This fall Artechouse brings its latest exhibit to Southwest Washington, DC. Life of a Neuron brings artists and scientists together for a groundbreaking collaboration to explore how the brain shapes the shared human experience. Through collaboration with the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s leading scientists and creatives, this immersive exhibit will allow us to experience a neuron—from pre-birth to death—providing an experiential view of life at a cellular level. This groundbreaking, immersive show, using decades of neuroscience data and research to explore how the brain shapes the universal human experience, will open to the public on September 27, 2021.
The interactive experience brings more than a dozen scientists and artists together to take a multidisciplinary approach to highlight the depth of neuroscience research through art. Visitors will walk through a virtual neuron—the microscopic messengers in the brain managing information transfer and processing—and trace the evolution of scientists’ understanding of this specialized cell, which is considered the key to human existence. In Life of a Neuron, visitors will explore the beauty of that science—and walk away with a profound reminder that humans across the globe share the basic building blocks of existence.
“What’s fascinating and revolutionary about this collaboration and the narrative we are telling with Life of a Neuron is the ability to have the audience experience something that is happening inside all of us,” says Sandro Kereselidze, co-founder of Artechouse. “It’s an incredible opportunity to visualize and explore the science that we have been collecting for the past 50 years through research and study in a new, artistic way that still speaks to the human experience.”
To create the cutting-edge, futuristic exhibit, scientists and artists worked together to build an accessible, artistic representation of the life of a neuron. An exhibit of this caliber is only possible because of the latest tools and technological capabilities available today. Thanks to the advanced research done by the Society for Neuroscience over the last 50 years and the 21st-century tools available only at Artechouse, audiences are able to experience what was previously inaccessible. The result is an artistic journey bringing scientific concepts off the page and turning them into a 3D experience illustrating how the mind functions.
“What I find so exciting about this exhibit is that it is the first of its kind to use data like this to bring key neuroscience principles to life,” says John Morrison, Ph.D lead neuroscientist and Director of the California National Primate Research Center. “Through the work of an incredible group of scientists and artists, we’re able to bring to the world artistic interpretations of scientific data and principles to allow the public to experience neuroscience in an entirely different way. It is my hope that this exhibit will spark curiosity in those who see it and inspire them to learn more about the universe between their ears.”
The premier of Life of a Neuron will coincide with the debut of new, immersive technology for Artechouse’s laser projection system, as cutting edge as technology provides, making it the world’s second largest seamless megapixel count system only behind its sister property, Atechouse NYC.
Life of a Neuron runs September 27 through November 28, 2021, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. daily, at Artechouse DC, 1238 Maryland Ave. SW, Washington, DC 20024. Tickets are $17-24 with special pricing for students, children and families; purchase online: Artechouse.com/location/dc.
