Material Transformations – Making as a Catalyst of Experience

This paper examines my personal process of materializing lived experiences into a material installation, and how this process affected how I perceive those lived experiences. The process is investigated through to the image schematic structure of experience, in relation to the metaphoric nature of material substances, across a specific practice led research process, the Edges of the Existent installation. In this paper, materializing experience is seen as a form of transference, a catalyst through which lived experience is turned into tangible material artefacts, which perform, express and interpret the embodied, emotional and reflected content related to experiences. Through this transference, the artist is able to access their preconscious levels of experience and articulate them in a manner that is both embodied and experiential. The tangibility of materiality creates a multidimensional layer to conscious experience, through which the preconscious structures of experience can be reached. These dimensions add to the experiential value of the work of art, as embodied experiences evolve into more metaphoric and abstract processes of thought.