For me, one of the threads which unites modern art, science, and philosophy is the thought experiment. Both relativity theory and quantum mechanics have their ultimate foundations in thought experiments; modern conceptual art typically incorporates a great deal of the thought-experiment aesthetic and practice, and many philosophical problems, particularly ethical issues, are thought of within the thought-experiment context.

For me they essentially amount to a depiction of a tension between a symbolic, or theoretical consideration of a problem, and intuition, experience, or sensation. They’re things which start to bubble up when a symbolic or theoretical approach is insufficient.

One difference which conceptual art tends to incorporate, however, is embodiment, despite the location of the art essentially being the mind of the observer. Which got me wondering which philosophical gedankenexperiments could be embodied, and what the reaction might be.

For example, consider two rigid castings of a human body approaching a machine, for example something like a starwars stormtrooper, or a riot policeman, or spacesuit. The difference is that it would be entirely immovable, and covered. You make two, and put them in a gallery. Then, inside one you place the artist, or an artists (hopefully well-paid) assistant, with sufficient life-support wotnots. Externally there’s no sign of the human embodiment. And you just leave the two in a gallery, and see what a reaction might be.

There could be all kinds of modifications to this, of course. One would be to go down the goldfish-in-blender route, which starts becoming a bit Foucaultian, and a bit BDSM. For example, to each suit could be attached a button to cause minor pain (and perhaps one to cause pleasure). Or a button could cause particular images to be flashed before any occupant’s eyes. Given the opaque and inconsequential relationship between any occupier and attendee; given the possibility of you having chosen the empty container; (and so on) is there value to the various invocations available to the attendee? Does it lead to satisfaction at such a distance? The encapsulating sarcophagus could differ in gender/age/weight to its occupier, and similar variations.

That’s only one kind of thought-experiment gedankenexperiment originated intervention you could create. I think it would be useful to extend such an experiment to realisation. There are many other thought experiments in philosophy, for which I think a gallery realisation could be valuable.

Any thoughts? (Sorry for the quick, crude sketch. Visual arts have never been my strong point, , but I thought it was worth not being overly meta, .)