?arko Aleksic: Brain Pictures

Art as a dynamic pattern of activation of specific neural networks

For the last three years I have been intensively dealing with studies within the field of cognitive science, as well as the relation between cognitive science and art. During that period I realized several projects, one of which is States of Mind, where I was investigating how experience shapes our identity through neuroplasticity and episodic/semantic memory (constructing autobiographical self, Antonio Damasio?s Self comes to Mind) using methodology of video dairy by Jonas Mekas and Joyice’s stream of consciousness.

Brain Pictures is a multidisciplinary research project connecting scientific methodologies and knowledge with artistic practice simultaneously constructing the context for shifting the notion of art producing, art object and art observing towards a new ideological framework based on surveys in cognitive science. The ontological shift could be traced in the fact that an art work is a certain activation of the patterns of neural networks that can be activated by external and internal stimuli. This kind of understanding of art, where the observer plays a crucial role, leads further to a set of epistemological, sociological, political and economic implications. Other important issues raised by the exhibition also are of ethical nature and related to the use of technology, brain-machine interface and the possibility of monitoring other people’s thoughts endangering the subject’s privacy. My artistic practice consists in the double brain research – the first, scientific, so-called third person view and the second, a subjectivist-poetic first person view. Another similar classification relates to the structure of the neural activities and phenomena that emerge from them.

Exhibition Brain Pictures consist of five group of works connected as family resemblances. All the works within the exhibition are in a constant dialog adding multiple layers of possible meanings and questions: A Self-portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Brain Pictures, One or Infinite Number of Chairs, Neural Net and BMIP.

Scans of my brain for the surveys, MRI (magnetic resonance) has been done in Belgrade, fMRI (functional magnetic resonance) has been done in Frankfurt and TMR (trans cranial magnetic stimulation) was made in Vienna.

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