Towards New Thinking explores contemporary thinking and work in art and science relating to such topics as climate change, our future relationship with the environment, visualizing nature, and the role of technology in social progress.

For over 40 years, Diane Burko has investigated monumental geological phenomena. Her practice at the intersection of art and science focuses on issues of climate change. Originally basing her imagery on research and visual data from scientists, she soon moved to bear witness directly in the Polar regions. She discusses her work in The intersection of Art and the Environment.

Jasmine Pradissitto is a physicist and a painter who sculpts and creates installations in plastics, light, metal, and geopolymers, embracing the dual worlds of the Scientist and Artist. Described as ‘holograms you can touch’, her sculptures in new and discarded plastics, change in colour as the observer moves. Inspired by nature, the human condition, and scientific breakthroughs, forms are melted and reshaped from plastics using an innovative process she has developed, as a commentary on an unsustainable, increasingly Anthropocene world slowly being reshaped by the things we consume and then disregard. She discusses her latest work in Why the search for a ‘Brave New World’ is to be found in your back yard.

Epicurean Endocrinology’s latest project, ‘Cooking Sex’, is a series of sex-hormone altering meals and food products that explore the endocrine-system altering properties of industrially produced food. Byron Rich and Liz Flintz discuss their project in Epicurean Endocrinology – Cooking Sex.

Sarah Sutton is an associate professor of Art at Ithaca College, who is interested in vision science, spatial structures and speculative futures. Although her work is grounded in her painting practice, her collaboration with scientists and philosophers with overlapping interests provides creativity and vitality to her painting and teaching. She discusses her ideas and work in an exclusive interview Interconnecting Perceptions.

Nicolas Strappini’s work investigates how physical science apparatus and experimental equipment can be used alongside printmaking and many other mark-making processes to form novel artworks. The formations that he creates appear to be self-authoring and generative, and use techniques that are to some degree dependent on natural, random processes. He discusses his work in Blurring boundaries between art and science.

Rebecca Gasior Altman is a writer and sociologist. Her work explores the social history of chemistry, plastics, pollution and environmental legacy— what we pass from one generation to the next. She holds a PhD in environmental sociology from Brown University, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Science and Environmental Health Network, a national think-tank. In an exclusive interview, Being Plastic, she discusses her ideas on the history and future of plastic.

Siobhan McDonald is an award-winning Irish artist interested in the changeable nature of landmass, historical events and their interconnection to time. Her latest exhibition, titled Hidden Monuments, presents a series of artistic enquiries to remind us of the Cairns, standing stones and Megalithic structures that foreshadow our architectural histories.

Artist Emma Tuck’s work is informed by natural forms and patterns, refracted through the psychological, the political and the trivial. Her work is increasingly motivated by the catastrophic impact of human actions on the natural world. She discusses her ideas and work in What I see around me.

BioBAT Art Space is the first exhibition space in New York City that is entirely dedicated to the intersection of Art and Science. Their inaugural art exhibit, Spontaneous Emergence of Order, curated by Elena Soterakis and Jeannine Bardo, features four interdisciplinary artists, Richelle Gribble, Tanya Chaly, Magdalena Dukiewicz and Tarah Rhoda, who create works based in science and technology. The article also features an introduction to the exhibition by Benjamin Sutton.

Plus, there are articles by Tony D. Sampson – Brave New World: the pill-popping, social media obsessed dystopia we live in ; Denise Baden – Environmental storytelling can help spread big ideas for saving the planet ; and Garth Paine – Listening to nature: How sound can help us understand environmental change.

“There is, of course, the neuroscience of art, where researchers seek to tease out the brain features that characterize artists, as a means to understand how the brain achieves such complex and nuanced outward expressions, and how disruption of brain networks alters these expressions. On the other hand, there is art based on neuroscience, such as mine and others in this issue, that provide an alternate view of scientific concepts. These bi-directional connections strengthen both art and neuroscience.”

