Exposing the intimacy of the
brain
Our brain knows our history, our experience
and our memory, it gives shape to our thoughts and sets off our emotions. To present the
most recent discoveries concerning the intimate relationship between the brain and the
construction of our identity, the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie at La Villette
in Paris, from October 22th, 2002 to June 2003, is putting on a multimedia and sensory
exhibition which is designed to turn the spectator into an actor.
"Take a whiff of this: what does the
smell of this madeleine, coming out of the oven, conjure up for you?" This is the
type of sensory test that you will come across when wandering round the 700 m2 exhibition
of "Le Cerveau intime" ("An intimate look at the brain"). A test that
allows the importance of the olfactory and taste memory to be measured by looking at the
personal experiences of visitors in relation to the latest scientific advances, since the
existence of the "Proust syndrome*" has just been brought to light. What was at
first seen as a piece of literary imagination is now scientifically proven: the sense of
smell plays a major role in autobiographical memory, and the olfactory memory may even be
the last bastion of the memory.
Here, understanding comes through touching,
seeing, feeling, telling and experiencing. The observer is both subject and object of the
exhibition: he discovers how his brain gives shape to his thinking, his memory and his
identity.
Devised by Marc Jeannerod, professor at the
Université Claude-Bernard in Lyons and director of the Institut des Sciences Cognitives,
this exhibition is the third part of the series entitled "Les Défis du vivant"
(The Challenges of existence), a major programme of events from 2001 to 2003. This
programme includes exhibitions, lectures, debates, experiments and meetings with
researchers on themes reflecting the technological advances that are questioning human
identity in depth. The first part was called "L’Homme transformé" (Man
Transformed), the second one "L’Homme et les gènes" (Man and his Genes).
Protagonist and observer at the same
time
The Cité des Sciences is not content just to
explain the sciences, but tries to provide the keys for us to reflect on the challenges of
tomorrow", explains Joël de Rosnay, who has coordinated these three events. The
famous scientist continues: "We are humanist technologists, these exhibitions are not
solely educational, they also stir up emotions during the tour and leave us plenty to
think about after it."
In this exhibition, the author, Marc
Jeannerod, wanted to go even further so that visitors "would set off in search of
their own selves". So the text is written in the first person singular (in French,
English and Spanish), and the visitors are given a personal bar code (printed on the
admission ticket and containing personal information such as age, sex, etc.) which they
scan at twenty-five terminals distributed around the exhibition in order to personalize
their visit. There is no standard route. You go in through lighting effects, beads and
smoke which symbolize the living membrane, and move on to the part dealing with the
emotions and affects (what affects me and what I feel) and finish with the one that looks
at your relationships with other people (what I am). Meanwhile, the visitor can wander as
he or she pleases in the areas devoted to pictorial and verbal thought (what I think) and
memory (what I know).
A brain that speaks, dreams and is
moved
"Le Cerveau intime" approaches the
understanding of our cerebral world not in order to analyse the functioning of the
synapses and the nerve impulses, or explain how the brain hears, sees or moves our limbs,
but rather to show the relationship between the brain and our sensory, emotional and
cultural environment. This highly cerebral and intellectual exhibition stresses the
following: that what is often defined as the seat of our intelligence, also and, above
all, allows us to have emotions (pleasure, unhappiness, hatred, fear, pain). Without these
emotions, reason and the construction of thought would not be possible.
In certain contexts, the brain gives priority
to emotion and sometimes even "chooses" not to let certain information through
the cortex (conscious system) in order to be able to gain time in developing a protective
response. This is the case, for instance, of the fear mechanism, when you only become, in
some way, conscious of this fear afterwards. Through the advances in cognitive
neuroscience and neural imaging (which are only a decade old) presented in this
exhibition, it is possible to see a moving image of the brain when it is experiencing
fear, when it is talking, counting or listening to music.
Fascinated by this grey matter at work, you
might almost forget that it occasionally seizes up. Thus, each part of the exhibition also
shows pathologies related to the theme under consideration (the various drug addictions
and pathologies of pleasure and dependence in the area dealing with emotion and the
affect, Alzheimer’s disease and amnesia for the area concerned with memory, autism in
the one dealing with the relationship between the self and others, etc.). For each case it
is possible, of course, to gain a better understanding of these disorders through tests
(such as for example "What are you addicted to?", or again secondary, semantic,
procedural, perceptive memory tests and working memory tests), using simulated situations
(with, among others, a sight and sound distorting booth which simulates some of the
symptoms of schizophrenia) or again through films and other multimedia installations.
