We can easily forget that we are only a tiny part of a vast sentient world full of other conscious beings with lives of their own to lead. Even those of us far away from centres of political power have immense influence over huge numbers of animal lives. LSE Philosophy PhD student Daria Zakharova invites us to consider the weight of our influence, especially on those beings far removed from our everyday considerations – the invertebrates.
Installation:
Daria and an interdisciplinary team created an art installation “In search of Spider Consciousness” for Nowhere Festival in 2023, which invited people to enter the head of a giant Portia jumping spider to discover an artistic meditation on the mind of an arthropod. Visitors would enter the giant spider sculpture and be immersed in the spider’s point of view on the world, as represented obliquely through the medium of light, sculpting and original music, inspired by scientific evidence.
Virtual reality experience:
A 3D capture recreates virtually the experience of the original sculpture, which was 3.5 by 12m2. As in the original, the installation invites the viewer into an immersive walk inside of the spider’s head and into the spider’s mind. The artistic interpretation of the imagined subjective states of the arachnid mind are presented through an original music piece paired in a beautiful choreography with light patterns in the two main eyes of the spider. This immersive encounter invites reflection on the complexity of consciousness that thrives in even the smallest of beings, urging us to reconsider the boundaries of our moral and ethical responsibilities towards them.
Daria spoke as part of the Festival event Invertebrate minds: from spiders to octopuses, which is available as a podcast.
Artistic team: Daria Zakharova, Ivan Isakov, Paulo Ricca, Andrey Novikov, Stephen Allwright, Lucy Onischenko, Michael Haber, Maribeth Rauh.
Collaborators: Luke Hollis, Sean Toole.
Supporters: Professor Jonathan Birch and the ASENT team
View a pdf of the wall, listen to the audio commentary.