The Phenomenologist, 2020

Phenomenological records of scientific inquiries.

Series 1: If Only, 1st Jan 2019 to date

Work In Progress

Noam Chomsky asserts that language lies at the heart of human cognition, serving as a tool for constructing and expressing thought. At the Experiential Cognition Lab (XPC), researchers delve into how art and poetry might help quantify everyday subjective experiences, or "qualia," for consciousness studies.

"If Only" is a decade-long project capturing moments of self-reflection through language, recording daily experiences in three words as a linguistic trace of personal and phenomenological "Being." Beginning January 1, 2019, each day's entry explores what might have been, a subjective log of cognitive experience through concise expressions of longing or contemplation. These entries use simple noun-verb combinations to bridge nuances between verbs, offering a poetic interplay between time and thought.

The project extends XPC’s mission to bridge everyday experiences and cognitive science—a gap noted by The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (1992). Through this collection of 365 three-word reflections, "If Only" invites viewers to ponder the subjective and cognitive significance of language in shaping self-awareness and the embodied mind.

- Shashank Satish

Medium: Text and images on Social media.

Series 2: Art Journal by Shashank Satish

Medium: Ink on paper: Illustrations of hands selected from a personal journal sketchbook I call the "Hand Book", 2019 - 2023.

 
This series of hand-movement illustrations investigates the deep connections between mind, body, and behaviour. Through first-, second-, and third-person phenomenological perspectives, the artist uses hand gestures to document and transform subjective emotions into objective visual narratives. Part of the Experiential Cognition Lab’s long-term research, this project explores embodiment as a means to understand consciousness, producing empirical data to support phenomenological research and examine how art practices can reveal the subjective dimensions of cognition.