Amanpreet Badhwar

The Lines that Connect is co-edited with Dr. Amanpreet Badhwar (neuroscientist and artist) and explores contemporary thinking and work on the interactions between art and neuroscience.

Contributions include:-

Canadian multidisciplinary artist Stéphanie Morissette’s works reflect on human behaviour and the use of technologies in our quotidian life as well as in the geopolitical sphere; on conflicts and their psychological impact on the different participating actors.

In this exclusive interview she discusses her project, ‘Shadows in a Labyrinth’ (with co-collaborator Dale Einarson), which reflects on the complexity, the flaws and ephemeral aspects of our brain and memory, as well as on the medium and technologies, drawing parallels with mental illness and disease like Alzheimer.

Amanpreet Badhwar is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre de Recherche de l’Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), Université de Montréal , where she works on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related dementias. Her research combines structural and functional imaging with clinical and genetic assessments to relate variations in brain connectivity to clinical status, and to develop early markers of AD pathology. She is also an artist. In this exclusive interview, The Lines that Connect, she discusses her relationship between art and neuroscience.

Dan Lloyd is the Thomas C. Brownell Professor of Philosophy and a Professor of Neuroscience at Trinity College, Connecticut. He is the author/editor of Subjective Time: The philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience of temporality (co-edited with Valtteri Arstila). In Notes Toward a Theory of Sensorimotor Understanding he discusses his developing research into the animation and sonification of brain activity.

Alexa Piotte is a graphic designer living in Montreal. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts majoring in Design and minoring in behavioural neuroscience psychology from Concordia University. In Design and Neuroscience she discusses her work relating design and neuroscience, including her collaborative project, ‘BDL: Mapping out the Genetic Blueprint of the Fruit Fly Visual System’, with Hunter Shaw, a Ph.D. candidate in biology at McGill University.

Tyler Sloan is a freelance data artist/scientist. While he is not developing custom Jupyter-based data processing pipelines, he produces computer-generated artwork and datadriven motion design using Open Data and formal scientific models. His artwork combines elements of his training as a developmental neurobiologist (B.Sc, Ph.D.) with his passion for Open Data. He discusses his work and thinking in Neural Connections.

Julia Buntaine Hoel is a conceptual artist whose work is inspired by and based on Neuroscience, the scientific study of the brain. She is also director of SciArt Center, and editor in chief of SciArt Magazine. Julia attained her double BA in neuroscience and sculpture from Hampshire College, her post-baccalaureate certificate in Studio Art from Maryland Institute College of Art, and her MFA of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts. She shows some of her latest work in Neuroscience-Art.

Anjan Chatterjee is a professor of neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics and a member of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. His research focuses on spatial cognition and its relationship to language. He also conducts neuroaesthetics research and writes about the ethical use of neuroscience findings in society. He discusses his ideas in Aesthetics and Memory.

Shanthi Chandrasekar is a multimedia and multidisciplinary artist with a BSc in Physics and an MA in Psychology. The underlying focus of her work is to understand the workings of the cosmos and life itself, with a particular fascination for the workings of the brain. She discusses this in Neurocosmologies.

Tia Besser-Paul shows work from her project Cellular Kinesics, an exploration of the communication methods of cells during a spinal cord injury. Heavily influenced by the research data, videos, and imaging of neuroscientist Andrew Greenhalgh, this work is a collaborative effort of science and art.

Shima Rastegarnia has a B.Sc. in computer science. She was always interested in art and uses different mediums in her paintings. Shima is also interested in graphic design, 3D modeling, and in making video games. Currently she is working at Centre de recherche de l’Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM) under the supervision of Dr. AmanPreet Badhwar, where she hopes to gain better understanding of neuroscientific principles, along with expertise in neuroinformatics and science communication. She discusses her work in Making Art with Neuroscience.

Rosi Maria Di Meglio has recently completed a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts at Concordia University. Her artistic practice focuses on space and memory, on real life experiences and transformation. She considers herself a lyrical romantic abstract expressionist artist. Her philosophy is founded on the ideas that art has the power to move people whether they are observing or creating. She discusses her work in Guiding Memory.

