After I decided on the theme (farewell), I re-brainswarmed.

 

From this, I think that farewell is also a kind of ritual. I started looking for information related to rituals.

Turner’s book The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure[1], describes liminality, an important concept which he identified in one particular kind of ritual, the rite of passage. Rites of passage celebrate the movement of a member of a society from one state or condition to another.

At the same time, I also did some research on the role of rituals. Rituals are associated with altered states of consciousness[2]. Altered states of consciousness are often accompanied by ‘dream-like’ hallucinations, diminished logic, and often a change in alertness – less worry and slower stress response[3]. This article[4] states that the stronger the sense of ritual, the more positive the emotional state, the better the cognitive performance, and the better the self-feeling. Tian[5] proposed that enacting ritualized actions can enhance subjective feelings of self-discipline, such that rituals can be harnessed to improve behavioral self-control. Jeremy in his experiment found that people perform mourning rituals in an effort to alleviate their grief [6].

I also learned about ritual art. My favorite includes Erica Scourti’s bot with feelings[7] and The New Politicians/ Gates of Time[8]. At the same time, I also learned that there are some people who are researching the design of rituals[9]. I would like to share with you these two rituals of the digital age — a funeral for dead robot dogs[10] and a ritual service for decaying digital things[11].

 

Reference

  1. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure
  2. Lee EM, Klement KR, Ambler JK, Loewald T, Comber EM, Hanson SA, et al. (2016) Altered States of Consciousness during an Extreme Ritual. PLoS ONE 11(5): e0153126. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153126
  3. Vaitl D, Birbaumer N, Gruzelier J, et al. Psychobiology of altered states of consciousness. Psychol Bull. 2005;131(1):98-127. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.131.1.98
  4. Hobson NM, Bonk D, Inzlicht M. Rituals decrease the neural response to performance failure. PeerJ. 2017;5:e3363. Published 2017 May 30. doi:10.7717/peerj.3363
  5. Tian, D. A., J. Schroeder, G. Haubl, J. Risen, M. I. Norton, and F. Gino. “Enacting Rituals to Improve Self-control.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 114, no. 6 (June 2018): 851–876.
  6. Friedman, Jeremy. Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022.
  7. https://www.vice.com/en/article/53dkgn/this-bot-tries-to-empathise-with-your-emotional-tweets
  8. https://www.lyraritualart.com/blog/portfolio/the-new-politicians-gates-of-time-2014-2015/
  9. https://www.ritualdesignlab.org/about-ritual-design/
  10. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/346/#:~:text=AIBO%20is%20
  11. https://www.ritualdesignlab.org/ritual-design-projects/farewell/