Tag Archives: Brain

On ‘The Creative Brain’

Anna Abraham is the E. Paul Torrance Professor and Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia. She is the author of ‘The Neuroscience of Creativity’ and the editor of the multidisciplinary volume ‘The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination’. In this interview she discusses her latest book, ‘The Creative Brain: Myths and Truths’, which draws on theoretical and empirical work in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, and offers an examination of human creativity that reveals the true complexity underlying our conventional beliefs about the brain.

Why do humans deteriorate with age? It’s a biological puzzle

Owen Jones is an Associate Professor at the University of Southern Denmark.
“My primary interests are explaining and describing demographic patterns across the ‘tree of life’. However, my research interests are varied and range from climate change, macroevolution and macroecology, to senescence and population dynamics.
Before my appointment at the University of Southern Denmark I spent a couple of years working on similar things as a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. In addition, I spent some time working with Dr Jinliang Wang at the Institute of Zoology (London) on population genetics.
My first post-doc, based at Imperial College London, was on the LITS project, a database of UK-based long-term individual-based time series data sets.”

Forming

Artist and writer, Richard Bright, has addressed the relationship between art, science and consciousness for over 40 years. He studied Fine Art and Physics before founding The Interalia Centre in 1990. Since then, he has lectured extensively on art and science and written articles on James Turrell, Andy Goldsworthy and Susan Derges, among others. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally and was the recipient of the ‘Visions of Science’ Award, The Edge, Andrew Brownsward Gallery, University of Bath (Second Prize Winner). Co-author of ‘The Art of Science’ (Welbeck Publishers, 2021). In ‘Forming’, he shows some of his latest work that explores flow and transience.

In a future with more ‘mind reading,’ thanks to neurotech, we may need to rethink freedom of thought

Parker Crutchfield is Professor of Medical Ethics, Humanities, and Law, Western Michigan University. He completed his Ph.D. in philosophy at Arizona State University, working in applied ethics, epistemology and the philosophy of science. As Professor in the Department of Medical Ethics, Humanities and law at WMed, Dr. Crutchfield conducts research in medical ethics.

Babies and animals can’t tell us if they have consciousness – but philosophers and scientists are starting to find answers

Henry Taylor is Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham.

“I’m interested in philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and robotics. I have worked on perception, consciousness, attention, peripheral vision, the development of scientific concepts, scientific taxonomy, and robotics. Most of my research involves drawing together work from natural science and philosophy.”

Pathways

Artist and writer, Richard Bright, has addressed the relationship between art, science and consciousness for over 40 years. He studied Fine Art and Physics before founding The Interalia Centre in 1990. Since then, he has lectured extensively on art and science and written articles on James Turrell, Andy Goldsworthy and Susan Derges, among others. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally and was the recipient of the ‘Visions of Science’ Award, The Edge, Andrew Brownsward Gallery, University of Bath (Second Prize Winner). Co-author of ‘The Art of Science’ (Welbeck Publishers, 2021).

Exploring the Intersection of Art and Science: Brainlight

Laura Jade is a contemporary Australian artist exploring how BCI technologies can offer new forms of expression to interface with the mind aesthetically. She is the creator of Brainlight, an artwork that integrates biology, lighting design and BCI (brain-computer interface) technology into an interactive brain sculpture, lasercut from transparent perspex and engraved with neural networks. The installation is controlled with a wireless EMOTIV EPOC+ EEG headset which detects and outputs live neural activity, translating electrical signals from the user’s brain, into a vivid and dynamic light display within the brain sculpture. In real-time Brainlight visualises the brain frequencies of theta (3.5–7.5 Hz) as green light, alpha (7.5–13 Hz), as blue light and beta (16–32 Hz) as red light.

Exploring Segments of Dissociation in Neurological Disorder

Luca M Damiani is an Artist, Author and University Fellow, focusing his ongoing creative practice and research on neuroscience/health, technology and nature. His work also crosses over with human rights and social design. Luca has a neurological disability and has had various visual art books and academic articles published, as well as being exhibited internationally.

“Focusing on my neurological-brain trauma (caused by an accident in 2018), my ongoing research-based practice looks at various areas of applied art and design, with the main focus on my own sensory disability as well as various branches of neuroscience, social design and technology.”