Experiential Research Atelier (ERA)

Vision

Experiential Research Atelier (ERA) aspires to push the boundaries of understanding perceptual experience - how we perceive and are aware of the world.

Mission

ERA investigates the nature of perceptual experience through art, design, science and philosophy.

ERA is an international cross-disciplinary research and development centre based in a School of Art & Design which collaborates with researchers in areas such as computer science, life sciences, perceptual psychology, psychophysics, neuroscience, and phenomenology.

ERA develops new ways of understanding perceptual experience by combining knowledge from across the disciplinary spectrum. Its experiential field encompasses the sum of all processes that contribute to perceptual experience and these include:

• the nature of the mind and its relationship to the world

• the physical structure of reality and the objects of perception

• the organisation of the eye, brain, and bodily systems

• our practical interaction with the world and our technological environment

Its areas of research are:

new models of perception, consciousness research, interdisciplinary methods, experiential technologies., ERA applies the resulting insights to new technologies, theories and creative works.

Values

ERA takes on seriously the challenge of working across wide disciplinary divides by genuinely integrating core ideas and approaches from various disciplines and seeing such a collaboration as a strength rather than a threat. It aims to develop an international consortium of academic research into the experiential field culminating in a system of representation modelled on visual awareness.