eye tee pea

By the deficits, we may know the talents, by the experiences we may discern the rules, by studying pathology we may construct a model of health. And — most important — from this model may evolve the insights and tools we need to affect our own lives, mould our own destinies, change ourselves and our society in ways that, as yet, we can only imagine.

Ramachandran prefaces his book Phantoms in the Brain with it. In the first week of class, as I was explaining my idea for a neuroscience museum and a possible exhibit on synaesthesia, Danny made the observation that we learn about how the brain works when things go wrong with it or when it behaves unusually. As one focus of my exhibits is going to be stories about fascinating neurological phenomena, and since Ramachandran’s writings are going to be the main source of these anecdotes, this quote could well be an appropriate entry plaque to the museum.

There’s one in Lima, Peru that boasts over 3000 brains. It’s supposed to be one of the biggest brain banks in the world, but the only one open to the public. There’s a little Reuters video about it here.

This is a link to the neuroscience section of an Israeli musum. It has some interesting content that might be a good source of exhibit ideas. They’re primarily to do with vision and visual illusions though.

Dream
My dream is to create a space that allows people to experience and learn about the wonders of the brain through body and affect rather than intellect.

Vision
My vision is of a brain-shaped museum of neuroscience. Visitors will navigate the space as a series of sensory journeys in which they will experience and learn about various neurological phenomena. These explorations will be about 45 min to an hour long. Visitors will have the ability to ’store’ information from exhibits that they wish to learn more about, and have this information waiting for them in the Inbox when they get home.

Goal
I would like to develop a floor plan for how the museum might be structured, and how visitors might navigate the exhibits. I’d like to know what the content of the museum would be and make up a few exhibits that could go in it. I also want to prototype and user-test some of these exhibits to see how they’re received.