23 July – 6 September, 2009

Opening: Thursday 23 July, 7–9 pm

Imagine Mary; brought up (from birth) in a black and white room. Throughout her life in this colourless environment, Mary reads many black and white books and learns all the laws of physics. Mary becomes an expert in the functional roles that the brain plays in the process of colour vision. Her knowledge of the physical and functional organization of the brain becomes complete to the point that there is nothing that she does not know.

When Mary leaves her room for the first time and experiences her first colour, would she learn something new about the world?

In an attempt to capture the type of experience Mary might have when encountering her first colour, Jay Bundy Johnson abandons previous strategies of generating work designed to represent knowledge of specific themes; instead, he considers the motive of this work to be experiential.

A set of tools, current sculptures and various media systems (sound, motion, light) are loaded into the gallery; from here, Johnson sets out to create a sensory vehicle that will convey “Conditions for Qualia”.

THINGS OF DESIRE: Interview with Jay Bundy Johnson

Left: Jay Johnson, Super Scientist 3, 2009