Playtime

Background This research explores the perception of objects and body through creative participation. It combines the partitioned thinking space of the library carrel with the feedback provided by mirrored surfaces and the interactivity, collaboration, brain stimulation and biomechanical movement involved in physical play. It draws upon neuroscience, phenomenology, the perceptual experiments of minimalism and notions of sensation in art and attempts to create stimulating spatial relationships. Significance Playtime explores embodied cognition and re-examines sculptural encounters as neurocognitive experiences. Through a series of participatory works, this research poses questions of how neurocognitive experiences in perception can be produced in the gallery. The work consists of three parts - a freestanding mirrored library carrel offering the opportunity to play table tennis in a spatially extended manner, a lump of orange plasticine for manipulation on a mirrored surface and a mirrored partition on artificial grass offering the sensation of recombining reflections of body parts with other viewers. Contribution This work contributes to debates surrounding art and cognition. Participants of the work explored the possibilities for expanded perception the work presented. The work offers a cross disciplinary approach to neuroscience and the encounter of sculpture. Future research could be done with other object configurations.