New York University

Undergraduate, Gallatin School of Individualized Study

Other Affiliations: New York University, Anthropology

Thesis Title: Ritual, Imagination, and the New Mythology: Cognitive evolution and creative modalities in prehistory & today.

About

Current Updates: www.twitter.com/amandashowers
and www.twitter.com/studentHIP

Please check out www.heroicimagination.org for which I am heading up the student division in conjunction with Philip Zimbardo (Stanford University), but with a juicy Joseph Campbell center.



{last updated Spring 2009}:

Based in New York City, I'm currently a full-time student at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study with a concentration in Cognitive Anthropology, Symbolic Evolution, and Cross-Media Fiction.

I'm also a writer, and painter/illustrator, and involved in several social-change,  networking, cross-cultural exchange , and creative projects and organizations--working hard so I can enrich & entertain the world while doing my part to save it from the zombie apocalypse (that seems to finally be getting some face-time with the press).

My forte is an unveiling of the natural human condition and our evolutionary trajectory in contemporary socio-biological contexts. I see paleo-anthropology and innovations in arts publication as keys to our current survival and ability to come back into balance with the more complex evolutionary demands of a 'civilized' environment--art, cultural re-presentation, and creative expression as the key.

My goal is to define the significant role of the imagination to our contemporary existence in space and time as an animal species, as well as the continued evolution of cultural mediums & conceptual fictions as the 'charge' we must 'conduct' successfully to survive the very conditions that our evolutionary trajectory has created.

One of my applied creative goals is something I like to call Guerrilla Fiction*, to address contemporary issues of socio-ecological transformation through a conscious overhaul of creative systems and conceptual platforms.

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*A break down of the cognitive & medium boundaries in our expressed mythologies that promotes active physical and mental engagement of the unconscious--and literal immediacy--in 'entertainment' & 'art' rather than passive observation. Here fiction is taken seriously as a vehicle for multidimensional cognitive experience (the fictional universe as an alternate universe), and the concept of a 'franchise' is stripped of negative industrial energy and put back in the hands of *the people* through modern re-presentative tools that mirror our cognitive trajectory.

Re-presentation reflects our cognitive trajectory as its sensory manifestation (ie. from hand axes to Pollock), and this is the power of creativity--Like the two-dimensionality of pictures, the current state of 'art' can be likened to dimensions beyond that of the basic physical perception we've become accustom to. This opens up our conceptual framework and balances our human experience--as humanity has done throughout history, often with less imposing circumstances. It is a necessary socio-cultural counterpart to the restrictions of civilizing society and the, often subtle effect of techno-biological expansion. Think experiential cluster thinking, literally manifest for both sides of our brains in a manor that re-institutes balance.

Because right now, we are VERY off balanced.



...And the point of it all for me right now is hardcore sci-fi stories with deep character development and sexy fight scenes.

For entertainment 'industry' profile see website below.


Please get in touch for any reason, I thrive on collaboration and down-to-earth communication.

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