“Synaptic Splendour” is an exploration on the all-over, immersive nature of the human experience and its inherent subjectivity.

This project presents a poetic survey of the fictions within the phenomena of the psyche through three distinct installations.

The main room is presenting “The Cortical Columns (deepening into our shared fictions)”. The title refers to structures consisting of neurons that extend vertically from the surface into the deeper layers of the cerebral cortex. They integrate and process sensory information, and play a key role in generating perception and consciousness, turning “noise input” into “data”. The painting installation works as a symbolic representation of the millions of cortical columns present in the human neocortex, translating multi-sensory stimuli into all-pervading world models and realities of experience.

The paintings in this installation are from Montiel’s entoptic paintings series —entos (inside) and opsis (seeing)—. This signature technique was born with the intention of depicting the blurred and uncertain reality we experience. The softness of the atmospheres from afar contrasts with the crisp multicoloured grain the paintings have when inspected up close. The entoptic paintings are meditations on the inward and subjective nature of the human experience.

Montiel has sprayed the canvases with multiple layers of acrylic paint. This painstaking method makes the works generate an iridescent and blurry effect, in fascinating contrast with the countless sprayed dots that are clearly discernible up close. In other words, by means of varying colors and contrasts, Montiel (over)challenges the observer's neuronal systems, and generates an unsteady visual experience that depends on the viewing angle and incident light. Among other things, Montiel is thus drawing on the ideas of German philosopher Thomas Metzinger, according to whom, consciousness and the perception of reality can be understood as a kind of simulation in the brain.

Synaptic Splendour is completed with two video installations.

“Istigkeit (naked existence)”, reflects on the variations of experience across different states of consciousness (using as a starting point the flower occurrence narrated by Aldoux Huxley in his classic book The Doors of Perception).

“Khoreia (dancing in unison)” is a contemplative meditation inspired on philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s concept of “poetic reverie as a phenomenology of the soul,” exploring the intersection of imagination and reality.