Josefina Maranzano is mostly a self-taught artist. She studied medicine in La Plata and worked for a few years in Argentina as a general practitioner and a radiologist. At present, Josefina shares her life between painting and exploring new techniques in visual arts and conducting brain imaging medical research. She very recently submitted her Ph.D. thesis in neuroscience (with a focus in multiple sclerosis) at McGill University. She shows some of her work in Autism.

Richard Bright is an artist and editor of Interalia Magazine. In Neural Communications he shows some of his work, which draws inspiration from neuroscientific literature and imagery. “I create drawings that offer an interpretation on mental processes to reveal the nature of human consciousness and the process of thought, bridging the connection between the mysterious three pound macroscopic brain and the microscopic behaviour of neurons.”

Visions explores current thinking and work by artists who are engaged with and inspired by science and technology.

Contributions include –

Catherine Richardson experiments with natural processes using paint, inks, pond water and metals; building a library of textures by freezing, thawing, evaporating, heating and burning. Using these textures the artist compiles mixed medium ‘paintings’ on panel or paper. Richardson then uses digital techniques to organize a collage of scanned textures, creating imagery that expresses Landforms experienced.

Daniel Ambrosi has been exploring ground-breaking methods of visual presentation since graduating from Cornell University with degrees in architecture and 3D graphics. In 2011, he devised a unique form of computational photography that generates extremely high-resolution immersive vibrant images, His latest work, ‘Dreamscapes’, builds upon his previous experiments by adding a powerful new graphics tool, a modified version of ‘DeepDream’, a computer vision program evolved from Google engineers’ desire to visualize the inner workings of Deep Learning artificial intelligence models.

Julie Light is a visual artist primarily creating sculptural objects in glass and other materials. Her current work is focused on the relationships between medical technologies and the self. She discusses her work in Visions of Science.

Anastasia Tyurina’s art practice involves an interplay between photography and scientific imaging, and is concentrated in the specific area of scientific photography made by the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), which has expanded the boundaries of observation and representation of the micro world. In Unseen Water, she discusses her work in the field of photomicrography, which aims to expand human visual vocabulary, revealing principles of beauty which are typically difficult to otherwise access.

Jenny Walsh is a glass artist who uses glass in combination with other materials to explore the interface between art, science and technology, examining both the role of glass in scientific discoveries, as well as using glass to convey scientific concepts. She discusses her ideas and work in The Vital Spark.

Leonie Bradley is an artist working in a range of media including film, photography and print. Her work explores scale and ways of looking, from a unique tonal range. She creates large, handmade digital images that subvert the conventional viewing distance. Wavefront is a collaboration with Kit Yates, Senior Lecturer in Department of Mathematical Sciences and Tim Rogers, Reader in Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Bath.

Costas Andrew Mikellides is a qualified Interior Designer, former Chairman of the British Institute of Interior Design, Fellow Member of the Royal Chartered Society of Designers, with experience in industry and education. He discusses his ideas and work in Elements of Line.

Tam Hunt discusses the “hard problem” of consciousness by asking the question Could consciousness all come down to the way things vibrate? and Thomas Cronin discusses visual ecology in Seeing without eyes – the unexpected world of nonvisual photoreception.

In Poetry, Sacred Art and the Book of Kells Francesca Diano reviews poet James Harpur’s latest book The White Silhouette where she discovers a maze of connections that takes her on a journey through Neoplatonism to Krishnamurti and quantum mechanics.

And Interalia Magazine editor, Richard Bright, reviews Gemma Anderson’s book Drawing as a Way of Knowing in Art and Science, which introduces tested ways in which drawing as a research practice can enhance morphological insight, specifically within the natural sciences, mathematics and art.

“We are all bodies of water! What we do to water, we do to every body, including ourselves.”

Astrida Neimanis

“The challenges we face with water are largely a consequence of how we perceive it in postmodern industrialized societies.”

