Consciousness
in the wild

An immersive theatrical event, created by Caroline Sabin, prompting questions about consciousness and reality. I appeared as a disembodied head floating in a jar of formaldehyde. It premiered at Castell Coch in Wales.

A film project collaboration with Guerilla Science, director Katharine Round and composer Jamie Perera. The project explored the nature of constructed perception and its relation to mental health. It premiered at FutureFest 2018 at Tobacco Docks.

A photo essay by photographer Barry Falk, shown as part of the Brighton Photo Biennial Fringe. Barry explored consciousness science through portraits of our researchers, and of some of our laboratory environments. On one day we joined Barry to provide an interactive science day, bringing a range of immersive VR experiences and other demonstrations.

I worked with the brilliant Baba Brinkman to help shape his Rap Guide to Consciousness, one of his series of rap science guides. The show opened at the Brighton Fringe, enjoyed a full run at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe and played more than 100 times at the Soho Playhouse in New York.

From Body to Being was part of the 2017 British Science Festival, attracting over 1200 people. 11 different installations allowed members of the public to explore how experiences of the world are shaped by the body, and how bodily-experience itself is actively constructed, moment-to-moment, by the brain.

To round off the Wellcome Collection exhibition ‘States of Mind’, we took a truckload of virtual reality gear up to London to curate an evening event all about the experience of being an embodied self. Led by Dr. David Schwartzman and Dr. Keisuke Suzuki, the event exhibition showcased our cutting-edge research.

This radio play, created with writer Linda Marshall-Griffith and producer Nadia Molinari, explored issues surrounding novel clinical approaches to disorders of consciousness. After airing on BBC Radio 4 it was selected for both ‘pick of the week’ and ‘pick of the year’. It won the Best Single Drama award in the BBC Audio Awards 2017, and was shortlisted for the 2016 Prix Europa.

Throughout 2016 the Sackler Centre had a strong presence at the major Wellcome Collection exhibition on consciousness: States of Mind.

I was the primary science advisor, and with David Schwartzman we also provided some primary content for the exhibition. My short talk from the opening event is here, on NeuroBanter.

How do memory and emotions contribute to lived experience and identity? We teamed up with The Human Mind Project for an exciting workshop exploring human experiences of emotion and memory. Revisit my discussion with playwright Nick Payne.

What is the potential for human enhancement. We explored this question as part of the You Have Been Upgraded festival at London’s Science Museum. We demonstrated our ‘substitutional reality’ technology and sensory substitution devices.

The ZombieLab event at the Science Museum explored the science of consciousness against the backdrop of a zombie outbreak. As well as talks from lab members we demosntrated a virtual reality ‘out of body experience’.

State Of Mind was a one-day public ‘expo’ of all things consciousness-science, held as part of ASSC16 and held in Brighton’s Corn Exchange. More than 1800 people were engaged, entertained, and enlightened about the new science of consciousness, in a rich programme curated by Dr. David Schwartzman.

In 2012 we hosted the 16th meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC16), at the historic Brighton Dome and Corn Exchange. Over 500 attendees made this the largest and most successful ASSC congress in its history. I was overall conference Chair.