CAIRO: The brain is the home of thoughts, the origin of images and the arbiter of emotions.
So when German artist Helga Griffiths set about creating a piece for the 10th Cairo International Biennale, which has a theme of images and time, she decided to go back to basics and create a work centered on the mind.
“The brain is the place where the images are created. I had to go back to the core, says the artist, sipping on a cup of coffee at a hotel in Dokki earlier this week.
“There are so many images in the news and in the papers, for example, that we can hardly digest it anymore, she says. “I felt I didn’t need to bring anymore of this to the fold.
To create the installation piece, Griffith teamed up with the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, who helped her out by creating a 3-D computer model of her brain.
The researches used a sophisticated tomographic imaging process, which is like a hi-tech brain X-ray, to scan her brain in sections and piece it all together using computer software.
The tomographic image creation, according to Griffiths, was an experience akin to undergoing an arduous medical examination, where she was forced to cross the line from artist to lab rat.
During the scanning process, the researchers flashed images at her “very, very quickly, to stimulate the brain’s imaging processes so the scans could record the neural changes taking place in her brain.
“It was part of there own research. I had to wear an orange suit – it felt like I was in Guantanamo, she says with a laugh.
It was loud, uncomfortable and claustrophobic.
“You don’t do this for fun. I could visualize them slicing through my brain.
Once her brain was mapped out in cyberspace, the information was fed into to a hi-tech machine that rendered the images into a shiny, reflective sculpture.
While classical artists created statues with a hammer and a lump of stone, Griffith’s work was made with a laser and a mound of titanium dust. With the computer image as a template, the laser sliced through the powder and congealed the particles together, creating the model.
The work is as visually arresting as it is technologically advanced.
The brain’s metallic sheen emphasizes the reflective nature of the work and ensures that Griffith’s creation is more art than simple anatomy. Indeed, the artist explores not only the nature of an image, which is stored in the brain as a series of neural impulses, but also time’s effect on these memories.
In the installation piece, this reflective, shiny brain, floats through the space in a circular, repetitive motion and represents the way images recede and change over time.
It really has to be seen to be appreciated and understood.
Much of Griffiths’ previous works mine similar, technologically progressive themes which have led the artist to blur the lines between art, science and research.
“I feel that my line of work is very different, she says. “Even in Germany, I feel like I’m expanding the limits of art.
Check out Griffiths’ work – along with many others – at the Cairo Opera Grounds. The show runs until January 31.
