Elements of Flow
Project: Branding the Species

Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi has done research into something he calls flow. Flow is a state of mind in which a person is totally concentrated in an activity and is and is at an optimum level of performance. This phenomenon was initially proposed by Dr. Csíkszentmihályi to be applicable in extrinsic applications such as designing playgrounds so the participants can experience flow. Since then, though, other researchers have adopted the concept of flow in performance activities such as artistic performance (music & theater), education, business productivity, but especially and most of all to sports.

Some scholars have proposed that the concept of flow is not much different from mystical experiences. Indeed, when I first started researching mysticism I thought it sounded very familiar to what in running and in sports is called being "in the zone", which eventually led me to the concept of flow.

Dr. Csíkszentmihályi explains that there are different characteristics, or elements, of a person who is in flow. The following is the list of elements of people who are in flow. Following each characteristic is an example taken from personal experience, of me running the Los Angeles Marathon this past March, where I felt I was completely in flow. It is meant to illustrate what each characteristic of flow is.

Person understands their goals and the goals are appropriate for the person's skill set.
I am running a distance of 26.2 miles, and have been training for it for 5 weeks. I am not as prepared as the experts recommend for a person to run a marathon, so I am basically pacing myself so that I don't go too fast or too slow.

High concentration & focusing on a very narrow activity.
I was running and running only. My mind was focused on just keeping those feet moving, occasionally getting something to drink and greeting the crowd, but that's it.

Loss of self-consciousness.
Didn't care about my appearance, fatigue, or about me at all. Everything was running.

Loss of sense of time.
I was so unaware of the time that when I got to the halfway point and saw that I had broken my all-time record for the half-marathon, had ran the longest distance continuously without stopping, and was well on my way to breaking my full marathon record, I was very much surprised and taken aback because I had not even seen how good I was running and the time that I was doing until this point.

Body & mind respond quickly & appropriately to feedback, whether it be failures or successes.

Person finds a balance between activity being too easy or too difficult.
FOR BOTH STEPS 5 & 6: In running we call it pacing when we are able to find a balance between going too fast or too slow. A good runner is acutely aware of what pacing he/she needs to have in order to have a good race. It is important not to go too fast or else there will not be anything left for the final sprint.

Sense of personal control over activity.
This is basically self-explanatory. In running even when not in flow, a runner is really the master of how he/she runs, so my sense of personal control was not much different when running this marathon than when I regularly run.

Activity is intrinsically rewarding, becomes effortless.
Running the first few miles is of course going to be pretty easy for a runner, but even after the tenth mile I still felt like I had the energy that I had at the beginning of the race, and that was because of my pacing. Like I didn't feel like wanting to stop & walk at all. In fact, when I finally did stop & walk it wasn't because I was tired, but rather because I was afraid that if I kept on running I would not have enough energy for the end.

Awareness is focused squarely on activity and nothing else.
Again, just like Steps 1 & 3 above, my awareness was unfalteringly on running and running only. I kept myself entertained in my head with random thoughts and of course all around me I had the crowds cheering the runners on, but subconsciously I was immersed in my running activity.

Sat, May 17, 2008  Permanent link

Sent to project: Branding the Species

Project Overview
Project: Branding the Species

Knowing my research up to this point I want to now concrete how I am going to be visualizing and delivering my research findings.

First just a quick overview of what exactly those research findings are, and how I got to where I currently am.

When I first heard that we were going to brand the human species and that we needed to come up with an idea of how we wanted to interpret humanity, and tell it to the aliens, my first instinct was to think from a religious perspective. I am a very religious person, I consider it a very important part of my life, so that's why I immediately thought of interpreting humanity through the eyes of my faith & spirituality. So my initial idea was telling the aliens that we are all God's children.

I know that was not going to be held up in court, though, meaning it would not be appropriate in an academic environment, and even more so in an art/design department which is just swarming with secularism/atheism. So I removed the religious bias from my interpretation, and instead proposed to the professor, TA, and my classmates, that I wanted to showcase the personal relationship that people have with their deities, be it whatever religion. Because I thought there was something uniquely human in that. The class gave me feedback and told me that supposedly my project was currently too broad, but that there was something in determining a moment of ecstasy where we can connect to "the other" (meaning God, divinity, and/or truth). They said to research Bataille and his Eroticism, plus mystics, especially the famous St. Teresa of Avila and the story of how an angel pierced her with a sword in a very erotic manner.

So I started to research the concepts of Eroticism & mysticism. What I basically came up with are that they are conditions that humans sometimes feel where they are at a very heightened sense and they feel a divine presence. Bataille himself actually referred to eroticism as a "little death" and said that when experiencing eroticism a person is at their most barren & elemental. In both eroticism & mysticism, the person feels like they are outside their body and as if something other, whether it is instinctual or external, is controlling their body.

As I was doing my research, I couldn't help but notice that the feelings that these people get from eroticism & mysticism were very similar to what in sports is called being "in the zone", meaning you are performing at your most optimum and are totally concentrated in the activity you're doing. In running specifically, it is also referred to as a runner's high, and is something that can actually be explained scientifically/medically/physiologically as when the body is under a lot of stress for a long time (as in long distance endurance running) it produces endorphins to deal with the stress.

Researching more into this "in the zone" thing, I actually found a psychologist by the name of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who researched this phenomenon. He calls it flow, and it's basically the state of a person that is fully concentrated, immersed, & focused on a specific activity that they are doing.

At this point, then, my research was summed up in three words: mysticism, eroticism, and flow. Those were the concepts that I lived by. I ate, drank, and lived those three words. As so, I believed my research part to be done, and now had to figure out a deliverable to present for this class project. And honestly I had no freaking idea what to do.

So then I talked to the professor and she said, "Okay, look. So basically we can see a connection here between these three concepts you have researched. They all involve this moment where you just snap. Let's call this the ecstatic moment. Now I want you to go around and start asking people. Ask them what their most ecstatic moment has been. Okay? Find a way to record their responses, whether it be just writing stuff down, or capturing the moment on camera or as an audio recording."

Next week I had some quotes from people, so the question was what to do with those quotes. The idea was to use key words from when I interviewed people and pair them up with an image that corresponds to the key word. The question was, from what source do I get the images from? Do I take a picture of the people when they give me their responses, ask them to form the face of when they had their ecstatic moment? Hmmm, perhaps that will be too doctored & unnatural. So then I went to the professor and she guided me to the next step of where I should take this. She said, "All right, so you have some quotes now. So what I want you to do is comprehensive image research. I want you to find images of people whose facial expressions also signify an ecstatic moment. Right now don't think about the quotes. Keep doing the interviews, but apart from that, I want you to look at photography books at the Arts Library, at old films, etc."

Therefore, the goal now is the following: using the key words from quotations of the interviews, pair them up with an image so as to create a juxtaposition. For example, an illustrious gentleman at my work told me that his most ecstatic moment ever was when he had relations with a beautiful woman, and that he felt guilty afterwards. "Guilty" is the key word. Now the image is that of a little girl holding a teddy bear, it is an ecstatic moment. Now what happens when you put the word "GUILTY" on top of that image? It creates for a very interesting contrast.

So the project as it currently stands is perfect. Pretty ferosh, actually. See, we have avoided the problem of seeming too doctored & unnatural. Because the point here is not to represent the quotation directly, it's actually the opposite, to twist it into a way that makes you think twice about the photograph, or about the quote, or about both.

Fri, May 16, 2008  Permanent link

Sent to project: Branding the Species