But, because speaking and experience could
not possibly convey the whole breadth of subjectivity, Marc Jeannerod and his team of
stage designers also use art to evoke communication with others, memory, thinking and also
dreaming, another intense brain activity to say the least... Film-makers such as Buñuel,
Bergman, painters such as Bacon, Goya, Magritte or Balthus question one another and
respond to conjure up their poetico–philosophical and often dreamlike visions. A trip
not to be missed!
(Courtesy: Label France, magazine N° 48 – October
2002, Embassy of France, Kathmandu)
A Story of Friendship
US Forces in Germany Elvis was here, so was
Colin Powell, Gary Bautell still is: three of 16 million US soldiers who have been
stationed in Germany at one time or other since 1945. As occupying troops, as partners, as
friends. A piece of lived German-American history of the Heidelberg European HQ, and young
GIs in "K-Town" finding out about their location Rainer Stumpf
The news maker. He came to Germany 40 years
ago and never returned to Bay City, Michigan. Gary Bautell leans back, gazes
at the ceiling and smiles. "I was curious about this country, and I quickly began to
appreciate life here." When he travelled around Germany by train for the first time
in 1962, he was still on the lookout for ruins. But he was in for a surprise. "I had
not expected everything to have been rebuilt just 17 years after the end of the war."
In Frankfurt/Main he fell in love with his first wife, a German lady. Bautell found his
new home in Wiesbaden, 40 kilometres to the west. The soldier who began his service with
the American Forces Network has since become Head of News at AFN Europe. The 61-year-old’s dark hair has
become a little grey in the meantime; he looks relaxed with his loosened tie. Bautell
remembers: "The first programmes I used to present as a disc jockey were called
‘Music in the Air’ and ‘Midnight in Europe.’" Millions of GIs and
an increasing number of Germans liked to listen to his soft, dark voice. The American
station popularized jazz, rock’n’roll, blues and the big band sound in Germany.
From 1965 on, his catchphrase was: "It is 10 a.m. Central European Time, here is a
summary of late world developments from the wires of the AP and UPI. Gary Bautell
reporting."
Today, journalist Bautell can also be seen in
front of the cameras at AFN TV. His work has changed in many ways: "During the Cold
War, there were fixed rituals that made the work easier. The American President would come
regularly and look over the Berlin Wall. We would report on major exercises in Grafenwöhr and the Fulda Gap." Today,
AFN had reporters working in Bosnia, Rwanda and Iraq. September 11th had been a watershed;
the US’s strategic interests had changed. One consequence was that Bautell will have
to leave Frankfurt. AFN’s headquarters are relocating to Mannheim at the end of 2004
as part of troop redeployments. He regrets this, but accepts that changed strategic
conditions require appropriate reactions. "The main thing is that I can stay in
Germany. I have a lot of friends here; I love Berlin and the Rhinegau. Every time I visit
my eight brothers and sisters in the States, I’m glad to come back home to
Wiesbaden."
The location. Over 16 million American
soldiers have been well-acquainted with place names such as Sembach, Ramstein or Schweinfurt since the end of the Second World
War. They have done their military service and found friends here. Even so, the American
armed forces are currently also considering restructuring or even closing down bases in
Germany as part of a new deployment concept for Europe. Nevertheless, "Germany is of
great importance for the American government," says Elke Herberger, press spokeswoman
at the Heidelberg headquarters of US ground
forces in Europe. "Ramstein is the largest American military airfield outside the US,
Landstuhl is the largest military hospital on non-American soil, and Grafenwöhr is the
site of the largest US training facility in Europe." The headquarters in Heidelberg
were responsible for 22,000 buildings in 239 properties spread all over Europe. Up to
189,000 American military personnel were stationed in Germany in the 1980s, but their
number has fallen markedly since the end of the Cold War.
Yet today 72,000 of the approximately 100,000
GIs deployed in Europe were still doing their military service in the German states of
Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate. "The army accounts for
the biggest share with 57,000 soldiers plus 20,000 dependents. 5000 pensioners like it so
much in Germany that they have stayed here," Herberger says. The German Bundeswehr is
also involved in the protection and security of US bases in Germany. At the request of the
United States 4,200 German soldiers started guarding American bases at the end of January.
2,500 of them are currently still doing sentry duty, controlling people and vehicles, or
patrolling.
