Consciousness
The Colombian artist Oswaldo Maciá and scientists Chris Bean and Emilia Leszkowicz are the residents of the STUDIOTOPIA Art&Science Residency hosted by LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdansk.
The aim of their common project Consciousness is to raise awareness about our planet, our behaviours and drives, the way our brains translate signals into meanings, and about all the organisms we relate to. Artist Oswaldo Maciá and scientists Chris Bean (Head of Geophysics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies) and Emilia Leszkowicz (electrophysiologist based at University of Gdansk) work together around the glossary of words. Since the words are containers, they carry meanings and have power to build ideas and concepts.
Here is an unexhaustive list of the topics and ideas the residency team is currently working on:
• sex and gender
• racial and gender inequality
• consciousness
• knowledge vs ignorance
• failed organs
• human unconsciousness
• turning points
• exclusion / inclusion in society
• equity vs equality
• climate crisis
• corruption
• rapacious corporations
• political cynical attitude
• smell communication
• smell discrimination
• neuroscience
• physics
• wind
• sound communication
• listening to the planet
• reading the brain
• art as a space for thinking and elaborating new questions
• zenith
• Nadir
• Non-human cognition
• Connected earth systems
• oscillations
• illusion
• dancing
• raw concept & slow cooking
• failure [in art failure is important, light to something new]
• smell 'vertical sculpture'
• sound 'horizontal sculpture’
• bees & orchids
• co-evolution
• ultra-sound & infra-sound
• Rods and Cones, photo-receptors
• olfactory receptors
• shape & vibration
Oswaldo’s body of work consists in sculptural compositions formed from images, objects, sounds, and smells that create spaces for thought. His artworks investigate conventional notions of knowledge and perception.
This raises new questions, such as how to find ‘back doors’ to enter viewers’ consciousness in unconscious way beyond one’s beliefs and judgements? How to open peoples’ perception on the perspective of the Other? How could we start to feel responsible for the world around us? How can we truly listen to our planet and its human and non-human inhabitants?
These questions explore sustainable development through the converging views of art and science.
This residency is currently work in progress and will be updated soon with further content.