The core themes which I developed from my reflections on the actions that I undertook are captured by the chapters’ headings and their sub-themes, as follows:

Chapter 10: Stimulation (Sensing–Feeling–Acknowledging).
Chapter 11: Internalisation (Shape–Movement).
Chapter 12: Application (Place–Space).

I will explain how I reached each theme/sub-theme.

The initial approach that I took at the start of this research was to focus on connecting what seemed to me opposites between expressions through emotions and expressions through thought. I have attempted to link the two through a literature review of scientific theories. I have sensed these opposites while creating art myself as well as in the writing up of this PhD study. In my case, the artistic flow felt like a spontaneous burst of emotions decoding themselves into an artistic language of graphic designs, films and short-verse poetry. This occurred naturally and easily. The writing of a proposal, on the other hand, was a process of reading literature, reflecting, and structuring a linear narrative. The long process of thinking seemed to oppose the burst of emotions, and I assumed that thought governs the act of creativity.

I started to examine the way that thought and perception operate. Thought is largely seen as an act that operates on the basis of space and time, as Kant ([1787] 2000) argues. I was drawn to explore that area through the studies of Einstein as well as recent findings in Quantum Physics. My aim was to understand the artistic creative process, which I saw as operating under the faculty of human perception. I did not aim to make any arguments relating to the field of science.

I noted that the Theory of Relativity and studies in Quantum Physics argue for the surprising possibility of parallel realities that exist at the same place and the same time. These theories do not indicate a scientific ‘fixed’ truth about reality, but rather indicate possibilities of different realities existing together. From this I noted that the inner emotional reality and the outer intellectual reality can coincide, in what these theories suggest are simply two different modes of perceptions. This notion served as the basis for my article Symbols of feelings and extraction of knowledge which was my first article to be published during my research (Dekel, 2006).

The scientific theories that I explored challenged the ‘priority’ of thought over emotion.