'Illusion of the Self,' Mixed Media Installation

Central Saint Martins Degree Show One (2015)

My MA degree show piece was a work that mirrored two years of research conducted as a postgraduate student at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design into the relationship between art and science. My contention is that there is an irreconcilable tension between the fine arts and the natural sciences, one which manifests itself as one of the most pressing questions of all intellectual life today: 'If we accept the scientific description of reality as made up entirely of mindless, meaningless particles, and that 'the self' is merely the product of chemical and physical processes in the brain, how do we reconcile these facts with our traditional self-representations as purposeful, social, creative, rational, free, and intelligent agents?'

Working with neuroscientist Dr. Sarah Jolly of the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, and exploring contemporary concepts in neuroscience and neurophilosophy, 'Illusion of the Self,' through its aesthetic, its material construction, and its theoretical depth, aims to 'make visual' both the tensions and points of synthesis that underlie the rapidly shifting discourse between the humanities and the natural sciences.

Cell images photographed at Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research (University College London)