'What Is It Like?' is a group exhibition guest curated by Helen Starr which explores the nature of subjective vs objective reality.
The exhibition, featuring a cohort of international artists, references Thomas Nagel’s 1974 paper What Is It Like to Be a Bat?, critiquing reductive materialism—the belief that consciousness can be fully explained through physical processes—by emphasizing the importance of subjective experience, or qualia.
Through this exhibition Starr explores the idea of the brain as a reality-rendering machine, suggesting that our perceptions are constructed rather than directly represented.
Through non-lexical, sensory experiences, the exhibition’s artworks embody these philosophical questions, with each artist using playable and non-playable characters to explore the tension between what is real and what is performed. Just as Nagel suggests that we cannot fully know what it’s like to be a bat, Starr invites reflection on the inherent limits of understanding other minds—whether human, animal, or artificial.
What is it Like?, made with support form the British Council under the UK/Poland Season 2025, was presented at arebyte, London first and now travels to WRO Art Centre, in Wroclaw.
28.02 - 04.05.2025 - Exhibition at arebyte Gallery, London
02.10 - 6.11.2025 - Exhibition at WRO Art Centre, Wroclaw
02.10 - 6.11.2025 - Exhibition at WRO Art Centre, Wroclaw