to be occurring. This includes the response of different body parts and their corresponding internal frequencies, and interaction with our musculoskeletal system through vibroacoustic means, the invisible process by which sound quite literally touches us. The work of our colleagues Fiona Miller, Rona Geffen, Paul Oomen and others seek to uncover this, and we acknowledge that reason may never be able to fully measure the invisible spaces that occur between what we can see and feel.
Our recent research collaboration with 4DSOUND contributed to this exploration, to help shape our understanding of how transformation occurs during immersive sound experiences.
Built on more than a decade of art-driven research, 4DSOUND Systems are spatial sound instruments with the ability to project Sound Holograms; sonic vibrations articulated through controlled dimension, position, movement and interaction within space. 4DSOUND has pioneered omnidirectional sound environments which render vivid listening areas without a ‘sweetspot’. Sound is not heard as coming from speakers, rather, sounds appear in space as entities with a tangible physical presence, depth and dimensionality.
This was brought to London audiences for the first time in the spring of 2023, who explored this new experience of listening through artistic creations from Max Cooper, Llyr, Suzanne Ciani, and more. Held at Stone Nest, an arts organisation and performance space inside what was once a church, tucked away in a hidden corner of Shaftesbury avenue. Here communities gathered to interact with space, sound and social listening in the sonic architecture built around them.
We launched a preliminary study on states of immersion, pleasure and neurophysiology within this collision of immersive space and sonic art. Across 6 events, we gathered a sample of 116 participants who answered a self-report survey on their states of embodiment, self-other relationship, empathy, awe and immersion both before entering and leaving the venue. We then analysed this data to uncover how these collective listening experiences fed into wider states of connectedness and transcendence. Did audiences feel changed from when they entered the space? And if so, where does this emerge from?
While we noted an 80% probability of slight increases in embodiment, the most important contributor to transformation appeared to be from interaction with others. Boundaries of self-other (r=0.33), feelings of empathy for those in need (r=0.39), and connection with other audience members (r=0.34), drove markers of awe, being moved and states of immersion.
While there is an undeniable power of experiencing the depth and dimensionality of sonic artworks and architecture on our own individual systems, it appears this is most potent when we do so with others, when our bodies share collective space, when we lay on the ground beside a total stranger in a non-verbal experience of human bonding. The power appears to be held in the space between.
This research presents the beginning of deeper and richer studies to uncover greater ways to access change, no matter how small and gradual. And richer collaborations between artists, scientists and technologists. And while we don’t seek to ever be able to fully measure these aetherial states of being, we can perhaps discover how to better integrate the scientific method with artistic and technological creations to enhance experiences and understand their impact on healing and transcendence.
Image: 4D Sound by Joris Takken @juuptakken