The Praxis of Communitas: Cultivating Altered Intelligences Through Art
Publication information:
Abstract
Artist Talk: This art-based academic paper examines Cosmo-Alterity, an immersive installation that bridges art and embodied spirituality to explore altered intelligences and collective consciousness. Through dynamic visuals, soundscapes, and movement, the installation fosters a sense of communitas—a shared experience of unity and transformation. Drawing on theories of alterity and intercorporeality, this paper investigates how the design art of Cosmo-Alterity invites participants to engage with more-than-human intelligences and reimagine relationality amid ecological and existential crises. By blurring boundaries between self and other, Cosmo-Alterity illuminates new pathways for embodied spiritual practice, ecological care, and artistic expression in a time of planetary polycrises.
Presenter Biography
Maria Prieto is a curator, an architect, an artist, a scholar and a somatic educator. With doctoral backgrounds from The University of Manchester and California Institute of Integral Studies, her work cultivates a transformative design art cosmopraxis through combining embodied spiritual studies with participatory-embodied inquiries into situated ecologies of care.
Find a link to their artwork below.