D.L.’West’ Marrin

“Water issues are vast and present intricately complex problems. I think that the solutions and suggestions for actions lie in a diversity of approaches. It will take all of us working together cooperatively to come to the assistance of bodies of water around the globe.”

Basia Irland

Interconnecting Water explores current thinking and work on ways that water connects us to each other and the world.

Contributions include:-

John Finney is Emeritus Professor of Physics at University College, London. In The origin of water he discusses the questions How did water originate? And How did it get to Earth?

In her pioneering inter-disciplinary practice, Basia Irland focusses on rivers and watersheds, water scarcity, climate change, ecological restoration and waterborne diseases. Her poetic, socially-engaged work endeavours to reconnect people with their local waterways in order to foster care, appreciation and responsibility. She discusses her work in Reading the River.

D.L. Marrin (nickname West) is an applied scientist specializing in biogeochemistry, water resources and aquatic ecology. In Perspectives on altering our perceptions of water he discusses the biological and behavioral factors that complicate our capacity and inclination to expand our perceptions of water.

Susan Derges has established an international reputation through her practice involving cameraless, lens-based, digital and reinvented photographic processes, encompassing subject matter informed by the physical and biological sciences as well as landscape and abstraction. She discusses her relationship with water in Interconnecting Water.

David Teeple is a multidisciplinary artist using glass, water, and light to create formally simple yet perceptually complex works, which centers on the many facets of water: as a subject, a material, and an experience. He discusses his ideas and work in Modified Perceptual Conditions and the Sublime.

Astrida Neimanis writes mostly about bodies, water and weather, in an intersectional feminist mode. Her most recent monograph is Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology. She discusses her ideas and work in Bodies of Water.

Amy Sharrocks is a live artist, sculptor and film-maker who invites people to come on journeys in which their own experience, communication and expression are a vital part. She has making work about people and water for 10 years. In What’s the point of cities? she discusses the role that swimming has in connecting people with cities.

Laura Ferguson has made her own body the subject of her art, finding beauty in a curving spine and exploring the connections between pain, consciousness, and creativity. Floating on inner seas will be part of a book-in-progress about her own art and the process of making it, The Consciousness of the Body.

Siobhan McDonald is a visual artist working in the medium of paint, film and sound. She is interested in the changeable nature of landmass, historical events and their interconnection to time. She discusses her relationship with water in How the water moves.

Plus, James Sprittles discusses the importance and implications of understanding the behaviour of water droplets in We may just have solved the great mystery of why drops splash and Jonti Horner discusses the discovery of water in the universe in Water, water, everywhere in our Solar system but what does that mean for life?

Our present picture of reality, particularly in relation to the nature of time, is due for a grand shake-up – even greater, perhaps, than that which has already been provided by present-day relativity and quantum mechanics.

Roger Penrose: The Emperors New Mind.

In any attempt to bridge the domains of experience belonging to the spiritual and physical sides of our nature, time occupies the key position.

A.S.Eddington: The Nature of the Physical World.

It’s about Time explores current thinking and work on ‘Time’ in the arts and sciences. Themes covered include – The Nature of Time in Physics; Biological Clocks; Deep Time; Concepts and uses of Time in the Arts; Consciousness and Time Perception; Time and Language; Subjective Time and Altered States.

Peter J. Riggs is a physicist and philosopher of science in the Department of Quantum Science at the Australian National University. In Physical Time in Perspective, he discusses the two main theories of time along with a possible non-‘dynamic’ alternative.

Alexandra Dementieva main interests focus on social psychology and perception and their application in multimedia interactive installations. Her videowork integrates different elements including behavioral psychology, developing narrative using a ‘subjective camera’. She discusses her ideas and work in The fragility of human existence.

Marc Wittmann is currently employed at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health, Freiburg, Germany. In Felt Time he discusses his ideas and work concerning self and time consciousness.

The Drawing through Time and Image symposium, devised and organised by Jack Southern took place at the Hardwick Gallery at the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham during March 2018. In his article, Jack Southern discusses drawing as a vehicle for expansive thinking around our complex contemporary experience of time, coupled with our understanding of the way images communicate and inform our everyday.

