Artistic Statement:
My interest is in finding a new artistic language to represent the experience of consciousness - and in so doing,
to use art as a tool to elicit a spiritual experience without resorting to the supernatural.
Consciousness is not a "stream" but is more like a flood. It is difficult to capture its essence with language alone: words alone are linear and slow, and the terms and metaphors of folk psychology are coarse and misleading. That's why reporting your own "stream of consciousness" is difficult: first-person reports are notoriously intrusive, unreliable, and unverifiable.
I use music, theatrical performance, photography, poetry, and film to illustrate the multi-layered complexity of recursive processing systems in the brain. Throughout my work, I introduce new concepts and techniques to show how the experience of consciousness emerges from the clamor of competing voices within the parliamentary chamber of the mind. The purpose is for the creation and viewing of the work to engender a feeling of awe at how the complexity of subjective experience emerges and evolves, without adding an extra element of "soul" or "consciousness" to the universe.
Please click here to explore my work:
Music Photography Poetry Film Performance
Works include an oratorio, View from the Strangers' Gallery, in 2000; two song-cycles, Great Expectations and The Court Gossip, in 2001; a play, Conducting Elif, in 2002; a collection of poetry in 2003-4; and several short films and sculptures in 2005.
Exhibitions:
Click here for photos from Brian's exhibition at philosophy of mind conference -
Toward a Science of Consciousness (TSC 2006)
My art photography and short films have been exhibited throughout the country at art galleries, film festivals, and philosophy conferences. These include several gallery showings, as well as presentations at the SciArt festival in London, the ASCI festival in New York, and a lecture on philosophy of mind at the Association for the Scientific Studies of Consciousness (ASSC) at CalTech.
Links to other artists exhibiting at TSC
Further info about the artist:
Contact information and mailing list
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