Art&Sensorium
July 6, 2025
Daniel Mirante
Awe-inspiring experiences and aesthetic rituals can produce deep shifts in how people know the world, and these shifts often intersect with power structures. Examining cases from Amazonian shamanic rituals to ancient Egyptian temple arts, Surrealist dream experiments, transpersonal psychology, and science-fiction cyberculture reveals a common thread: a 'politics of consciousness' in which altered states and symbolic systems shape individual and collective worldviews, entwining spiritual mythos, realpolitik, and sociotechnical imaginaries. Sacred art-ritual ecologies and modern media techniques serve as architectures of transformation. Technologically mediated awe can both elevate and undermine human freedom. Rituals of awe function as tools of epistemic change and sites of political contestation over the human spirit.
Art&Sensorium
April 9, 2025
Matheus Moura Silva
Non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC) such as those induced by ayahuasca, lucid dreams, and holotropic breathing do not increase creativity in the individual creator. Instead, they influence and assist the themes artists pursue, which can be mistaken for enhanced creativity and is better understood as a choice to follow a specific subject. This conclusion comes from a doctoral research project that analyzed comics by Moebius, Jim Woodring, Rick Veitch, Sergio Macedo, and Xalberto, along with the author's own prior work, using art-based research combined with autoethnography. As a poetic outcome, 16 collaborative comic stories were created within the scope of Visionary Art, and their creative processes were discussed in relation to cognitive processes and typical psychological states of NOSC.
Art&Sensorium
April 9, 2025
Francisco Prosdocimi, María Carolina Pacini
The ayahuasca experience and non-ordinary states of consciousness involve symbolic visions, access to the unconscious, and an altered perception of reality. Its metaphysical nature challenges conventional categories of language and representation, often described as ineffable. Visionary art that seeks to express these experiences faces even greater challenges, translating dynamic and subjective content that escapes traditional symbolic structures. Participants in ayahuasca rituals report visions of sacred geometries, cosmic unity, unconditional love, and encounters with divine entities or shadow aspects of the psyche, none of which can be faithfully represented due to cognitive, conceptual, and technical limitations.
Art&Sensorium
June 15, 2019
Matheus Moura Silva
A literature review of research over the last century examines whether psychedelics, particularly ayahuasca, can stimulate creativity. The findings are inconclusive; existing studies do not clearly answer whether psychedelics are creativity-enhancing agents. The author notes that new, specific methodologies are needed to investigate the topic. Despite the lack of definitive evidence, the influence of psychedelics on artists who have used them is well recognized.