Making art within the realm of physical reality borrows much of its impact from the captivation that reality already induces, re-contextualising phenomena within a gallery space to stimulate new understanding of the world. The physical complexity of a painting, a textile work, or a multimedia sculpture cannot be simulated within the digital realm. To avoid imitation, digital art must utilize its unique potential to create new methodologies of artistic meaning.
Curated by Helen Starr, “What is it Like” at arebyte Gallery showcases the effectiveness of digital media in exploring metaphysical concepts, particularly through its ability to simulate realities that accentuate crucial factors within human qualia such as environmental context, physical embodiment, and instinctive neurological processes. Viewers are invited to examine how these simulated factors, more visible in their virtual fabrication, shed light on what it means to experience consciousness. The show is inspired by Thomas Nagel’s 1974 essay, ‘What Is It Like To Be a Bat?”, that examines the subjectivity of consciousness. Through its dependence on one’s integration of their subjective human experience, the show examines what it means to be human in the face of technological advancement, especially in the field of artificial intelligence, where the complexity of the human experience is often overshadowed by powerful yet specific abilities of AI.
The exhibition features works by Anna Bunting-Branch, Choy Ka Fai, Damara Inglês, Katarzyna Krakowia, Lawerence Lek and Kira Xonorika. arebyte Gallery, located on the utopian-feeling London City Island in east London, feels inherently technological and functional, with minimal concrete surfaces everywhere and exposed ventilation systems on the ceiling. Each artwork is presented on its own TV screen, mounted on latticed metal panels that can be moved by the viewer on metal tracks mounted to the floor and ceiling. The monitors are programmed to reveal new imagery and trigger sounds as the panel is moved. As explained in the curational text, this configuration acts as a work in itself, situating the art within an interactive archival system that mimics memory retrieval. The minimal, uniform layout was surprising as it required more immediate curiosity and interaction from me than I was expecting from an art exhibit. However, this was an appropriate introduction to the work that required participation for conceptual appreciation.
Anna Bunting-Branch’s work, “META” (2019) is the most immediately visible from the gallery entrance, and is the only work to feature a VR headset. Anna’s hand painted imagery is arranged within a three dimensional virtual world that depicts an alien planet, inspired by her interest in modern sci fi literature and other topics related to her practice. This work most directly questions what it is like to experience another’s consciousness, and as someone with little previous exposure to virtual reality, putting on the headset was very immersive. The animation traverses differing points of view, from flying on an alien planet, being a red-bodied alien sitting at a restaurant with others, and being an interdimensional being travelling to a new world. While hard to explain with words, this work plays with your senses and reminds you of how they discern the environment you physically inhabit, and how their intentional or manipulated use creates a subjective consciousness.
Lawrence Lek’s “Nepenthe” (2021-) is part of an ongoing series of video games that explore themes of memory and identity in virtual worlds. The game takes place in the “Old Summer Palace”, a classical Chinese garden palace that was destroyed by an Anglo-French expeditionary force during the second Opium war in 1860. The game allows the viewer to walk through the virtual world as a lone traveller, encountering the ghosts of past civilisations within the ruins. The game is built using the Unreal video game engine and features a musical score by the artist. As you explore the virtual ruins of the palace, interactive signage provides interaction with the ghosts of past civilizations at the location, suggesting the importance of spatial context in memory, and drawing parallels between game mechanics and patterns of human exploration. Although the narrative of the texts was quite hard to follow, the immersive experience made me more curious about the information I was reading, and reminded me of how impactful environmental context can be when encountering new information as a human. I couldn’t help but think of possible educational implications of this kind of experience, for the semantic memories I have now of the texts, are bolstered by the associations of feelings induced by the immersive environment the knowledge was acquired in. When describing Lek’s work, the curational text delves deeper into theories behind how an environment impacts the integration of information, such as Global Workspace Theory and Integrated Information Theory. This work is effective at stimulating thought about the subjectivity of human consciousness, and is appropriately selected for the theme of the show.
Crypto Fashion Week: Fashion Cyph3r (2022) by Damara Inglês shows a recording from an interview the artist did for fashion week taking place in the metaverse, where Damara and two others interact as avatars in a surreal location, standing on a kind of lily pad island, on a calm ocean at golden hour. The recording acts as a work in itself conceptually because Damara is able to open up about her Mother’s early-onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis for the first time during the interview. In the context of the show’s themes, this interaction suggests the importance of a safe and accepting co-presence for humans when being emotionally vulnerable, and how simulating certain kinds of co-presence perhaps unattainable in the real world could help us to communicate more intimately. For instance, therapy sessions in the metaverse at a calming location rather than on a zoom call in your bedroom. The environment presented was very serene, and I can see how experiencing it in VR could change one’s disposition to perhaps share information more freely.
After watching Inglês’ video and experiencing VR in Anna Bunting-Branch’s work, I thought about the vulnerabilities in my own consciousness in terms of how it can be manipulated by virtual reality for my benefit or own expense for others, and the importance of regulation in the future as VR technology becomes less and less distinguishable from real life. For these reasons, I think art that prepares us for these conversations, like what is shown in “What Is It Like”, will become increasingly popular and important as technology advances exponentially.
The rest of the show features dense works that explore other factors in human consciousness, such as Choy Ka Fai’s cybernetic dance experiment, “Unbearable Darkness Game Demo” (2020), and an excerpt from the corresponding physical performance (2018). This work explores potential interactions with the late Butoh dance master Tatsumi Hijikata, through his choreography using new technologies. Kira Xonorika’s film reminds one of how difficult it is for a more complex human consciousness to digest AI generated content. Overall, “What Is It Like?”, is a conceptually heavy show that proposes many important questions about how we define human consciousness, and ironically shows how AI can help humans distinguish themselves from AI.
The accompanying exhibition booklet is very well written, featuring interesting excerpts from other relevant publications and highlighting Helen Starr’s expertise on how the human brain constructs tailored realities. As a show that requires substantial engagement from the viewer to be grasped conceptually, the experience would certainly be rewarding for creatives in search of contemporary questions to answer with their own work, and anyone interested in how humanity will define itself within a techno-saturated future.
Review by Chris Wieland
Featured Image: Equirectangular stills from META, 360-degree video with sound by Aliyah Hussain, 2019. Image Courtesy of Anna Bunting-Branch
What Is It Like? is an exhibition presented in partnership with WRO Art Centre through funding by the British Council as part of the UK/Poland Season 2025, a diverse programme of over 100 multi artform events in 40 cities in both countries. Featuring artists from around the world, including the UK and Poland, What Is It Like? will run at arebyte Gallery, London, 27 February – 4 May 2025, before heading to Wroclaw, Poland. In May, part of the exhibition will be shown at the 21st Media Art Biennale WRO, which has the theme Qualia – following which the full exhibition will be presented at WRO Art Centre 18 September – 31 October 2025. Exhibiting artists: Anna Bunting-Branch, Damara Inglês, Choy Ka Fai, Katarzyna Krakowiak Balka, Lawrence Lek and Kira Xonorika.
For more information visit arebyte Gallery
