By Jesse Jones

The Brain is a Barricade is a performative research enquiry by artist Jesse Jones commissioned for the Live Collision festival. It sets out the task of understanding the phenomenon of aesthetics and politics through an inquiry into the cognitive perceptual capacity of the brain itself.
The inquiry will propose to investigate the relationship between cognitive science and artistic practice and how in particular notions of the political may be aesthetically communicated through art. Perhaps the perceived chasm between the aesthetic and the political in art could in someway be accounted for through other perceptual enquiries rather than exclusively through the field of contemporary art criticism. If life is experienced firstly from the subjective experience therefore the Brain is the first site of the political. In order to fully understand how this subjective experience recreates the collective site of the social and the wider political script The Brain is a Barricade seeks to look at firstly how political representations are perceived on a phenomenological level in the mind of the spectator. As artists and makers of aesthetic experience how do we create and perceive representations? and what is fundamentally at stake in the creation of the political world of the mind? And how can political art change the way we think about the world?

The first live Opera performance inside an Oculus Rift virtual reality system will feature as a live performance element as part of ‘The Brain Is A Barricade’ presented by Jesse Jones, performed by Janyce Condon and guest presentation by Ruth Bryne, Professor of Cognitive Science (TCD)

Speaker
Dr. Ruth Byrne is the Professor of Cognitive Science at Trinity College, University of  Dublin in the School of Psychology and the Institute of Neuroscience. Her research expertise is in the cognitive science of human thinking, reasoning and imaginative thought. She has published over 100 scientific articles and her books include ‘The Rational Imagination: How People Create Alternatives to Reality’ published in 2005 by MIT press.   She is the former Vice Provost of Trinity College, prior to that Head of the School of Psychology, and currently Deputy Director of the Institute of Neuroscience. Prior to her appointment in Trinity College she worked in the UK, in Cardiff and in Cambridge.  She is a Fellow of Trinity College, and of the Association for Psychological Science, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Performer
Janyce Condon studied with tenor Eduardo Gimenez at the Opera Studio at the Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona. Among her awards and prizes are the Quintana Rodes scholarship, Dublin Corporation’s Advanced Musicians bursary, and the Arts Council of Ireland’s music bursary. Janyce’s studies were generously supported by the Sicon Corporation. Her work covers Opera, Oratorio, and song recital and collaboration with artists in other fields. She has sung with companies such as Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
Roles include : Elisabetta Roberto Devereux ( Donizetti ), Adina L’Elisir d’Amore, Adele Die Fledermaus, Nora Riders to the Sea ( R. Vaughan Williams ), Norina Don Pasquale, First Lady Zauberflote, Cleopatra Giulio Cesare, Elektra Idomeneo, Donna Anna Don Giovanni, Countess Le Nozze di Figaro, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. Oratorio/Concert work : Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn’s Misse in Aungustiis and Creation Masses, Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Vivaldi Gloria, and Monteverdi Magnificat and Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem.
Producer
Caroline Campbell is an artist working across visual arts and film. She has produced and directed for Still Films, and is a founding member of Dublin-based collaborative arts project Loitering Theatre. Having originally trained as a lawyer, Campbell has a broad interdisciplinary approach, some principal themes of her work are: network cultures, notions of the permitted, and sci-fi futures made real. Campbell’s work has been featured nationally and internationally, including Edinburgh Int. Film Festival, Jameson Dublin Film Festival, Sheffield Docfest, Liebzig Film Festival, Vienna Short Film Festival. Her current project as part of Loitering Theatre commissioned by the Prosperity Project will launch with a research discussion with Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi and Alexander Galloway and will aim to investigate notions of cognitive capitalism and its emergent platforms.

 

Place: Cube,Project Arts Centre
Dates: 25 April
Times: 6.15pm
Tickets: Free

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