Exit from the Chinese room
The project explores the emergence of consciousness through a sequence of ceramic forms.
Its starting point is a simple question: at what point does the processing of signals become experience? The title refers to John Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment, which separates the ability to process information from the question of whether anything is actually understood or experienced.
I approach this question through material transformation. Across the series, an initially closed form gradually develops an inner space, becomes more complex, and begins to establish a relation between inside and outside. I use these changes as a way of thinking about the emergence of integration, a center of experience, and eventually a more stable sense of subjectivity.
The project is partly informed by Global Neuronal Workspace Theory and by research into sensory development. These references provide a conceptual framework.
Birth
Birth consists of seven ceramic forms.
Birth asks when a body that reacts to the world begins to experience it. It begins with a body capable of receiving signals, but without a coherent world of its own, and follows the possibility that repeated and increasingly integrated sensations can become experience.
By the final form, the question is no longer only whether information is being processed, but whether there is already someone for whom it appears.
Birth I: Zero Mass
Birth II: Sensory Pulsation
Birth III: Loops
Birth IV: Coordination
Birth V: Flashes
Birth VI: Sensorium
Birth VII: Minimal Subjectivity
Crown and doubt
The next form starts from the presence of a center.
Here the question shifts from the emergence of experience to its stability. The form is organized around a clear orientation, while remaining asymmetric, open, and internally tense.
The new Janus
The final part consists of three forms and turns toward the relation between an established inner perspective and the outside world.
The two smaller forms capture a phase of searching and imbalance. The larger form brings both tendencies into a single structure.
Exit from the Chinese Room
Ceramics
Author: D. Romanov
2025