A different perspective on the brain

Abstract

Five contemporary artists, who collaborated with scientists to explore current biological research, showcased their works as part of the Brilliant Brains exhibition at the Cambridge Science Festival (Cambridge, UK), whose theme was “making sense of the brain”. Intended originally for a neutral gallery environment, the selection and display were rethought for an alternative space—where bookshelves and furniture evoked an old-fashioned library—late in the curatorial process. This was an appropriate setting for the ingenious thought-provoking works resulting from the five artist–scientist pairings, three of which engaged directly with human consciousness and are reviewed here. “I started to see the brain as a representation of an inner space; vastly complex and uncharted as a field of exploration”, says artist Sarah Harley. Her exhibited works result from collaboration with Srivas Chennu (University of Cambridge, UK), whose research into alterations in brain activity in minimally conscious states has shown how EEG can be used to characterise brain networks, measure cognition, and detect awareness in patients in vegetative states. Harley's use of textiles in conjunction with printmaking adds a domestic familiarity and intimacy to her cloud-shaped etchings and monoprints of brains. Various 3D mixed-media works are displayed on crocheted doilies, whose scalloped forms and intricately linked threads evoke the brain's gross anatomy and its myriad interconnected neurons. The search for your spark, a lidded glass jar filled with water, represents the sense of separation and unreachability of patients in vegetative states. White threads, some tipped with gold leaf, float above a white porcelain head submerged at the bottom of the jar. The entangled threads and their gold tips refer respectively to cerebral neurons and neural transmission. “Floating flecks of gold leaf refer to the urge to shake a person to wake them or bring them into a conscious state”, Harley explains. “I am particularly interested in the complex dynamics between body and mind, perception, and knowledge”, says artist Charlotte Morrison. Her exhibited works were inspired by her collaboration with Madeline Lancaster (Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK), who grows in vitro 3D tissues called cerebral organoids (so-called mini-brains). Generated from human pluripotent stem cells, they are used in studying the stages of human brain development microscopically. Morrison's artwork Making Brains shadows Lancaster's methodology in two stages. First, she creates 3D disks by building up layers of glue and ink on Perspex. Then, using a rectangular light-impermeable template with four circular openings, she positions her “glue brains” on sheets of light-sensitive paper. By exposing the Perspex disks to light, she captures their inner structures as cyanotype prints. Works created by Sally Stenton in collaboration with neuroscientist Marty Fiati (Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK) connect both with our perception of places and of the movement between them. The Forensic Corridor, displayed horizontally across three shelves of adjacent bookcases, presents her “walk from art to science and back again”. Strapping a smartphone to her belt, she recorded a video of her return journey between the Cambridge School of Art and the Faculty of Science and Technology building at Anglia Ruskin University. Using two facing projectors, flickering footage of her outbound walk was projected from left to right on the left-hand shelf, and her return footage was projected from right to left on the right-hand one. The intermediary shelf was filled with an eclectic selection of appropriately titled books, chosen by the artist and the scientist, including The Mind at Night, Fleeting Memories, Neurophysiology of Vision, and Memory, Aging and The Brain. Art theory titles were also borrowed from the Ruskin Gallery. Displayed in this library setting, the artist's walk suggests that the “two cultures” of art and science famously described by C P Snow are easily bridged, at least in this university town. Trying to read your thoughts, Harley's tiny handmade book provides the final word in this intriguing exhibition. It was made by stitching blank white embossed pages between endpapers and covers, printed with etched fragments of grey doilies, and embroidering “your beautiful brain”' in red thread on its front cover. When fanned open, the contours embossed onto its pages evoke convoluted folds in sections of cerebral cortex, while their blank whiteness hints at what is still unknown about the brain and its function. It's a mute but eloquent comment on the adjacent bookshelves, crammed with research findings and scholarly conjecture on human consciousness, mind, and matter. Brilliant Brains: seeing science through art CB2 Restaurant Café, Cambridge, UK, March 12–18, 2018, during the Cambridge Science Festival Brilliant Brains: seeing science through art CB2 Restaurant Café, Cambridge, UK, March 12–18, 2018, during the Cambridge Science Festival