r i g h t . b r a i n . p e r f o r m a n c e l a b

Neural Notations
San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
401 Van Ness Ave.
San Francisco, 94102
415/554-6980

Ever since René Descartes split the world into mind versus matter, we have been trying to mend the seemingly irreconcilable separation between the two. "Neural Notations" bridged this gap by presenting nine artists' works that probe the link between consciousness and chemistry during times of illness, pain, trauma, and dysfunction.

Gail Wight conflates the experiences of pain of two species-snail and human-in her 1999 mixed-media piece The First Evolutionary Occurrence of Pain. She explores how the neural machinery of pain translates into the subjective experience of it. She introduces a twist, however, by reversing the sizes of her two specimens, presenting eight-foot diagrams of a snail's nervous system alongside snail-sized dioramas of human tragedies. Copper wiring connects the snail's nervous system with the tiny human drama next to it (e.g., a bloody car accident) underscoring their shared capacity to experience pain. By switching the sizes of snail and human, Wight exposes our bias toward exaggerating the significance of our own species' pain.

Jennifer Gwirtz transformed the graphic record of her own epileptic seizure into a haunting musical composition in Electroencephalograph/Mental Notes (a piece of my mind). She enlarged seven channels of brain waves recorded by an electroencephalograph and mounted this on the wall. She also translated three of these graphed lines into a musical score performed by two voices and a soprano recorder. The most angst-ridden musical line was sung by the artist herself, alternately spiking and dropping in a chaotic pattern of dynamic lyricism akin to monophonic medieval chanting. By transforming the objective record of electrical activity into the more expressive medium of musical sound, Gwirtz gives us a visceral, temporal, and unexpectedly poeticized understanding of what it's like to endure an epileptic seizure.

Curator Donna Schumacher included in the show a set of her own crudely fashioned fabric dolls whose internal organs are visible on the surface of their velveteen bodies. Stuck into the various organs were long pins. Pills of various shapes and size were glued onto the pinheads, such as Amitriptyline (an antipsychotic) and Eskalith-CR (for manic depression). By tutting Brain Doll I on six medications simultaneously, Schumacher questions the overmedication used to "normalize" brain and body chemistry. Led by the perspective of the pharmaceutical industry, we are learning to see ourselves as machines that can be chemically tweaked to achieve designer moods and optimal performance. Whatever happened to "mind over matter"?

"Neural Notations" provide a focused framework that launched complex questions about the mind/brain connection. The exhibition blended art and science in such a way that their boundaries blurred. To its credit, the resulting hybrid retained the best intentions at the root of both art and science: to pursue a deeper and more resonant understanding of the complexities of the world.

Julie Nelson is an artist and writer based in San Francisco."

Review - June 2000 New Art Examiner