QUALIA - installation

QUALIA [singular: quale, Latin word]
Is a term used in philosophy to describe the subjective quality of conscious experience.

The exhibition presents a kinetic structure in which laser canons slowly perforate the surface of a conveyor belt according to statistics related to narcotraffic in the city of Rio de Janeiro, from 2002 to 2010 (profit; homicides; money laundry) provided by microprocessors and shown in LCD displays;
and a video-installation that employs 3D technology(stereoscopic video), to be viewed with red-blue glasses.

The title Qualia is used by the artist as a potent metaphor to approach social facts (drug traffic, violence) and their effects (fear, dependency) in daily life. It refers to the “great issues” – in Philosophy, a category of problems for which there are no solutions – and, in this case, of two orders: an inner, subjective, pertaining to personal experiences; and an outer, concrete, belonging to collective experience and social behavior.

Discussions on qualia remain, encompassing both what they are and if they indeed exist. No path of consensus seems to appear in the near future, which turns this one of the most fructiferous themes of the philosophy of mind. The qualia, the quality of experience, are subjective sensitive properties that accompany the whole process of perception, constituting the “greatest issue” of consciousness, which, on its turn, it’s the greatest mystery of philosophy, neurosciences, psychology: what is it? How to prove its existence?

Ineffable, impalpable, non-quantified and, nevertheless, real.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wf5ZNwLmM8