Some of the most exciting scientific research deals with the brain, illuminating the mind’s enigmatic inner-workings. Scientists are learning more about the complex network of operations that govern behavior, morality, language, spirituality, memory, perception and intelligence. These responses to outside phenomena often overlap, forming the layered judgments and reactions that texture experience. New technologies have also helped us to gain access to the space inside our heads, the center of consciousness, spirituality, sense, and illusion. We are learning, more and more, that the brain is indubitably the most intricate and mysterious territory of the human body. But what do artists have to say about the brain?

The group exhibition BrainWave: Common Senses responds to current neurological discourse by visualizing and investigating the brain’s capacity for perception, memory, emotion and logic—the forces that drive creativity. It brings together work by artists involved with research in cognition, artists that respond critically to the new technologies in neuroscience, and projects in which artists and scientists have collaborated to advance understanding of the mysteries of the brain.

BrainWave: Common Senses will be the second in Exit Art’s Unknown Territories series of exhibitions that explore the impact of scientific advances on contemporary culture and examine in particular how contemporary artists interpret and interact with the new knowledge and possibilities created by technological innovation in the 21st century. It follows Paradise Now: Picturing the Genetic Revolution, a landmark exhibition of art and biotechnology that brought art and science audiences together at Exit Art in 2000. The third exhibition, opening December 6, 2008, is Corpus Extremus (LIFE+) curated by Boryana Rossa, an exhibition of biotechnology based artworks. The exhibition features the most respected and established artists working in this medium including SymbioticA Research Group, an Australia-based collective that will collaborate with scientists to produce a wet laboratory and other works, Adam Zaretsky, Stelarc, Bioteknica, Kathy High and Dmitry Bulatov. The exhibition will travel to Russia in 2009.