The Cerebral City

As individuals, we live inside our heads. As societies we live in cities.

In both of these, millions of potential connections and interactions exist simultaneously; a web of possible outcomes that is so complex it almost defies our ability to imagine it.

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The Cerebral City project explores affinities between the structure of the brain and the landscape of the city, and one specific part of the brain in particular: the fornix, where our powers of memory and navigation are centred.

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But the fornix is also the location of the seizures that cause epilepsy.

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We wondered whether there might be a connection between memory, spatial awareness and epilepsy. And, building on current research into walking therapies for other conditions, whether there might be a benefit to sufferers of epileptic seizures.

We created navigable ‘pathways’ across London by transposing data from MRI scans of living human brains onto maps of the city.

These psycho-geographic pathways formed the score for a series of walking performances by three subjects: artist Matthew Maxwell, neuroscientist Dr Eugenio Abela and photographer Jason McGlade, who has a history of epilepsy.

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Each subject recorded the experience in their own way, capturing an impression at each of 23 points along their route.

Creating art using a scientific method allows us to look outside the visible spectrum of both traditions. Art is subjective. Science seeks to remove all subjectivity. What would happen if we used both techniques together?

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Results from this pilot were encouraging and we now aim to expand the sample base and refine the process, making it available to a wider audience, generating more data.