Professor Barbara Maria Stafford

 

 

 

 

“How is what we engineer and design guided by what we can imagine?

How are our imagination and our understanding inspired by our ability to visualize? ”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barbara Maria Stafford is the Distinguished University Visiting Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her work has consistently explored the intersections between the visual arts and the physical and biological sciences from the early modern to the contemporary era. Her current research charts the revolutionary ways the neurosciences are changing our views of the human and animal sensorium, shaping our fundamental assumptions about perception, sensation, emotion, mental imagery, and subjectivity. Stafford’s most recent book is Echo Objects: The Cognitive Work of Images, University of Chicago Press, 2007.

 

Barbara Maria Stafford's second Salon [ the Neuro Salon] and accompanying Neuro-Humanities Entanglement Conference. Cognition and Everyday Life

Please download schedule.

Now’s the Time: Unlocking New Universes of the Brain-Mind

Opening Night Launch for the Neuro-Salon
Time: 7 pm to 9:30 pm
Location: Stubbins Studio (College of Architecture)

Projects on Display at the Neuro-Salon:
 

  • Ali Mazalek and Tina  O’Hailey {SCAD/Atlanta]: A New, and Dressed, Version of the Physical/Digital Puppet [Posing the problem of how one establishes shiḀing self-identities in relation to an avatar]
  • Audrius Plioplys: Memory Series [5’ x 12’ paintings that incorporate this neuroscientist’s own  brain scans and electroencephalograms {EEG’s, brain waves] symphonically into the works]
  • Daniel Baerlecken and Gernot Riether: Crystal Palace- Emergent Formations [ 14’ x 7’ Ceiling + Entrance Overdoor--based on the quasi-crystalline geometry in Islamic tiling and showing how these 2-D patterns self-organize into 3-D aggregates]
  • David Bashwiner: Julie [Video projection + speakers=demonstrating how sound directs visual attention]
  • Fred Pearsall: Incline [10’ x7’ Floor Piece exploring the multivalent issues of perception, practice, persuasion obliquely, or on the verge]
  • Harris Dimitropoulis: ἀisness- A Fraction Away from Understanding [6’ x 8’ digital prints exploring uniqueness despite hard -wiring-- and attention to the moment ]
  • Jun Ueda: Vibrating Glove [Wearable device for the ᴀngertips enhancing tactile sensitivity of ᴀngertips and thus improving motor performance]
  • James Murray, Patrick Di Rito, & Shota Vashakmadze: Camera Obscura
  • Sonit Bafna: Salon brochure on attention
  • Tim Roth: From the Distant Past to the Present Brain {in collaboration with the Space Telescope Science Institute/Hubble green animated waves pulsing over windows of COA/Stubbins Studio recalling anthropomorphic associations with a heart beat as well as a brain wave] (TBC)

 

page cover of book Controversial Controversial Bodies:Thoughts on the Public Display of Plastinated Corpses, Edited by John D. Lantos, Johns Hopkins University Press

Download an order form to receive %25 off!

"A rich survey of the issues provoked by the public display of plastinated corpses backed up by an impressive range of scholarship."—Alastair V. Campbell, author of The Body in Bioethics

Controversial, fascinating, disturbing, and often beautiful, plastinated human bodies—such as those found at Body Worlds exhibitions throughout the world—have gripped the public's imagination. These displays have been lauded as educational, sparked protests, and drawn millions of visitors. This book looks at the powerful sway these corpses hold over their living audiences everywhere.

Plastination was invented in the 1970s by German anatomist Gunther von Hagens. The process transforms living tissues into moldable plastic that can then be hardened into a permanent shape.Von Hagens first exhibited his expertly dissected, artfully posed plastinated bodies in Japan in1995. Since then, his shows have continuously attracted so many paying customers that they have inspired imitators, brought accusations of unethical or even illegal behavior, and ignited vigorous debates among scientists, educators, religious leaders, and law enforcement officials.

These lively, thought-provoking, and sometimes personal essays reflect on such public displays from ethical, legal, cultural, religious, pedagogical, and aesthetic perspectives. They examine what lies behind the exhibitions' popularity and explore the ramifications of turning corpses into a spectacle of amusement. Contributions from bioethicists, historians, physicians, anatomists, theologians, and novelists dig deeply into issues that compel, upset, and unsettle us all.