Abstract

This essay explores the nature of absorbed experience which occurs when we are deeply immersed in a practical activity, such as when we make a work of art. This absorption is at the heart of all concentrated activity and reinforces those moments of engaged creativity when self-consciousness is freed from the calculations of the ego. Such occasions cannot be willed or predicted, but rather appear to arise spontaneously as in a stream of consciousness in which there is recognisable flow that is undisrupted by language. Indeed, there is evidence that in these engaged moments, language itself is held in abeyance and that embodied activity takes over as we lose ourselves in the practical experience of making. Both the literature and artists’ accounts of their practice have tended to overlook the nature of these experiences.