Research collage by Antye Guenther for "What to do with our brains?", 2020

Uncertainty Scenarios – Session #10: What to do with our Brains? -- About the Pleasures and Pain of Brain Alteration.

To place the essence of personhood into the MIND is a concept deeply ingrained into Western Philosophy. It might be one reason for our centuries long philosophical obsession with (rational) thinking as an activity of higher purposes and our desires to manipulate and enhance the brain as the host of these activities.

In the 20th century these obsessions were amplified with new approaches to brain alteration. This is exemplified in cases of mind control enthusiasm in the 1950s/60s to consciousness expansion techniques of the counter cultures in the 1960s/70s, blending frictionlessly into apolitical ‘mindfulness’ tools so suitable for our neoliberal times.

In Uncertainty Scenarios - Session #10 we will discuss different  perspectives regarding the brain and how it has been a target of alteration, augmentation, manipulation and control.

Still from 'An Answer is Expected' by Susan MacWilliam, 2013

Continuous screening of 'An Answer is Expected' (65 min. / 2013) by Susan MacWilliam. 
Reflecting on the historic ESP (extrasensory perception) and telepathy research of parapsychologist Dr J.B. Rhine (1895-1980) 'An Answer is Expected' considers the ways in which we think about our place within the world, our desire to read meaning in coincidence, and the belief that there is more to the universe than simply ‘matter in motion’.