Subscribe now
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


Person undergoing a CAT scan in hospital. PET scan equipment. Medical CT scan of patient.

Wonderworks review: How stories affect our brains

1 September 2021

Wonderworks by Angus Fletcher tells the fascinating tale of the neuroscience of storytelling. It traces the narrative tools that trigger our brains’ responses to some of history’s greatest literature


In Silico review: The ambitious project to recreate the human brain

In Silico review: The ambitious project to recreate the human brain

19 May 2021

In Silico doesn't look slick, but it is a sharply scripted documentary about an ambitious, billion-euro project to model the intricacies of the human brain – and in just 10 years, says Simon Ings


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


I Am Not Okay With This

Don't miss: I Am Not Okay With This, aged brains, and invisible worlds

19 February 2020

This week, watch Netflix's I Am Not Okay With This, catch up with positive stories about how our brains age, and listen as a podcast reveals the built world


Van Gogh portrait

Don't Miss: Escape the deep, explore mind and body and meet van Gogh

29 January 2020

This week, watch nail-biting drama as researchers escape an underwater lab, discover physical intelligence – humans' most essential ability – and visit Vincent van Gogh


Don't miss: A singing bridge, a lost people and brilliant minds

Don't miss: A singing bridge, a lost people and brilliant minds

22 January 2020

This week, watch architecture make music, remember the Yanomami and measure your superiority to machines


chimpanzee puppet

Don't Miss: Craft power, killer brain cells and fostered chimps

15 January 2020

This week, the power of craft in an age of big industry, a brain cell that turns assassin, and the chimps raised in human families


beach

Don’t Miss: tiny tech, a girl at the end of time and a mental mystery

8 January 2020

This week, meet the technology that could transform health, beachcomb the Anthropocene and discover how syphilis and hysteria illnesses transformed neurology


Sign up to our weekly newsletter

Receive a weekly dose of discovery in your inbox. We'll also keep you up to date with New Scientist events and special offers.

Sign up
Piano Exit Overlay Banner Mobile Piano Exit Overlay Banner Desktop