Challenge in artistic flow experiences: an interdisciplinary intervention

Abstract

This article explores the psychological phenomenon of flow through a nonrepresentational geographical emphasis on material practices. Both the positivity and skills-challenge balance assumed to characterise flow are brought into question by the challenge and negative feelings arising from material aspects of artistic practice. This challenge appears to be localised around a pivotal point in the emergence of the artwork and essential for both successful completion of the artwork and experience of flow. This localisation is conceived as a period of chimerical instability in the ontological status of the artwork, during which time the artwork is more than a series of marks but not yet a finished work, and a zone of indiscernibility concerning when activity should cease. Particular features of material practice, including heterotechnicity or cooperative framework and heterochrony or magnification of effects from small scale changes, provide a means of rethinking the skills-challenge relationship in artistic flow experiences.