Jul 16, 20163 min read

i see you- Visual and audio documentation of the Nous of Communitas networked workshop

Abstract

The Nous of Communitas is a highly creative altered state of consciousness that generates the emergence of novel forms and ideas. It represents a radical departure from the conventions of fixed identity and social hierarchy and an encounter with a unifying nous of cosmic dimension.

The Process

The participants collaborated on a 4-part ritualistic process that induced the stages leading to communitas, involving the experience of auto-communication and allo-communication.

The ritualistic process commenced in a video room, which functioned as an 'initiation pod.' It involved an introspection process through which each participant shed her known identity and transformed into a channel of communication which was allocated for her by a remote, initiating cyborg-entity, on the basis of her responses to the situation and to its questions.

Video clip from the interior of the Initiation Pod, which transpired inside a video chat room.

There are only a few screenshots from the process as it was not meant to be reproduced or utilized in any other way but as part of a ritualistic context, which is not a public performance or show.

Screenshot of the video room during the session

According to the outcome of the initiatory process, which was anonymous, each participant was allocated with a channel, which became her only means of communication. For example, the participant allocated with the Sound Channel was able to communicate only through sound. During the second and third parts of the workshop, the participants explored their responses from violence to compassion through feedback, initially working in pairs and then with the rest of the group.

During the fourth and final part, the channels weaved a field of digital images, texts and sounds out of their initial responses whilst broadcasting it online through an interactive and remote networked and intentional procedure. Following the tradition of religious or spiritual ritual practice, the live broadcast was not meant to be a public performance but a secret ceremony for participants only, dedicated to the invocation of a noetic field and resonance. The digital files of the broadcast which have remained with the participants are the prototypes of the initial field generated by the unified team consciousness, which is diverse, syncretic but coherent. As such, they may resonate with one another and others and perhaps attract similar systems in space-time regardless of location or point in time.

Here are a few images from the networked session:

The video clip is made of excerpts of a live broadcast on Google Hangout which was an integral part of the remote Nous of Communitas workshop. The quality of the images was subjected to varied internet connections and the use of mobile phones and daily communication devices. The broadcast is not an aesthetic product but a raw behavioural and ritualistic process exploring the dynamics of violence and compassion and the making of an intentional digital field woven by an international group of participants. It was done in a few hours of work which was, as reported, 'chaotic at times' but overall the experience was 'very intense' and has left the participants 'feeling deeply connected'.

The images and sounds that transpired during the Nous of Communitas appear to mirror the outbreaks of violence that shatter the world, the displacement and alienation from which suffer so many people, and the conflicts that divide individuals and groups, large and small. They explore the dynamics of violence and compassion and the making of an intentional digital field through a remote session with an international group of participants.The remote process is based on a Planetary Collegium's vision of shifting personal and cultural identities and global interconnectedness.

Participants: Tia Vellani, Lei Han, Neha chaturvedi, Angeliki Diakrousi, Farhana Tani, Ivana Pinna

Offline/online technical support: Agnieszka Pokrywka

Online technical assistant: Yigal Eran

The Nous of Communitas is based on an original educational method and a body of writings and creative practice which were developed by Dr Lila Moore as an Advanced Research Associate of I- Node, Planetary Collegium of Plymouth University. The Workshop was part of BecomeBecome Masterclass, Athens, May 2016