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Images and caption info from the book Your Brain on Art Universe of Water Particles on a Rock where People Gather ? teamLab The interdisciplinary arts collective teamLab created an audience-driven experience in Tokyo called teamLab Borderless that brings the natural world to life. See image E in the color insert. The collective incorporates light, sound, and visual effects that feel as though you are part of the art, and that seem to transcend our normal perceptions of time and place. As you meander through the space, you are able to manipulate the surroundings through touch, and to watch as digital flowers bloom, and die, and bloom again. We often think of ourselves as individuals separate from our surroundings, from nature, but this stunning interactive museum dissolves the boundary between art and the viewer, allowing you to feel your surroundings in a visceral way. Composed of artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians, and architects, teamLab represents the exciting, transdisciplinary collaborations of the future.

Your Brain on Art review: Fascinating guide needs a bit more science

22 March 2023

From a virtual-reality snowscape used for pain relief for burns to immersive art to boost your mood, we all gain from aesthetic engagement, argues a book from Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross that needed a little more science to make it a great read


How a 6-year-old had half his brain removed and recovered in 3 months

How a 6-year-old had half his brain removed and recovered in 3 months

23 September 2020

David Eagleman's book Livewired explores neuroplasticity, the brain's superpower, which lets it reshape after extreme surgery and adapt to losing a sense


The way we think about the brain may be completely wrong

The way we think about the brain may be completely wrong

15 April 2020

Thinking of the brain as a machine may be hampering our progress in understanding how it works, says The Idea of the Brain: A history by Matthew Cobb


meditation

How does consciousness work? A radical theory has mind-blowing answers

30 October 2019

The Feeling of Life Itself by Christof Koch charts a radical theory about consciousness that shows the survival advantages for humans, and why computers can never be conscious


magic exhibition

The psychology of magic and how it plays with our minds

1 May 2019

We need to think our brain doesn't lie to get us through the day, but as a new London exhibition called Smoke and Mirrors shows, magic relies on the fact that it does


gilded representation of brain

The great wonder and strangeness of the human brain

24 April 2019

A dazzling exhibition in Lisbon celebrates the most complex of human organs with art that makes the brain sing – as well as revealing how chimps can outsmart us


laughing baby

The Neuroscience of Emotion: time to take our emotions very seriously

22 August 2018

Is non-conscious emotion possible, in animals, humans, even robots? This is just one fascinating thought experiment in an authoritative new book on emotions


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