Worldbuilders: towards a dramaturgy of metaplasticity: affecting embodied change through immersive audio and story

Metaplasticity is the dynamic and relational system consisting of body, mind and environment, an extended idea of neuroplasticity which suggests that change can be achieved in the body through the manipulation of the environment. This is enacted by drawing attention to the embodied self’s co-creative dynamic with its immediate environment.<br><br>In both the written thesis and accompanying artistic portfolio, I explore different approaches to creating immersive audio environments.

The audio portfolio documents the case-study of Worldbuilders, a project created for people living with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Worldbuilders aims to provide participants with an artistic and transportative way to engage with their changing bodies, as well as tools to address potential PD related mobility issues. It offers an enriched audio environment, accentuating rhythm and motor imagery for the audience participant to practice activities that potentially stimulate neurological motor pathways damaged by PD. <br><br>Through a process of collaboration with the Parkinson’s disease affected body, and by using embodied cognition and enactive theory as active agents, the thesis offers practical insights in how to curate an artistic audio space that works with the body’s own enactive sense-making systems. <br><br>In this research I propose a co-created imagined space within which participants engage as themselves rather than through embodying a character.