Alexandria Digital Research Library

Psychonautic media

Author:
Hill, Anastasia Yumeko
Degree Grantor:
University of California, Santa Barbara. Film and Media Studies
Degree Supervisor:
Lisa Parks
Place of Publication:
[Santa Barbara, Calif.]
Publisher:
University of California, Santa Barbara
Creation Date:
2016
Issued Date:
2016
Topics:
Creative writing, Aesthetics, and Philosophy
Keywords:
Media
Perception
Subjectivity
Psychonautic
Language
Altered States
Genres:
Online resources and Dissertations, Academic
Dissertation:
Ph.D.--University of California, Santa Barbara, 2016
Description:

This interdisciplinary dissertation proposes and explores the concept of "psychonautic media." From the Greek roots psyche (mind, soul) and nautes (sailor, navigator), "psychonautic(s)" refers to both the subjective experience of altered states of consciousness, and the fields of research founded on such states. Psychonautic media therefore includes any object, substance, environment, etc. used to alter consciousness and perception. Unlike other forms of media, psychonautic media are thus defined not by their physical format or technological function, but by the unique nature of their "content"---the production of altered states as "inner media" experiences---"images" constituted by a shift in perception itself (in how the subject perceives). Within this speculative framework, I present a series of experimental case studies---on LSD, the wilderness, and sensory deprivation---that focus in particular on the relationship between subjectivity, perceptual experience, and various forms and processes of mediation (material, linguistic, ideological, etc.). Grounded in a "horizontal" methodology, and constituted by conceptual and aesthetic montage, each study integrates personal narrative; interpretations of concepts from psychoanalysis, philosophy, and literary theory; descriptions, histories, and analyses; and imagery and graphic text. Situated between art and scholarship, my aim for this project is twofold: to invent and enact, theorize and embody, the concept of psychonautic media; and, in so doing, to model an alternative mode of thinking about and doing research.

Physical Description:
1 online resource (404 pages)
Format:
Text
Collection(s):
UCSB electronic theses and dissertations
ARK:
ark:/48907/f3r78fcc
ISBN:
9781369340327
Catalog System Number:
990047189420203776
Rights:
Inc.icon only.dark In Copyright
Copyright Holder:
Anastasia Hill
File Description
Access: Public access
Hill_ucsb_0035D_13139.pdf pdf (Portable Document Format)