Dean Buonomano is a professor in the Departments of Neurobiology and Psychology, and a member of the Brain Research Institute, and the Integrative Center for Learning and Memory at UCLA. In The Brain as a Time Machine he discusses his ideas and research on how the brain tells time.

Richelle Gribble’s exhibition, Anthropocene, took place at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery (New Orleans, LA) between May and July 2018. With a strong interest in environmentalism, the artist examines human impact on nature and the biological consequences of human influence.

Multidisciplinary artist, Margaret Inga Urías, is interested in conditions that entangle the past, the present, and the future–re-examining how we orient ourselves, not only in the immediacy of places around us, but also in the universe that maintains us. With a specific interest in the physical laws and circumstances that brought space, time, matter and beings into existence, she creates works that often function as trace narratives over vast stretches of time.

Further explorations on current thinking about time are featured in articles by Panos Athanasopoulos: Language alters our experience of time ; Elise Crull: You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time ; David Farrier: Deep time’s uncanny future is full of ghostly human traces ; and Thomas Kitching: What is time – and why does it move forward?

Plus, there’s a ‘visual article’ on artist and writer, Richard Bright, recent work Time Waves.

Imaginings explores current thinking and work on ‘imagining’ in the arts and sciences – imagining the embodied self; inhabiting and sensing the environment; the importance of the imagination in children’s creative learning; and imagining the future world and human evolution.

Contributions include:-

Valeriya N-Georg, an artist inspired from Neuroscience, Psychology and Consciousness studies, who works with a range of media: drawing, printmaking, mixed media and sculpture. She discusses her ideas and work in Between the human body and the inner self.

Raul Altosaar is an infradisciplinary artist, technician and researcher. He leverages his foundational skills in computer graphics and extended realities to design spatial experiences and interactive tools. He discusses his work in Experiencing human-computer interaction.

Betty Zhang is an interaction designer and interdisciplinary artist creating sensory experiences that are immersive and interactive in both digital and non-digital media. In Human bodies and the environment that they occupy she discusses the body as a multi-functioning interface and performative medium.

Burton Nitta (Michael Burton and Michiko Nitta) is an interdisciplinary art and design studio collaborating with science and technology to investigate our future world and human evolution. They discuss their ideas and work in Who are we now or what will we be in various versions of the future?

Marie Munk is an interdisciplinary artist, working with sculpture, installation, video and performance. Using silicone as a metaphor for the bodily, she creates alternative realities, which questions current tendencies in society. She discusses her work in Physical interaction and artificial simulation of intimacy.

Penny Hay is an artist, educator and researcher. In Visions of childhood, she discusses the importance of play in children’s learning, how adults can support children’s identity as artists, and the project Forest of Imagination.

Plus, there are articles by Margaret Wertheim on The art and beauty of general relativity ; Michael Strauss discussing why Our Universe is too vast for even the most imaginative sci-fi ; and Valerie van Mulukon on The secret to creativity – according to science.

Drawing as Process. Drawing as Document continues exploring current thinking on the practice and theory of Drawing, its creative, expressive and educational value, as well as its fundamental importance to translating and analysing the world.

Contributions include:-

Lucinda Burgess has a background in painting, landscape design and oriental philosophy, which has led to a fascination with the raw elemental qualities of materials and inform a sculptural practice that accentuates the reality of constant change, undermining the idea of a fixed thing, object, entity or identity. In Material Repetition, she discusses her ideas and work.

Ian Chamberlain’s work takes its influence from man-made structures. Reinterpreting them as monuments placed within the landscape, these objects in turn become landmarks of their time. In Reminders of a past, he discusses his ideas and work.

Tania Kovats is renowned for producing sculptures, large-scale installations and temporal works which explore our experience and understanding of landscape, encompassing sculptures and drawings which explore her preoccupation with         the sea. She discusses her work in Mediating between Nature and Self.

