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Vipassana Meditation as an Introspective Theatre: CAT by Ansuman Biswas

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Posthuman Spiritualities in Contemporary Performance

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Abstract

This chapter looks at the work CAT staged by Ansuman Biswas at the South London Gallery in 1998. The piece consisted of a performance/experiment/demonstration of the famous quantum physics image/paradox of Schrödinger’s cat employing, as a means of investigation, the 2500-year-old Indian technology of Vipassana meditation. The performance space consisted of a soundproof black box placed in the middle of the gallery space where Biswas lived for ten days and nights engaging in Vipassana meditation. The multiple spatial potentialities of this restricted place are interrogated in this chapter by looking at the following cultural references: the spatial and symbolic locations of the hermit and the anchorite; the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment; and the theatrical space. Eventually, the analysis of Vipassana meditation as performance action, enquires into its modalities of operation in respect to spirituality, performativity, spectatorship and embodiment. The hypothesis proposed is that of an introspective theatre informed by the condition of spectatorship that Vipassana generates.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Drama, Dance and Performance Studies, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK

    Silvia Battista

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  1. Silvia Battista
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Correspondence to Silvia Battista .

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Battista, S. (2018). Vipassana Meditation as an Introspective Theatre: CAT by Ansuman Biswas. In: Posthuman Spiritualities in Contemporary Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89758-5_4

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