Synaptic is a group exhibition focused on the mysterious nature of consciousness. It looks at the feedback loop between our physical and mental realities, and the idea that you can effect change in one by altering the other.
Consciousness manifests in the brain through billions of connections between individual neurons. These infinitely complex connections enable lightning-fast communication through neutral pathways, creating our thoughts, movements, and through repetition, our habits and character.
While we may think of consciousness as formless, the architecture of the brain has a definite structure, and the language of the brain is one of complex and instantaneous patterns of connection.
Ingrained thoughts and repetitive behaviour form stronger neural pathways, in turn forming habits, while new connections and experiences lead to new patterns, thoughts and ideas.
This communication network connects our inner world to the outer world in a continuous feedback loop. What we see and experience affects our thoughts, and our thoughts influence how we see and experience the world. The push and pull of consciousness.
There is, however, no physical connection between nerve cells. Signals jump from one nerve cell to another in an area called the synaptic gap: a junction, a threshold.
How this happens is a mystery, and yet this mystery contains a poetry: the transmission from one nerve to another occurs in a void.
Artists:
David Brits
Driaan Claasen
Nonzuzo Gxekwa
Abdus Salaam
Jake Michael Singer
Trevor Stuurman