Richard Talbot’s work includes large-scale drawings, sculpture, and more recently, video/installation. His research and studio practice is centred on contemporary drawing, but he brings to this a particular interest in the theory, history and practice of perspective. In A perspective on drawing, he discusses his ideas and work.

Kelly Chorpening is an artist, writer and educator. She has been the Course Leader for BA (Hons) Drawing at Camberwell College of Arts, UAL since 2006. Her recent experiments explore ways of materialising the form of language in order to test the fundamental processes of naming and identification that occur in both drawing and writing. She discusses her work in Between drawing and writing.

Formally a cardiac nurse, artist Sonya Rademeyer uses the vehicle of sound, movement and deep listening to explore the sensing of traces in her everyday experiences and the fragility of line to capture and translate them into form. She discusses her ideas and work in The Language of Line.

Ana Mendes is a writer and visual artist, creating projects in which she uses photography, video, drawing, text and installation to address issues of memory, language and identity. Her research project, On Drawing, aims at establishing a connection between drawing and thinking in the realms of arts and science. In Drawing, language and thinking, she discusses this project together with her ideas and work.

Jason Lane is an artist who collects predominantly reclaimed steel and is drawn to the aged qualities and personal histories of materials. Inspiration for his work is also in part derived from a fascination with mechanical objects and their animalistic qualities. He has also made a series of Drawing Machines.

Giulia Ricci’s finely detailed geometrical works use a variety of processes, hand-made and digital drawing, laser engraving, installation and video. Drawing underpins the artist’s practice across the various media. She discusses her work in A vocabulary of patterns.

Susie Howarth is a multi-disciplinary artist currently making drawings exploring errors, imperfections and erasures. She takes inspiration from organisational documents: annual reports, business plans, newsletters, brochures, charts and strategic policy frameworks.

Anna Ursyn is a professor and Computer Graphics/Digital Media Area Head at the School of Art and Design, University of Northern Colorado, USA. She combines programming with software and printmaking media, to unify computer generated and painted images, and sculptures. Her article discusses Drawing as a Way of Thinking.

Artist and writer, Richard Bright, has addressed the relationship between art, science and consciousness for over 30 years. In his recent series of drawings, Contemplations and Neural Communications, he explores the impermanent and shifting process of thinking, drawing inspiration from Buddhist philosophy and neuroscientific literature and imagery.

Deconstructing Patterns explores pattern as a primary aspect of the world across the fields of molecular and micro-biology, physics, visual art, mathematics, neuroscience and zoology.

Contributors include:-

An exclusive interview with Ian Stewart, Emeritus Mathematics Professor at the University of Warwick, Fellow of the Royal Society, and author of over 120 books on mathematics. In Thinking about Patterns he discusses the mathematics behind patterns in Nature.

Werner Sun is a visual artist. A particle physicist by training, he makes folded paper constructions that investigate the role of pattern and abstraction in the everyday acts of observing and knowing. In Patterns: Not Math, Nor Science, Nor Art, he explores patterns as ‘entities unto themselves’.

Bryony Benge-Abbott is Public Engagement Manager (Exhibitions) at the Francis Crick Institute, London. She both curated and project managed ‘Deconstructing patterns’, the first exhibition at the Crick with new collaborations between scientists and artists in the field of sculpture, film and spoken word. She discusses this exhibition in On ‘Deconstructing Patterns: art and science in conversation’.

Helen Pynor is an Australian visual artist who works at the intersection between art and the life sciences, working with photography, video, sculpture and performance to explore ideas surrounding human and animal bodies, and disease. In Random precision. Countless intimate acts, she discusses her collaborative project with Dr Iris Salecker at the Francis Crick Institute, London.

Dr Iris Salecker is program leader in the Division of Molecular Neurobiology at the Medical Research Council National Institute for Medical Research in London (now part of the Francis Crick Institute). In Patterns and the visual system of the fruit fly ‘Drosophila’, she discusses her ideas and work, and her collaborative project with artist, Helen Pynor, for the ‘Deconstructing Patterns’ exhibition.

