The Spiritual Cyborg: Quantum and Holographic Theory, Popular Music, Speculative Fiction and Yoga / Clark Griffin (2022)

This research project drew on theories from the fields of physics, ecology and evolutionary biology, feminism, post-humanism, spirituality and eastern philosophy. Central to the dissertation is the metaphor of a holographic and entangled universe, as described in George Leonard’s “The Silent Pulse.” In the hologram, each component contains information of and is connected to the whole. Additionally, the notion of Haraway’s post-human, symbiogenic, cyborg from her “Cyborg Manifesto” as well as Rosi Braidoitti’s estranged, nonlinear, nonsequential, chimeric “Meta-Morphic Others and Nomadic Subjects” serve as mirrors and inspirations for this investigation of creativity through the lens of a universe with holographic ecology. These concepts are explored through the practices of dance, yoga, science-fiction writing, music production and performance with an interest in and with the pursuit of paradigmatic wonderment and embodiment. For the practical component of the MFA, the project output culminated in the debut of a full-length solo performance titled “Lo-Fi, Hi-Fi, DIY, Sci-Fi: An Experimental Pop Concert,” synthesizing the above practices and featuring text from an original science-fiction short story as well as original music and choreography. The research reconciles and grapples with science and spirituality, subject and object, inner and outer worlds, micro and macro cosmos, the personal and the collective. Viewed as the components of a feedback loop creating both art and artist, the practice asks what it means to live, to be part of, to change, to evolve, to embody, to share, to create, to become as and with a holographic, entangled, projecting, nested and networked reality. The practice could be described as an autosymbiogenetic art and artist system, bridging theory and embodiment; an attempt to bring speculative paradigms into embodied and expressive focus.