Corpus Callosum
is a series of 5 short videos on the theme of brain function and
memory. Recent researchers in the neurosciences have divided memories
into different categories:
- procedural - deeply
ingrained habits of the riding a bicycle sort;
- semantic - facts
and concepts;
- fear - arising from
trauma or phobias and stored in one of the older parts of the
brain;
- episiodic - the
reprsentation of personal past experiences.
Artists have often
drawn on personal episodic memories as a source for their work.
This is not the intention of these videos, rather they look at
the different processes involved in encoding, retriving and working
with memories.
All memories consist
of millions of neurons firing in specific patterns. Each memory
is encoded in its own pattern and the more often an event, fact
etc is recalled the more pronounced the pattern becomes. Current
research indicates that these patterns of neurons are "cloned"
and versions are stored in different parts of the brain in such
a way that many seperate cues can activate the memory. The human
memory storage system has been likened to a 3 dimensional spider's
web.
Una Walker is an
artist from Northern Ireland. She has exhibited widely in Ireland,
the UK and internationally. Corpus Callosum is one part of an
investigation into the nature of memory which will occupy the
artist over a
number of years.
Support is acknowledged
from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
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