Neuroscience Day is an annual conference organised by the Edinburgh Neuroscience. This year it was in the Nucleus Building within the King's Buildings Campus of the University of Edinburgh.
Fusion was invited to present an Art and Science exhibition to fellow scientists to inspire and explore new ideas...

Collaborative
Instructional Art Project

​Start with an A4 piece of paper and any writing, drawing or painting material that you have.
Create a list of 10 random numbers between 1 and 20 (by rolling dice or drawing numbered pieces of paper from a hat, for example).
Write or print your sequence of numbers along the bottom of your sheet of paper.
Using the sequence of numbers you have created, follow the numbered instructions until you have completed your list of numbers.
 
Numbered instructions

1. With your eyes closed, draw your work space
2. Obliterate half of what you have done (or half the paper if you haven’t done anything yet!)
3. Cut out and move one of your shapes
4. Repeat your last step and make larger
5. Repeat your last step and make smaller
6. Use your opposite hand from now on
7. Draw a many sided shape
8. Turn the paper through 180 degrees
9. Change the medium you are using
10. Repeat what you have just done along two lines of symmetry 
11. Draw round the hand you write with
12. Go to next instruction
13. Add text from something you can see from where you are working
14. Go back to the start and repeat all the previous steps
15. Introduce another colour to three areas of your paper
16. Stop
17. Draw round an object from your table twice
18. Make messy marks
19. Draw with an eraser
    
20. Copy a pattern that you can see

Gintare Bagacionkaite
​Perceptions & Changes

PERCEPTIONS
Our realities are built up of different layers and spectrums...
​Our wiring is not quite the same...
Pick up a caleidoscope, a torch, or simply touch the canvas to explore various layers of this painting.
I am inviting you to be a bit more open to the plethora of realities that surround us daily.
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CHANGES
​This piece represents connections within you and around you.
My artwork is carefully designed to explore how our inner constellations interact with the world around us and everything changes in the process.
Our minds are wired for change - why resist it?

Janet Philp
Alzheimer's brain model

A model of a brain with Alzheimer’s.

Joan Smith
Tangle

‘Tangle’ refers to Tau Tangles, or abnormal proteins, found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. It also refers to tangled thoughts and confused ideas. The image is a collage made up of layers that reveal and conceal what is underneath the surface.

Maira Pyrgioti
This changed your brain

Imagine the brain as a plasma sphere. As your fingers approach and touch the sphere, you are not just sensing the surface but also engaging in a novel sensory experience. Watch how the plasma filaments inside the sphere dynamically move towards your finger. The constantly shifting paths of these filaments beautifully illustrate the brain’s ability to change with new experiences, emphasizing the fluid and responsive nature of neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity is the remarkable ability of the nervous system to change its activity in response to stimuli by reorganising itself structurally and functionally. It enables us to acquire new skills, adapt to changes in our environment, and compensate for lost functions following injury, thereby facilitating cognitive and functional development throughout life.

My artworks explore the multifaceted concept of neuroplasticity, inviting viewers to reflect on the diverse ways that our brains are actively reshaped by our experiences—from shifts in sensory perception, such as the experience of wearing prisms, to the act of playing a musical instrument.
This collection consists of four digitally-edited and framed paper collages, each sized A3 plus, which integrate my hand-drawn pen illustrations with fluorescence microscopy images of zebrafish brain cells captured by Phoebe Lyster-Binns and myself.

Madeleine Shepherd & Tom Pratt
Bird Tableau

​This sculpture explores themes of memory, homesickness, lost potential, and the persistence of material objects.​

Penelope Kay
Aging Muse, Wordmaker Tiles (1) & Wordmaker Tiles (2)

GING MUSE
​An enquiry into the relationship between the head as an artistic motif and the genetics of cognitive ageing.
The design follows the inspiration of Brancusi’s Sleeping Muse (1910), and the pegs are a series of 4 colour codes laid out in the manner of a game of Mastermind. The answers to the questions around aging are mysterious but delegates are invited to move the pegs around to find a resolution to the coded puzzle.
Thanks to Steve Fearnley for his wood-turning skills.
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WORDMAKER TILES (1)
​My work explores the ways that scientists work, through detailed inspection, experimentation or analysis of data, and seeks to relate this work to our common experience. ​
Practice for the serious business of science begins at an early age with games of chance and selection: turning cards, solving puzzles, putting letters in order to make sense of them and matching the sides of bricks to make a picture. Always looking for a solution, always asking the question anew.​​
How is the work of a scientist like the work of an artist, and how is it different?​​
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WORDMAKER TILES (2)
An experiment in sorting

Kaiyang Sheng
Perceptual Music Puzzle for Sunset Phase

As philosopher Merleau-Ponty said, our visual sense, hearing, taste and other sensory factors about things (for example, an object) are related by affective meanings. For instance, when a sad person hears the sound of the falling rain, he might think of a color of blue, because the affective meaning here is “sorrow”. Similarly, if a man lost his sense of smelling, he can use a color to represent the fragrance of the rose.
Some musicians convey their perception of the world through irregularly repeated melodies and rhythms. However, the version of the piece of music in the audience’s mind isn’t like that. It might be chaos built by the obvious or less obvious details in the music.
This piece of artwork presents in two puzzle sets, and each 12 pieces of the both sets are of the same A8 shape and size. Patterns on the puzzles could be pure colors, signs or other artistic expressions related to the music through affective meanings. The audiences can choose different amounts and types of puzzles from the set to put them together (after listening to the music with the headphones provided) in their own ways based on their “perception of the musician’s perception”.
The two sets are separately about two pieces of music (Nights In Tight Spaces and Through The Rain) by Sunset Phase. According to the musician, Nights In Tight Spaces is about the most intensely fun moment at the club, and Through The Rain is about trying to go back to flat in the rainy edinburgh weather at 3am in the morning. The unique point of his music is it provides a relatively unlimited full-sense perceptual context to the audience.

Wushuang Tong
Silent unfolding &
​Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

SILENT UNFOLDING
This collection of miniature sculptures draws its inspiration from the fetal brain development within the womb. Through an artistic lens, the artist transformed these stages into sculptures. Each piece is a snapshot of the delicate, orchestrated process that culminates in the wonder of human cognition and life, encased as if they are precious moments in time, crystallized and preserved for contemplation. By intertwining elements of neuroscience with art, the artist highlights the intricate beauty of brain formation and invites viewers to ponder the beginnings of human consciousness.
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RAVEL: PIANO CONCERTO FOR THE LEFT HAND
Drawing from the rich traditions of classical music, this painting is a visual rendition of the musical composition, Piano Concerto for the Left hand by Revel, exploring the cultural synaesthesia where sound is perceived as colour, and melody as form. As both a painter and a cellist herself, the artist's work is a dialogue on the intricate relationship between our senses, particularly how we see and hear, and how this interplay can be represented on canvas. This inter sensory journey probes into the depths of how our brains harmonise the multi-sensory inputs that shape our perception of structure and motion in both music and art.