Chu-Li Shewring works as a filmmaker, sound artist and sound designer collaborating with artists and independent filmmakers. In Infinite Instructions, she discusses her work and collaboration with poet, Sarah Howe, for the ‘Deconstructing Patterns’ exhibition.

Nathan Goehring is a Junior Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute and a Senior Research Associate in the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology at UCL. He discusses his work in Patterns and molecular and biological development.

Working on the ‘Deconstructing Patterns’ exhibition is discussed further in interviews with Ravi Desai, Poet in the City and 1A Arts

Sarah Howe is a British poet, academic and editor. Her first book, Loop of Jade (Chatto & Windus, 2015), won the T.S. Eliot Prize and The Sunday Times / PFD Young Writer of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Her poem, A New Music, was specially commissioned for the Deconstructing Patterns exhibition.

Roger Beaty is a postdoctoral fellow in cognitive neuroscience working with Daniel Schacter in the Schacter Memory Lab at Harvard University. In New study reveals why some people are more creative than others, he discusses mapping network patterns in the brain during creative thinking.

Priya Subramanian is a Research Fellow at the Department of Mathematics, University of Leeds. In The maths behind ‘impossible’ never-repeating patterns, she explores the formation of quasipatterns.

Thomas Woolley is a Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Cardiff University, specializing in mathematical biology, where his doctorate focused on understanding the pattern formation behind fish spots and zebra stripes. He discusses this in How animals got their spots and stripes – according to maths.

Being Human with Artificial Intelligence explores contemporary dialogues on the relationship of AI, consciousness and creativity, and the impact of AI on the future of humanity.

Contributors include –

An exclusive interview with Kevin Warwick, whose main research areas are artificial intelligence, biomedical systems, robotics and cyborgs. In Cyborgs and I he discusses his ideas and work on Artificial Intelligence, robotics and the future of humans ‘plugging’ into technology.

Yoshua Bengio is a Canadian computer scientist, most noted for his work on artificial neural networks and deep learning. His main research ambition is to understand principles of learning that yield intelligence. In this exclusive interview he discusses his ideas and work on AI and Deep Learning.

Arthur I. Miller is fascinated by the nature of creative thinking – the mind’s ability to transform information from everyday experiences into the most sublime works of art, literature, music and science. In Creativity in the Age of Machines he discusses the relationship of AI and creativity.

Mario Klingemann is an artist working with algorithms, data and artificial neural networks. He investigates the possibilities that machine learning and artificial intelligence offer in understanding how creativity, culture and their perception work. In AI and Neurography he discusses his ideas and work.

Ryota Kanai PhD is a neuroscientist working on the computational principles underlying consciousness and the brain, and the founder and CEO of an AI startup, Araya, Inc. in Tokyo. In Creating Artificial Consciousness he discusses his ideas and work in trying to understand consciousness by creating it.

Thomas Dietterich is one of the pioneers of the field of Machine Learning. His research is motivated by challenging real world problems with a special focus on ecological science, ecosystem management, and sustainable development. In AI and Machine Learning he discusses his ideas and work.

Mike Tyka studied Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the University of Bristol. He obtained his PhD in Biophysics in 2007 and went on to work as a research fellow at the University of Washington and has been studying the structure and dynamics of protein molecules. Since 2015 he has also begun working with artificial neural networks as an artistic medium and tool. His latest generative portraits series Portraits of Imaginary People are featured in this visual article.

Keith Frankish is a philosopher and writer. His interests lie mainly in philosophy of mind, and he is well known for defending an illusionist view of phenomenal consciousness and a two-level theory of the human mind. In this exclusive interview he discusses his ideas on the relationship between AI and Consciousness.

Shimon Whiteson is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford, and a tutorial fellow at St. Catherine’s College. His research focuses on artificial intelligence. In this exclusive interview he discusses the TERESA project, which aims to develop a telepresence robot of unprecedented social intelligence.

