Prompt for participants: Spend 5 minutes imagining what it is like to be a bat.
project statement
In an early essay focusing on the study of consciousness, cognitive scientist Thomas Nagel argued that there is exactly nothing that it is like to be a bat. He also went further to suggest that "we are completely unequipped to think about the subjective character of experience without relying on the imagination," something that—for Nagel—was a problem. In contrast, this project centers the unique capacity of the imagination to provide encounters with that which cannot be known directly as an embodied critique of Nagel's assertions. Conducted by artist Ted Hiebert and qualitative geographer Jin-Kyu Jung, the project asks participants to imagine what it is like to be a bat, and by imagining gesture towards the imagination as a possible way to speculate about the unknowable.
For more on the project, including visualizations and published articles, visit tedhiebert.net/stations
