Justin Ascott

An interrogation of a monumental urban structure – a road bridge – considering its kinaesthetic affect on the in situ observer, or viewer of ‘Sound : Bridge’, a short film which reconstructs the site.  The paper outlines Antonio Damasio’s neurobiological model of affect, and links it to C.G. Jung’s model of archetypal symbolism, to consider the ways in which the acoustic and visual qualia experienced at the substructure of the site may induce altered emotional states and a sense of the numinous.  Archaeoacoustic and Neuroarchaeological findings relating to Neolithic consciousness, sacred caves, standing stones, and shamanic practices are considered in terms of how we may perceive the road bridge at a neurologically hardwired, and universal collective unconscious level. The paper also explores Psychogeographic and Depth Psychology perspectives and strategies for creatively re-engaging with the mundane built environment.

This paper and associated short film screening, entitled ‘Threshold’, explores the phenomenon of house, as a Cartesian construct of rational cultural detachment, set in binary opposition to the indigenous understanding of nature as connected and sacred. ‘Threshold’ focuses on the liminal in-between zones of a house – its doors and windows – which both separate and join the inside/outside domains - without belonging to either of them. The film explores the liminal act of crossing this ontological threshold - representing it cinematically as a vibrational, ocular/aural wavering between two ‘worlds’. The intention is to destabilize this duality on an emotional level – in order to interrogate its validity. This strategy references anthropological theory, which asserts that the liminal act stimulates the limbic system containing ancestral, instinctual deposits. The function of the limbic system (part of the triune brain model) accords with Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious - which views the house as an archetypal symbol, central to the meaning of dreams - in representing the psyche of the dreamer. ‘Threshold’ attempts to invoke this and other archaic symbols as the camera journeys through its interior spaces, discovering its material culture artefacts, which reflect the psychic state of its inhabitants. The paper and associated film explores the indigenous belief that there is a mystical (unitive, transformative) relationship existing between space and acoustics, that can only be fully appreciated through an emotional experience with it. The adoption of an arts interventionist approach, can, the paper will argue, provide an important contribution to our expanded understanding of Space & Place, as an embodied, emotional-cognitive act.