Consciousness, Matter and the Invisible

In my work in the MAA program I have focused on bringing the invisible/inaudible into the scope of human consciousness. Human perception is limited to our senses, and in this thesis I will investigate how we can allow for the perception of the invisible/inaudible through the method of constructing translational systems that transform signals from one state to another by applying a range of tools. In order to approach a thing we cannot see, we have to consider both the physical world, in which the thing exists, and how the thing is perceived in consciousness. The idea of mind and matter existing independently of each other is traced back to Rene Descartes and his method of doubt and logic which excluded the spirit from the physical world which he described as motion in three dimensions where everything was made of matter. His work laid the grounds for reductionism in neuropsychology which led to the idea that the human brain, and eventually consciousness, could be reduced to simple interactions of units of matter. This allowed Alan Turing to describe his theoretical computational device which had states synonymous to human mental states and eventually resulted in the creation of the modern digital computer. In response to the reductionist view of consciousness, Amit Goswami describes what he calls monistic idealism; a model of the world where matter and consciousness are not incompatible terms but are parts of a unified system. Wassily Kandinsky used color, or frequencies of light, in combination with shape to portrait objectless ideas originating from within himself, allowing the spirit a physical representation through his consciousness. I look at my work in the same terms, but instead of using frequencies of color I use frequencies of sound to represent spiritual values. I also draw some of my methods and inspiration from James Turrell and the way he emphasizes the human perceptual apparatus in his work. In my own work I construct parascientific experiments that investigate physics, consciousness and their relationship. These experiments resulted in the creation of systems constructed for the analysis and reconstruction of units of time, or frequency. My artworks discussed in the thesis are constructed around the concept of time, which I consider to be the primary aspect of my work.