Earlier this year I made a proposal to scientists at the Columbia Zuckerman Institute to play together Exquisite Corpse, along with the larger Harlem community. Investigators at Zuckerman Institute work to transform the understanding of the brain and the mind.
What is really interesting is that scientists are called principal investigators.
And I thought that to describe what I do as an artist is that I am a principal investigator of everything. My task is to pierce all veils, and strip down everything to first principles.
The principle investigators ask a lot and very interesting questions like:
“What happens in my brain,” asked Dr. Aronov, “when I have a one-time experience that I remember for my whole life?”
While I was reading about the principle investigators’ work - I started asking questions in my head, and speech to text them in the cloud:
30 questions about the brain
1 What is bigger the universe or the mind, because we can imagine the entire universe and imagine what is beyond it, so in the sense the interior of our brains hold larger than the universe or is it?
2 Are we figments of someone's imagination?
3 How can we imagine so big when we're so small, we are not even visible from space, we're corpuscles?
4 Does anyone else in the universe think?
5 Does anyone else in the universe see what we see?
6 Does anyone else in the universe know there is a universe?
7 Will the memory of Michael Jackson still live in some form when our universe dies, as a fraction of an atom that once was a memory?
8 are we animals or gods
9 Why do people when they encounter my paints on the street - they start painting immediately?
10 Are we simply the sum of our parts?
11 why brain difference is labeled disease and not just variety
12 Do animals suffer mental illness
13 is creativity flight and fight or entirely separate drive /motivator
14 Why are models beautiful, which part of the brain makes that judgment, how does the brain decide someone or something is beautiful are we trained just like AI or monkey on beauty are we influenced by suggestions when people like things that we decide that we also like the things although we might not but just want to participate
15 are we just a bump in the background radiation, denser field, tiny blips or the future of the universe
16 will machines ever become sentient
17 will I be able to upload myself and live in the cloud one day
18 can my brain live in entirely different body like an octopus
19 What is the difference between decorative and fine arts really?
20 is the brain like my laptop i close the lid and it's all out
21 Why do we sing in the shower?
22 Why do we dance when no one's looking?
23 why is yellow a happy color
24 What is it to have?
25 How exactly do I remember the smell of my grandfather's tool drawers?
26 Why are we interested in Space?
27 What is this fundamental difference between us and machines?
28 how games fundamentally affect the brain and generation of dopamine?
29 Can a machine one day be a best friend?
30 What will humans and machine brains look like in a thousand years?