Abstract


This project is inspired by collections of multimedia stimuli used to induce emotions in psychological experiments. The stimuli are brief moments drawn from uncountable unique stories, and in their limited form they are yet considered able to universally trigger emotions.  These media work by collapsing a range of experiences into representative stimuli, for the viewer to re-expand in unique ways. That captured and abstracted single experience has value and makes us feel because in the irrepressible search for meaning we draw from our own resources personal ways to understand it. We expand its meaning in ourselves, beginning with the limited information of the stimulus, and adding our own experiences of perception, life, and feeling. The universal value of these media comes from an experience among many, abstracted, and re-personified in each viewer, just as a work of art would function according to Dewey. This is how any emotion is shared: of our diverse experiences, it is communicated by abstract and symbolic expressions of all sorts, then the receiver re-embodies the emotionality in themselves as they imbibe those symbols with meaning from their own resources.  This dance project explores the potential of abstracted moments to inspire meaning beyond their origin.