Transcendence Device, 2006, 4’ x 4’ x 8’, steel, epsom salt, and various electronic components.

Transcendence Research, 2006, video, running time: 43 minutes 47 seconds.
Plato believed that the world which we perceive with our senses is not the real world. Socrates suggested that the body is a prison house for the soul. Both of these philosophers thought that a higher reality exists beyond the physical. To test these ideas, I created this sensory deprivation tank. The goal of the project was to allow one to achieve an immaterial presence by temporarily freeing their mind from its connection with the physical world
Sensory deprivation tanks work by blocking sensory data from the user’s sense organs. The chamber prevents light and sound from entering. The sense of touch is minimized by partially filling the tank with a solution which is saturated with Epsom salt, giving users sufficient buoyancy to float on the water’s surface. To decrease the participant’s awareness of the water, it is kept at 93 degrees Fahrenheit, the same as the human body’s exterior.
Over 30 people participated in this collaboration, each spending from one to two hours in the device. Participants were interviewed after their sessions, and videotaped as they emerged from the tank. In the project’s final video documentation the participant emergences are played back in slow motion, enhancing the viewer’s ability to empathize with the lethargy of the participant. Participant’s audio interviews are played along with their slowed down emergence. Discussions include such various topics as: the relationship between the mind and the body, the fear of being alone, a potential “layeredness” of reality, the imminence of mortality, the nature of consciousness, and in contrast to the intense quietude of the experience: thoughts about the over-stimulated, multitasking existence that is the norm in contemporary society.

Ten Hours in the Transcendence Device, 2006, video, running time: 18 minutes, 51 seconds.
Bent on attaining a transcendent experience, Meiser engaged in a ten hour session in the Transcendence Device. For safety, and for purposes of documentation, Meiser emerged from the tank every two hours. During each break his assistants would blindfold and put hearing protection on him in order to minimize his sensory input. Assistants would then take his temperature and give him a bland bit of sustenance (water, tofu, bread, or lettuce) in order to stave off the distractions of thirst and hunger. During these intermissions Meiser was also asked to recount his experiences. In the first intermission he expressed contentment: “a peaceful enjoyment of the nothingness”.
As the experiment progressed, he began to describe dreamlike visions of events from real life. Meiser maintained that he was not sleeping while in the tank, rather, he described the state as “detached but fully conscious.” He spoke of an inability to accurately perceive time, and said that he had trouble feeling fully awake in the tank because there can be no actions or events to provide points of reference. The “stimulus hunger” brought on by the deprivation may have been responsible for his yearnings for sensual experiences: hugs, eating cheesecake, and running through crunchy grass in the sunshine. Humorous as these desires may seem, they are evidence of the degree to which human experience relies on physicality.
Meiser explained that toward the end of the ten hour session he began to feel very vulnerable and nameless. It is only through our senses that we are able to connect with the world, and sensual experience is not just about pleasure, it is also a reassurance of one’s existence.