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13/5/2005

Warren Neidich

Contemporary Art Centre - CAC, Vilnius

Earthling Project

We all know that making art is a kind of journey into the heartland of the self and that this self is Transversal, it does not end with the body but extends into the interactive space beyond itself. The world of things for the hands, the visual landscape for the eyes, and language and culture for the brain. It co-evolves through a process by which it sends out thousands and thousands of fimbria, figuratively extensions of protoplasm, into the real, imaginary and virtual world which is more like an interface or membrane constructed of stable and dynamic patterns.

These physical and psychic extensions reach out and inter-digitate themselves into the infinite array of interconnected information systems that call out to them and reach them and embrace them. The body is one site of that interactivity but the brain is to and it is well known that the body, the brain and this real/imaginary/virtual interface are a co-extensive "one". They are the most recent manifestation of co-evolutionary forces in which these three streams of ontogeny are made to mingle and dance with each and in the end finding points of commonality. Culture plays a significant role in the mediation of these three systems and its evolution is mapped into this co-extensive system. What has marked the evolution of the brain as distinct and separate from the rest of the body is its ability to be modified something called plasticity. This mutability and changlingness is a result of a genetically inherited ability which allows neurons and their connections to be modified and pruned a process now called Neural Darwinsim. Changes taking place in itself and in the other spheres can as a result leave their mark or imprint on to the neurobiological substrate. Modifications in the real/imaginary/virtual or external reality can effect the distribution and morphology of the developing brain and as a result cultural mutations that have changed architecture, art, design and fashion just to name a few, have implications for how the brain is wired and more importantly how its different parts dynamically interact.. This permutation and re alignment of the neurobiological substrate is what is called the Cultured Brain and it is the new configuration and design of its‘ maps that allow it to process information differently, to imagine new possibilities and in the end to reinvigorate creativity itself.

Earthling is a performance that utilizes the lecture format and film and video presentation to explore the various conditions of this new form of individual. How this new kind of subjectivity evolved and is still evolving. Neuroaesthetics is the method through which this investigation is carried out. This performance will look at the development of Neuro aesthetics itself and on the way discuss the way art praxis can be used as a tool with which to open up and distort questions surrounding brain and mind.

Short Biography and Artist Statement

Warren Neidich is currently artist in residence in the Department of Visual Arts and ACE-AHRB Fellow in the Department of Computing at Goldsmiths College, London. His work has been exhibited in such institutions as the Whitney Museum of Art, New York City, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Ludwig Museum, Koln, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles and the Walker Art Museum, Minneapolis, Minnesota just to name a few. Recent group shows include Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway, the Institute of Contemporary Art, London and the Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius. Planned future one-person shows include Michael Steinberg Gallery, New York City and Edward Mitterand Gallery, Geneva. He is the American representative at the Glenfiddich Artistic Residency for the summer of 2005. He first began lecturing on Neuro-aesthetics in 1995 at the School of Visual Arts, New York City and is now in the process of creating the first Department of Neuro-aesthetics at Goldsmiths College. He is currently organizing The First Neuroaesthetics Conference at Goldsmiths College May 20 and 21, 2005. He is co-founder of www.artbrain.org and editor of The Journal of Neuro-aesthetics, a website and journal that posts artistic work about the brain. His collected writings, entitled, Blow-up: Photography, Cinema and the Brain has recently been published by DAP and the University of California, Riverside. Warren Neidich believes that a role of the artist is to enlarge the notion of what art is and what it can be. Art is a continually expanding universe of possibilities that through its interaction with other discourses generates new languages with which the mind can play and create. Warren Neidich is originally from New York City and is now based in London at Goldsmiths College. He uses photography, cinema, and new media to discover the ways that aesthetic practice, as it interfaces with neuroscience, forms a collective choreography, in effecting the way global subjectivities are constructed. He calls his practice Neuroaesthetics and his recent work Earthling will be shown in New York this fall.

Lecture – performance, duration: 10 hours
14 05 2005, Saturday, from 12 a.m. to 22 p.m.

Contemporary Art Centre
Vokieciu 2 - Vilnius

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