BRAINSTORMS
16 — 17 November 2012
Moscow, Lecture hall of the Polytechnic Museum

Organized by:
LABORATORIA Art&Science Foundation

Curator:
Daria Parkhomenko

Participants:
Marina Abramovic (Serbia)
Konstantin Anokhin (Russia)
Gyorgi Buzsaki (USA)
Mikhail Burtsev (Russia)
David Dubrovsky (Russia)
Aleksander Kaplan (Russia)
Antonio Chella (Russia)
Marina Korsakova-Kreyn (USA)
Georgy Nikich (Russia)
Daria Parkhomenko (Russia)
Julius Popp (Germany)
Arseniy Khitrov (Russia)
Tatiana Chernigovskaya (Russia)
Sergey Shutov (Russia)

Supported by:

The international science-art Symposium “BRAINSTORMS. The artist in the context of neuroscience” is dedicated to the problem of interaction between contemporary art and higher brain functions.

LABORATORIA Art&Science Space was conducting a series of open discussions, with the participation of neuroscientists and contemporary artists. The BRAINSTORMS symposium itself was a science-art performance with a progressive scenario. It opened with an overture, continued with four acts – discussions with scientists and artists, and finished with the round table that defined the insights and future plans of the participants.

DISCUSSIONS

  • Measuring the magic of mutual gaze
  • The brain and creativity
  • The brain, rhythms and music
  • What is consciousness anyway?
  • Artificial intelligence: perspectives of art and science
  • The brain and personality
  • Experiment

MEASURING THE MAGIC OF MUTUAL GAZE

PARTICIPANTS:

Marina Abramovic, artist (Serbia – USA)

Konstantin Anokhin, neurobiologist (Russia)

Mikhail Burtsev, neuromathematician (Russia)

Alexander Kaplan, neurophysiologist (Russia)

MODERATOR:

Daria Parkhomenko, art historian (Russia)

THE BRAIN AND CREATIVITY

PARTICIPANTS:

Marina Abramovic, artist (Serbia – USA)

Konstantin Anokhin, neurobiologist (Russia)

MODERATOR:

Georgy Nikich, art historian (Russia)

THE BRAIN, RHYTHMS AND MUSIC

PARTICIPANTS:

Gyorgy Buzsaki, neurobiologist (Hungary – USA)

Marina Korsakova-Kreyn, musician (Russia – USA)

MODERATOR:

Tatiana Chernigovskaya, neurolinguist (Russia)

WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS ANYWAY?

PARTICIPANTS:

Tatiana Chernigovskaya, neurolinguist (Russia)

David Dubrovskiy, philosopher (Russia)

MODERATOR:

Sergey Shutov, artist (Russia)

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: PERSPECTIVES OF ART AND SCIENCE

PARTICIPANTS:

Antonio Chella, robotics engineer (Italy)

Julius Popp, artist (Germany)

MODERATOR:

Mikhail Burtsev, neuromathematician (Russia)

THE BRAIN AND PERSONALITY

PARTICIPANTS:

Marina Abramovic, artist (Serbia – USA)

Konstantin Anokhin, neurobiologist (Russia)

Gyorgy Buzsaki, neurobiologist (Hungary – USA)

Mikhail Burtsev, neuromathematician (Russia)

Julius Popp, artist (Germany)

Arseniy Khitrov, philosopher (Russia)

Sergey Shutov, artist (Russia)

MODERATOR:

Lyubov Strelnikova, science journalist (Russia)

EXPERIMENT

On November 18, a science experiment prepared by professor Alexander Kaplan with Marina Abramovic participation was held at LABORATORIA Art&Science Space.

In 2011, the science art performance by Marina Abramovic “Measuring the Magic of Mutual Gaze” was presented in the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow. It involved advanced methods of registering the activity of the human brain. That experiment was a continuation of the performance “The Artist Is Present” at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. It came to be as a result of collaboration between Marina Abramovic and neuroscientists. The scenario of the experiment was developed at the workshop “Art and Science: Insights into Consciousness” at The Watermill Center, New York in collaboration with American and Russian scientists, among which there were Dr. Myrna Weissmann, Dr. Suzanne Dikker, Dr. Nadja Bruschweiler-Stern, Dr. Mikhail Burtsev, Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, Dr. Kathe Sackler, Dr. BJ Casey, Dr. Daniel Stern, Dr. Jason Zevin and others. Abramovic wondered whether there could be any scientific explanation of tense contact that occurs when two people stare into each other eyes incessantly, and whether this non-verbal contact leads to brain activity synchronization. Having discussed preliminary results with scientists, Daria Parkhomenko, curator of the experiment and director of LABORATORIA Art&Science Space, realized, that many of the questions raised by Marina Abramovic have not been answered yet. The next stage of the research – the BRAINSTORM symposium – was intended to solve these questions.

The event was organized with the support of the Polytechnic Museum Foundation.

The interview about symposium with Daria Parkhomenko.

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