‘Positive technology’ researches how technology can elicit positive change and wellbeing. ‘Computer-mediated self-transcendence’ is a new area of positive technology that explores how immersive and gaming technologies can be combined with art to facilitate transcendent experiences. Immersive tech simulates alternative worlds to challenge our consciousness and awareness of ourselves and tricks our bodies into behaving as if virtual environments are real. Gaming tech supports compelling interactive storytelling to challenge ways of knowing and being, allowing audiences to participate in modifying the form and content of mediated environments in real time. And these technologies can be designed to facilitate emotional and epistemic changes by recreating the aesthetic aspects of transcendent experiences (for example, re-create the feeling of vastness that astronauts perceive during space flight) and triggering insight and reflection.
Transcendent experiences through new media performance art
For example, the art studio, Kimatica, has been exploring how new media performance art can create experiences that induce altered states of consciousness in the audience. The idea is to overstimulate the senses, using motion tracking technology to generate 3D visuals that respond in real time to the movement of dancers while also enhancing their movement. Separately, other researchers have designed wearable garments that can measure changes in affective states using biosensors to detect changes in heart rate, posture and galvanic skin responses. Kimatica hopes to draw on the metrics developed by this wider research to measure and understand how audiences respond to different types of light sound and movement.
New oblique methods to inform the design of transcendent user experiences
Human Computer Interaction research has for decades studied various subjective experiences, including aesthetics and emotions, to inform User Experience design, yet very little HCI research has been carried out on transcendent experiences. HCI uses clearly defined operational concepts grounded in rigorous experimental psychology yet transcendent experiences are often ineffable, making it hard to define, discuss and understand what’s being experienced let alone predict them. Consequently, standard UX design methods are not suitable.
However, new oblique design methods are being developed to help elicit, elucidate and explore aspects of experiences that are ineffable; for example, fictional scenarios, board games and even poetry, can provide concepts and metaphors to help people communicate and provoke inarticulate feelings and thoughts.
While it may be hard to guarantee when and how transcendent experiences will occur, at least conditions can be designed and implemented in which they could occur.
The transcendent experience cycle
One early finding is that transcendent experiences involve three interacting phases.
Before: transcendent experiences occur in an individual’s context, depending on:
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- Development- education, culture, work
- Spiritual- beliefs and values
- Social- if the individual is alone or with others
- Psychological- the individual’s emotional state and the novelty of the experience
- Physical- where it takes place and what activities are involved
- Temporal- when it takes place and how long it lasts
During: transcendent experiences are lived and involve:
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- Perceptions- bodily reactions, self-loss, connectedness, numinous presence
- Reactions to these perceptions- feelings, thoughts and actions
After: integrating the experiences into the individual’s life:
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- Immediate and shorter term reflections
- Longer lasting, transformative effects, such as major changes in behaviour and outlook
Blow Minds 