Untitled (2009) – after Li Quin’s 1981 woodcut ‘Spring arrives at Lake Dongting’
TIMOTHY JOSEPH SENIOR
Welcome to ART+SCI – a platform for my research interests in the crossover between Art and Science. Here you will find information relating to current projects as well as those past and pending. From a background in systems neuroscience (PhD – Oxford University, 2008) my work explores how contemporary scientific knowledge can be communicated in novel and stimulating ways, in particular through art installation and new forms of digital media visualisation. A link to my CV
SCIENTIFIC WORK
At the end of 2008 I completed my doctorate in neuroscience at the University of Oxford under the guidance of Dr. Jozsef Csicsvari and Professor Peter Somogyi. There, my work focussed on identifying changes in the cooperative network activity of neural cell assemblies between waking, sleep and anaesthetised states. A link to my thesis-summary. This exposure to in vivo brain recording technologies and their use in exploring the relationship between brain state and behaviour has deepened my interest in the discrepancies between our perception of the world around us and how our own brains ‘experience’ the world. Through identifying the ‘common ground’ that exists between our understanding of brain function and our own, everyday, experience of the phenomena that brain function engenders, I hope to explore new routes for the communication of scientific knowledge. Thus, I am interested in questions of knowledge acquisition and understanding within the neurosciences, and its dissemination to a wider non-specialist audience.
CURRENT POSITION
Currently I am a Visiting Artist and Senior Research Scholar at the Department of Information Science and Information Studies (ISIS) at Duke University, North Carolina (http://www.isis.duke.edu/), where I am continuing the exploration of these interests through art installation (using new forms of digital media visualisation), symposia, lectures and undergraduate teaching.