“Everything we see could also be otherwise.
Everything we can described at all could also be otherwise.”
—-Ludwig Wittgenstein. Tractatus
Installation shot of the exhibition © Heart Lab
Heraclitus said that thinking was walking into the strange. This exhibition begins with walking in a dimly lit corridor. Each spectator holds a small torch with which to navigate the spatial encounter. Attention starts to shift from the eyes to the feet, from wide awake visuality to other senses especial the regulation of touch. We are locked in, but also opened out, as we enter a dark room with only the torches as a guide. The air feels dense. This is a slow space, a space of arrest even a space of regression.
A memory of other spaces starts to occur. Attention wanders as part of the reorganisation of the faculties. The space is folded in ways that occasion shifting sensations in which images might be formed. As imaginary images start to mutate, a shift to other spaces start to occur. The space of the cave is foremost but then how such spaces mutated into cave retreats for the early mystics who formed a view of an abstract universe unhindered by the concerns of the everyday. We might wonder what images of a future-to-come were imagined in these spaces and then how a connection between wondering and wandering was formed.
The torches do not serve to articulate bounded images but rather traces that create a passage which serve as ripples within visual perception inhibiting a sense of cognitive connection. Are we invited to walk within the mountains or the enter the deep of the forest? Textures as much as images flicker in this quarter space of vision.
The great painter-monks of the early Song Dynasty prepared to paint not by amassing visual data of landscapes, but by first traces the energetic formations collected through walking. This translated into the paintings possessing breath resonance. Through this the great breath of emptiness was rendered visible in what was a silent transmission of the inner law of the universe. Their feet were thus their main organs of perception.
Muqi, Detail of dusk over fisher’s village, from the handscroll “Eight Views of Xiao and Xiang”, circa 1250, Collected in Nezu Art Museum
It might be noticed that the pattern of breathing deepens within this space. At this juncture there might be a meeting point between scientific understanding and ancient mysticism, but anyway the focus is on how attention is formed. It can be claimed that art is the attention to attention and that exhibitions serve to bracket this. Here the bracket is of the laboratory that is predicated on neuro-aesthetics and so we have the figure of research but a sense of research that opens out a search. The culture is one of saturated hyper attention in which words and images are all layered into complex patterns that are ultimately ciphered through algorithms.
The great mountains look on as they collect yet another sense. They stand as symbols of the immeasurable. Whatever the sky is always above, and the seas are below. Is the contest between East and West that of emptiness and presence as a way of assembling a viewpoint upon things? Culture is just a view or just the air that we breathe. The search for coherence is simple the way of lending attention to that search for viewpoints. Research is the model that I leant to this process. Placing the ‘heart’ into this matter is to add warmth to hat might be reduced to the cooling valve of systematic reason.
The space links seeing, with feeling, memory, knowing, and imagination, all of which linked by a method born out of intuition or the immediacy of the objects at hand. The faculty of intuition is related or possesses the principle of form before it might be subsumed into instances of abstracted concepts, so it forms a direct and immediate apprehension and a disavowal of formal principles of knowing. Metaphorically it stays close to movement apprehension (walking), as opposed to sedentary postures (sitting). Kant viewed space and time as objects that were available to intuition because they are not subject to being abstracted from sensation. This factor is important in relationship to the exhibition because it focuses upon a way of presenting space and time in way that might alter the process of perception.
So, we are left to wander and wonder which way to go, and how to go. Travel can implicate itself as forgetting as much as awakening. Worlds are offered as much as are withdrawn. Deserts form and deform, forests appear and then are subject to disappearance, everything is in turn subject to such contraries whether tiny or great. A tiny experiment in perception draws attention to what is passing by. In terms of scale this is miniscule, but it draws its vital energy from being on the very edge of disappearance. As an intake of breath, it is in the quality of the breath that resonates at the intersection of science, art, and esoteric sense.
Text by Jonathan Miles
More about the Exhibition:
Can You Afford to “Pay” Attention
4-9 June 2024
Greatorex Street Gallery, London
Curated by Mu Qing, the exhibition is uniquely set in a completely dark environment with no source of light. Each visitor will be given a torch to navigate the space, turning away from the overstimulating “white wall” gallery setup and elimination distractions. This setup ensures visitors focus on one artwork at a time, enhancing their ability to “pay” more attention. Research indicates that people tend to be more relaxed, less self-conscious, and more creative in the dark. Participating artists include Cat Campbell, You Yuxuan, Amy Hui Li, Emma Jordan, Rosie Mullan and Issy Wilson.
Installation shot of the exhibition © Heart Lab
More about Heart Lab
Heart Lab was founded by Mu Qing in 2023 with the belief that “ART beats in every heART.” With its expertise in neuroaesthetics, it strives to use the power of neuroscience and aesthetic science to create new narratives in the story of art.
The primary approach of Heart Lab is to integrate neuro-aesthetic research findings into its curatorial storytelling. By doing so, it aspires to unlock fresh perspectives for the public to experience art and redefine what art exhibitions could be.
