Workshop: Neuro Reality Check (Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science, Berlin) Performance: GenComp Collective Berlin & Book Launch: Critical Neuroscience: A Handbook of the Social and Cultural Contexts of Neuroscience :: December 2, 2011, 10:00 pm :: N.K., Elsenstr. 52/2, Hinterhaus Etage 2, 12059 Berlin :: Open to the public (register for the workshop here).

GenComp Collective Berlin: Chaotic, cybernetic, and hybrid systems — Neurological and cybernetic research techniques have been adopted by many experimental music protagonists, such as Louis and Bebe Barron, Alvin Lucier, David Tudor and others. The GenComp Collective Berlin (Alberto de Campo, Hannes Hoelzl, and students, alumni and associates of the class Generative Art / Computational Art at UdK Berlin) explores the use of such systems for experimental performance. They use current developments like Rob Hordijk’s chaotic synthesizers (the Benjolin and the Blippoo box), Peter Blasser’s hybrid designs Fourses and the Rollz family of modules; they design, build and program their own performance systems based on a variety of sensors, analog electronics, and software synthesis.

The book to-be-launched: Critical Neuroscience. A Handbook of the Social and Cultural Contexts of Neuroscience, Choudhury, Suparna / Slaby, Jan (eds.): Critical Neuroscience brings together leading scholars in a collective effort to understand the impact of the intellectual, economic and political conditions on current views of the brain and how these models may in turn impact society. With illuminating insights and deep scholarly rigour, Critical Neuroscience offers a comprehensive interdisciplinary perspective that aims to enrich our understanding of the brain as situated in the body and world, and neuroscience as embedded in a complex cultural context.