Adrian Holme is a teacher, writer and artist. His article, AI and the idea of the human: myth, metaphor and agency, examines the enduring value of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in considering the questions of AI.

Subhash Kak is an Indian American computer scientist who has made contributions to cryptography, artificial neural networks, and quantum information. He asks Will artificial intelligence become conscious?

In ‘Machine folk’ music composed by AI shows technology’s creative side, Bob Sturm and Oded Ben-Tal describe their research which examines how state-of-the art AI techniques can contribute to musical practice.

Leah Henrickson is a doctoral student whose current research focuses on discerning the social and literary implications of natural language generation. In We, robot: the computer co-authoring a story with a human writer, she explores the possibilities of creative human-computer interaction.

To avoid killing its essence, rather than as a specimen to pin down and dissect, it is best to think of spirituality as related to experience – often subtle, but also usually powerful and emotionally charged experience. The spiritual dimension is therefore better considered as an adventure playground to explore, full of fun, challenge and excitement, of opportunities to test oneself, to learn and to grow. The experiences it offers are both deeply personal and universal at the same time.

Larry Culliford: On The Psychology of Spirituality (Interalia Magazine, Dec 2017)

Since the 21st century, there has been a drive toward an expanded sense of spirituality that goes beyond the quest to fulfil or orient the self to using it as the basis of policy formation in fields like social work, education, health, psychotherapy and even business.

Rina Ayra: On Contemporary Art and Spirituality (Interalia Magazine, Dec 2017)

Concerning the Spiritual explores contemporary dialogues at the intersection of Art, Philosophy, Science and Spirituality.

Bill Viola is a seminal figure in the field of video creating installations, films, sound environments, flat panel video pieces and works for concerts, opera and sacred spaces for over four decades. In this interview, An avenue to self-knowledge, he discusses his work and his encounter with Zen Buddhism.

As a physicist working in a theological environment, Mark Harris is interested in the complex ways that science and religion relate to each other. He runs the Science and Religion programme at the University of Edinburgh. In this exclusive interview, On Science and Theology, he discusses his ideas and the interaction between the physical sciences and theology.

Miya Ando is an American artist whose metal canvases and sculpture articulate themes of perception and ones relationship to time. The foundation of her practice is the transformation of surfaces. In this exclusive interview, Fleeting Light, she discusses her ideas and work.

Mario Beauregard, PhD., is a neuroscientist currently affiliated with the Department of Psychology, University of Arizona. His groundbreaking research on the neurobiology of spiritual experiences has received international media coverage, and a documentary film has been produced about his work (The Mystical Brain, 2007). The Emerging Post-Materialist Paradigm: Toward the Next Great Scientific Revolution explores his ideas on the transition from materialist science to post-materialist science.

Michael Falzoni is an artist whose work is inspired by the possibilities of infinite combinations, reflecting his interest in relationships and the interplay between internal and external realities. In this exclusive interview, The possibilities of infinite combinations, he discusses his ideas and work.

Rina Arya is a Reader at the University of Wolverhampton who is interested in the visual and material culture of religion. In this exclusive interview, On Contemporary Art and Spirituality, she discusses nature of the dialogue between art and spirituality, how they come together and what form they take.

Larry Culliford was a hospital doctor and GP before becoming a psychiatrist. In 1998, he helped found the ‘spirituality and psychiatry’ special interest group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. In this exclusive interview he discusses his experience and ideas into understanding the psychology of spirituality.

Lewis deSoto is an American artist of Cahuilla Native American ancestry. His multimedia installations combine sound, light, video, space, and sculpture elements and are site-specific or oriented toward making a complete environment. His conceptual artwork utilizes automobiles, inflatables, electronics, photography, wood and metal construction. In this exclusive interview, Consciousness in context, he discusses his ideas and work.

Artist and writer, Richard Bright, has addressed the relationship between art, science and consciousness for over 30 years. In Contemplations, he shows some work from his series of drawings that explore the temporal nature of reality and stillness of the mind.