Thought Forms, revisited

Vortrag | Lecture
im Rahmen des Panels "Imagining Nanospace". Konferenz | Conference "Close Encounters. Science Literature Art"
Amsterdam, 13.-16.06.2006

Over centuries, the arts were responsible for imaginations of the "landscapes of the mind". What medicine and psychology could contribute to this cosmos would stay equally speculative; and what their imaging technologies revealed were, against ever-returning dreams of new insights into the secrets of the mind, about hardware/wetware and physical processes only – while the "thought forms" themselves remained invisible. With nanotechnologies the promise returned to get access to the inner mind and to make the invisible visible.

However, it turns out that not only those nanotech-related images devoted to imaginations of future devices like nanobots ready to travel through human veins and brains are inheriting almost classic sci-fi fantasies. Also many images that claim to be documents giving insight into neurophysiological structures and processes buy into this tradition.
The lecture will introduce and discuss some striking examples of high tech landscape (paintings) of the mind.

tags: art & science, art history, bild & imagination, biosciences, biowissenschaften, cultural history, displays, history of science, image & imagination, invisibility, knowledge cultures, kulturgeschichte, kunst & naturwissenschaften, kunst & wissenschaft, kunstgeschichte, media, medien, perception, popular culture, populärkultur, science, science fiction, technologie, technology, topologien, topologies, unsichtbarkeit, visual culture, visuelle kultur, wahrnehmung, wissenschaft, wissenschaftsgeschichte, wissenskulturen