SSRN Electronic Journal
2026
Mario Enrique Medina
This paper introduces and formally defines the concept of Connective Trance, an original theoretical contribution to the study of artistic creation, aesthetic experience, and embodied consciousness. Connective Trance designates a liminal state of expanded awareness that precedes or accompanies creative and performative acts, characterized by intensified attention, partial suspension of...
Mario Enrique Medina
preprint
Contemporary artistic creation can be understood as a process that exceeds the rational will of the author and unfolds within states of expanded perception. Within this framework, the concept of connective trance (Medina, 2025) designates a condition of consciousness in which the creator enters an intensified relationship with their sensory environment, allowing the artwork to emerge as a...
Mario Enrique Medina
preprint
This essay proposes a conceptual distinction between the creative process and the connective trance within the context of contemporary art. From a phenomenological and symbolic perspective, the creative process is understood as an introspective dynamic of the artist, while the connective trance is described as an intersubjective experience that establishes a symbolic communion between creator,...
Mario Enrique Medina
preprint
This article proposes Connective Trance as an original conceptual framework for the analysis of aesthetic experience. Drawing on phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty), complexity theory (Morin), and analytical psychology (Jung), the paper argues that aesthetic experience requires a suspension of interpretative immediacy in order to activate a state of heightened embodied receptivity. The concept of...
Mario Enrique Medina
preprint
This article examines a subtle yet recurrent perceptual phenomenon observed in creative subjects immediately prior to artistic action: a transformation of the gaze. Rather than indicating distraction or dissociation, this altered gaze is proposed as a pre-performative state intrinsic to what the author conceptualizes as Connective Trance. The study argues that the gaze functions as an early,...
Mario Enrique Medina
preprint
This paper presents the theoretical background and the first experimental approximation to the concept of *Connective Trance*, an aesthetic and sensory state that aims to reestablish the dynamic relationship between perception, body, and artwork. Drawing from phenomenology, complexity theory, and analytical psychology, the study proposes that art can function as a connective field between...
Mario Enrique Medina
preprint
This study develops the concept of Connective Trance as a relational-operational state of consciousness recurrently enacted in the history of painting. Rather than treating artistic styles as isolated formal systems, the essay proposes that diverse painters have entered intensified perceptual conditions in which body, gesture, material, and pictorial field operate as a unified dynamic...