Listen to Your Brain: An Alternate RealityPriscilla MokDesign Fiction and Imaginary Futures / Spring 2013

Popular Media

Brain MetaphorsFuture Tech

Currently: Brain as computer, brain as Swiss Army Knife

Currently: fMRI, TMS, PET, MRI, optogenetics

Currently: Neuroscience based self-help books, films, magazine articles (“Your Brain on Alcohol”)

Currently...

What if the new metaphor for the brain was music / auditory stimuli?

What if there was a way to represent and record neural activity in real-time? And this was available to consumers?

What if popular culture were even more fascinated by the potential to improve their own lives through pop neuroscience?Popular Media

Brain MetaphorsFuture Tech

Scenario

Neurosciencey Self-Help MediaCharacteristics of self-help books (from Sandra Dolby):

1. Non-fiction and aimed towards self-improvement

2. Written in an informal style

3. Problem-solution discourse (Tired? stressed? unfulfilled? Here are practical tips!)

4. Designed to educate readers and become empowered, active agents in solving their problems

“What is fascinating about Kawashima’s book [Train Your Brain More] and others like it is that they frame brain imaging and neuroscience as an accessible body of knowledge that has direct, concrete applications for almost every area of daily life.”

“Brain age exemplifies a theme that runs throughout popular neuroscience: not only is life rendered calculable through the images and discourses of the brain, but individuals have the responsibility for applying these lenses to their own lives.”

cws®

Neural Acoustic Signal Capture System

cws

Free*

NAS CaptureSessions* With purchase. See staff for details. 2 minute limit.

CWS®

1 2 3

Kiosk

1. Customer goes to drugstore.

2. Customer approaches NAS Capture Stations.

Scanning Unit

Contact Pads

Headphones