Raw Feels
2014, installation with color, lights, sound, objects and Red Hots.
"Conscious experience is at once the most familiar thing in the world and the most mysterious... When we perceive, think, and act, there is a whir of causation and information processing, but this processing does not usually go on in the dark. There is also an internal aspect; there is something is feels like to be a cognitive agent. This internal aspect is conscious experience. Conscious experiences range from vivid color sensations to experiences of the faintest background aromas; from hard-edged pains to the elusive experience of thoughts on the tip of one's tongue... To put it another way, we can say that a mental state is conscious if it has a qualitative feel - an associated quality of experience. These qualitative feels are also known as phenomenal qualities, or qualia for short."
- David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind
"Conscious experience is at once the most familiar thing in the world and the most mysterious... When we perceive, think, and act, there is a whir of causation and information processing, but this processing does not usually go on in the dark. There is also an internal aspect; there is something is feels like to be a cognitive agent. This internal aspect is conscious experience. Conscious experiences range from vivid color sensations to experiences of the faintest background aromas; from hard-edged pains to the elusive experience of thoughts on the tip of one's tongue... To put it another way, we can say that a mental state is conscious if it has a qualitative feel - an associated quality of experience. These qualitative feels are also known as phenomenal qualities, or qualia for short."
- David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind
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What is not captured in the photographs of this installation are the sensations and consequences of the eye adjusting to overwhelming color. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the camera does not adjust as the eye does. Like when a strong smell is noticed but a minute later the smell has weakened, the receptors responsible for processing red are exhausted after a time, giving way to the perception of more subtle variations in tone, such as orange-red and purple-red. The environment, with time, becomes less jarring and more curious. The feeling of the color red becomes varied and complex, sparking personal and cultural associations. The taste of the candy Red Hots becomes the taste of the color red. Similarly, the sound of red noise becomes the sound of red. Upon exiting, a green/blue sheen covers the outside environment as the eyes readjust. Thus, the piece exists in one form as a phenomenological installation, and as another in the documentation.
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Red noise, a brand of white noise, accompanies the installation, playing at a loud volume: 
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From the opening reception:
All images © Julia Buntaine Hoel
