Consciousness

Marcus du Sautoy took the audience on a journey into consciousness, in a performance-lecture that combined music, specially conceived visuals, lighting design and interactive experiences.

The evening was divided into five chapters that covered different areas of consciousness from animals to artificial intelligence. Du Sautoy and his guests explained how we can see inside the workings of the brain and asked questions such as ‘What happens as our brain performs different tasks?’, ‘When do we become conscious?’, ‘Can you have multiple consciousnesses?’, ‘How much of my brain can I remove before I would lose my sense of I?’, ‘Is my cat conscious?’, and ‘Can a machine ever be conscious or be deemed intelligent?’. The evening ended with an attempt to alter the audience’s consciousness via the music of electronic music artist and DJ James Holden.