The Politics of Consciousness and Immersive Media: An Integrative Review

UNA REVISIÓN INTEGRADORA

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33871/sensorium.2025.12.10951

Keywords:

Awe, Art, Futurism, Shamanism, Design

Abstract

Awe-inspiring experiences and aesthetic rituals can induce profound epistemic transformations while also intersecting with structures of power. This review examines diverse case studies – from Amazonian shamanic rituals to ancient Egyptian temple arts, Surrealist dream experiments, transpersonal psychology, and science-fiction cyberculture – to understand how designed experiences of awe and immersion can transform or define knowledge and agency. Across these domains, we see a common thread: “politics of consciousness” – the way altered states and symbolic systems affect individual and collective worldviews – entwines with both spiritual mythos, realpolitik (the exercise of power), and sociotechnical imaginaries. We highlight examples of how sacred art-ritual ecologies and modern media techniques serve as architectures of transformation, allude to the distinctions of individual, community and corporate liminoid experiences, and then explore how technologically-mediated awe can both elevate and undermine human freedom. The goal is to elucidate how rituals of awe – including emerging immersive media – function as both tools of epistemic change and sites of political contestation over the human spirit.

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Author Biography

Daniel Mirante, University of East London Britain

Daniel Mirante is an artist, teacher and student of shamanistic traditions which he translates and expresses through the format of traditional Renaissance fine art symbolism and techniques. His interest involves the therapeutic and integrative and exploratory power of artistic process.

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Published

2025-07-06

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 01 (2025): Art&Sensorium

Section

Dossier: Unconscious and Counterculture: Alternative Artistic Dissidences

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