K-town. "I’m looking for a really
big map of Germany, do you have anything like that?" Kenneth Cumbie can hardly wait
to get an overview of Germany. "I want to mark everything I’ll see on it –
and I want to see a lot," announces the 18-year-old from Miami. He began his service
a week ago with the US Air Force in "K-Town," as the Rhineland-Palatinate city
of Kaiserslautern is called in military jargon. Together with 18 other young Americans who
have just arrived in Germany, he now stands with a glass of sparkling wine and a welcome
brezel in a bookshop and asks about the range of maps. The bookseller’s assistant
explains in fluent English where he will find what he is looking for. Rose Davis observes
the scene with a satisfied smile. Once a week the 63-year-old takes the air force
newcomers on an information tour of the city. And the group has just learned two lessons:
that many people speak good English, and that the people in KTown know the needs of their
American coinhabitants very well.
This is not surprising, since there are
40,000 American soldiers living with their families in the Kaiserslautern region. The
airfield in nearby Ramstein is the central logistical hub for the US forces worldwide.
From here the injured of both Iraq wars were transported to the military hospital in
Landstuhl. Situated eight or nine hours flying time from flashpoints such as Afghanistan
or Iraq, Ramstein is close enough to the US deployment locations to be able to transport
material and soldiers quickly, but far enough away to be out of direct danger. By 2005 the
Ramstein Air Base is to be further expanded parallel to the US Air Force’s departure
from Frankfurt’s Rhine Main Airport. The German Federal Government, Hesse,
Rhineland-Palatinate and NATO, among others, are providing about 300 million euros for
this expansion.
Where’s the railway station? How do
German parking meters work? Questions that Rose Davis answers as they walk through
Kaiserslautern’s pedestrian precinct. The newcomers are informed about German
car-rental deals and driving-licence offices during an excursion to the German-American
Citizens’ Office opposite the city hall – the only office of its kind in the
world. The army, air force and city administration jointly opened the information office
for German and US citizens this year.
The king. US Secretary of State Colin Powell
was stationed as a soldier in Heidelberg and Grafenwöhr; film star Bruce Willis and
Wimbledon champion John McEnroe were born as children of soldiers in Germany. Yet no name
epitomizes the association between the words "GI" and "Germany" more
than the King of Rock’n’Roll, Elvis
Presley. The world star served 17 months of his military service in Germany. On the
evening of October 1, 1958, the teens’ idol arrived by train at the 5th US armoured
division in Friedberg. First he took lodgings at a hotel in neighbouring Bad Nauheim. Room
number 10 in Hotel Grunewald looks exactly the same as in Elvis’s day. "On
anniversaries the room is booked for years in advance," says Hans Ulrich Halwe,
chairman of the Bad Nauheim Elvis Presley Society. He cultivates the King’s memory
together with 250 club members. His club has set up an exhibition about the superstar on
the castle square. One exhibit is the hairdresser’s chair on which Elvis’s quiff
was turned into a short military haircut.
Friends. "Elvis? He was in Friedberg,
wasn’t he?" Brian McNerney had not yet heard about the exhibition in Bad
Nauheim. It would be worth a trip, muses the lieutenant colonel who is stationed in
Heidelberg, perhaps together with his almost 60 German and American friends and
acquaintances at the local "Contact Club." He is celebrating Halloween with them
this Tuesday evening. The walls of the restaurant where they regularly meet is decorated
with cardboard skeletons, and skulls made of plaster grin between muffins and Black Forest
gateaux. "I want to meet Germans, that’s why I’m here," says McNerney.
Instead of a uniform, the soldier is wearing a T-shirt covered with multicoloured
skeletons. Scraps of both German and English float across from the next table; a witch
clinks glasses with a ghost. The first "Contact Clubs" were opened in 1969 in
towns near army and air force bases to build bridges between Germans and Americans. And
they have been very successful. There are Contact Clubs in 20 towns, including some where
American soldiers are no longer stationed.
German-american love. Another kiss! Regina
Abrigo and Daniel Hingtgen have been married for seven years, but judging by how often
they embrace each other in an office of the Heidelberg military administration, you would
think they had only just fallen in love. Yet the spark was kindled between the sergeant
major from Iowa and the civilian army employee from Pirmasens as long as nine years ago at
a German-American "Volksfest." "Thanks to my wife I don’t miss
America," replies the 45-year-old man in his army uniform. More than 100,000 American
army personnel and Germans have got married since the end of the war. A year ago Hingtgen
and Abrigo bought a house near Heidelberg. They haven’t yet decided whether to move
back to the US after his posting is over. "What is certain, though," Hingtgen
says, putting his arm around his wife, "is that I have found a marvellous life here
in Germany. And all because of GermanAmerican friendship." |
