Art-meets-science-project This body that once was you
2021, with Vibeke Mascini
Audio installation. Sound recording of guided meditation, chair, 330grams of dust derived from human bone. Duration: 25 min.
The audio installation This body that once was you is an exercise in dying. Seated in a field of aerosolized bone dust, visitors visualize their own death and dissolution. The installation is based on The nine cemetery contemplations, a Buddhist meditation that begins with the sentence “You died today,” after which the disintegration of the body follows in nine stages, until the moment when bones merge into dust and dissolve completely into their surroundings. We created a secular variant in which the decomposition process is witnessed from outside the body, while it is also experienced from the inside, on a biological and molecular level. In a spoken stream of conscience, the listener is guided from the last breath to the transformation into shiny beetles and fragments of DNA in the universe.
In 2021, we had the art- installation scientifically researched by Prof. Dr. Enny Das of Radboud University Nijmegen to test whether it is an effective strategy to transcend death anxiety.
The conclusions of the study: “The findings showed that the artful death meditation emotionally moved visitors, gave them a sense of being part of a bigger picture, and for up to two weeks after exposure [to death thoughts...] led to more sustained reflection and appreciation of life, compared to a neutral control condition. These findings point to the power of art in dealing with difficult topics such as death.”
The article can be read here: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1477479/full
This Art-meets-science-project was part of the VPRO podcast Kassiewijle and financially supported by the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AFK), the Dutch Research Council (NOW), the Centre for Language Studies (Radboud University, Nijmegen).
image 1-5 by Ilya Rabinovich
image 6 by Suzie Hagens (process documentation)