Neur∞rb stands in awe of the “mysterious consciousness”: the unique, indescribable and obvious sensation of feeling alive that our brain gives us. Philosophers call these felt qualities “qualia”. We perceive them as properties of the outside world, yet they are products of our consciousness, beyond what physics, chemistry or biology can describe. Rather than asking us to question consciousness, the installation invites us to dwell in the sensation of being alive. Isn’t that what the universe is doing through us anyway, experiencing itself?

    The orbs are made by the desire machine, which inflates them and keeps them turning inside gyroscopes while the resin sets. Through these pneumatic structures it recreates the incessant formation of nucleus after nucleus, membrane after membrane, that after countless collisions gave us a human shape, a shape that desires.

    Neur∞rb belongs to the series Techno—imaginary, which relates to science from a closer, poetic perspective: the gap it left when it broke our connection with the mysterious, and the potential it gives us to imagine beyond.

The desire machine.

The surface of an orb.

Drawing of the structure.