Mind over Matter / Heads on Trays
We all use our brains every day. I have been using mine in a different way this week by trying a new tactic - a co-authored blog. The new Wellcome Collection exhibition Brains: The Mind as Matter presented the perfect opportunity for a collaboration with David Weston, a fellow PhD student who blogs about neuroscience over at The Way You Wear Your Head.
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Brains is curated in four sections, each with a binary title: Measuring/Classifying, Mapping/Modelling, Cutting/Treating and Giving/Taking. Each section delivered a combination of art and science (a fusion which we have both previously discussed here and here) in typical Wellcome fashion; indeed it is curated by a lecturer in visual culture, Marius Kwint, and Lucy Shanahan of the Wellcome with the advice of neuroscientist Richard Wingate. Here we try to follow suit.
The first section, Measuring/Classifying looks at the early interest in phrenology and the physical manifestations of intelligence and emotion. Here you see model heads divided into areas of supposed brain function, alongside the preserved brains of scientists who worked for and against this idea. While most of these theories are now outdated, the delicacy and anatomical accuracy of the illustrations and observations alike, are still captivating. This visual detail continues into the framing of the second section on Mapping/Modelling, which considers how both artists and scientists have tackled the complex challenge of rendering the human brain in three dimensions. Katy was fascinated by the intricate wax models of cerebral vasculature. Particularly impressive for David were the sections of mouse brain progressively digitally magnified to remarkably high definition, from notable neuroscientist Jeff Lichtman. Each tiny section of brain, measuring less than a square inch, contains more data than the entire catalogue of Google Earth. The poignant relics of Santiago Ramón y Cajal: his dissecting instruments, complex drawings of neurons, and personal diary, hand-written until the day of his death, help to bring out the men behind the minds.
Artist Daniel Alexander was specially commissioned for the exhibition to photograph iconic buildings and workspaces in the history of neuroscience. The Berlin Medical History Museum images appealed to both Katy's love of densely packed shelves of specimens (photographed in the museum cellars during a redisplay) and …
you can read the second half of this post here