B.A.S.S. 2023 - The Project Symposium

B.A.S.S. Bridging Art & Science Symposium and Concert

The two-part event consists of a neuroscientific and philosophical symposium and a musical, literary and cinematic evening.

 

The event focuses on the complex topic of the ME - Identity will be illuminated neuroscientifically, philosophically and linked. Perception and pattern, identity, empathy, time, space and place will be thematized in this context. Connections will be shown and artistically experienced.

 

Our medical work in the field of interdisciplinary pain therapy has led to close collaboration with neuroscientists and philosophers. As artists, we express ourselves in many ways: in music as composers, as painters and sculptors, in language with lyrical texts and poems, as well as in film projects, and we organize these international multimodal events as: B.A.S.S. Bridging Art and Science Symposium and Concert.

 

Under the roof of B.A.S.S., we bring together scientists, philosophers and artists to create an exciting whole, relying on the transformative power of art.

 

Contributors from diverse cultural backgrounds with a wide variety of formative sociocultural backgrounds join with the audience to create a unique interactive social sculpture - a highly intensely personal, resonant experience, both for the performing artists and scientists and the participating audience - as we have experienced in previous events.

 

Neuroscience is currently intensively researching the foundations of identity formation and intersubjectivity. As a result, our brains can simultaneously perceive virtual and real worlds, constantly bouncing back and forth.

 

We must continually select, bundle, and reduce this immense complexity of information to maintain manageability within our identity and biography.

 

Regardless of our empirical understanding of truth and time, art can provide us with an emotional truth that, narratively metaphorically forward and backward, connects our relationships and imprints.

 

Renowned actors - musicians - scientists - and philosophers from 26 nations will participate in this event. The texts will be performed in several languages.

 

We have been working for years with the Film University Potsdam-Babelsberg and the Berlin University of the Arts, the Max Planck Institutes, the Royal Institute of Mental Health Research,

University Ottawa, Canada; furthermore, the Italian Universities in Parma (the discoverers of mirror neurons) Turin and Florence, the Humboldt University Berlin, the Albert Einstein Institute Berlin, the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bayreuth.

 

The first event of this series was held at the University of Film and Theater Potsdam-Babelsberg, then at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt and the Rosengarten in Mannheim.

 

The next events will take place on 2025, at the Konzerthaus Berlin , afterwards at the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa and in Atlantic Canada.

 

As scientists and artists, we aim to raise awareness of the socio-cultural connections in perception, mind and spirit from the perspective of neuroscience and philosophy to quantum gravity. We do this by combining scientific thinking and passion with a desire to contribute to open to more readiness for change and self-efficacy.

 

Medicine - Neuroscience - Music - Drama - Film - Visual arts - Poetry are embedded in a moving field of tension, which is embodied by the contents, and the personalities of the artists and scientists and forms a contextual pattern.

 

Aesthetic experiences of art trigger a resonance in us that can open us to change, which is an essential concern of ours- both in our everyday medical lives and in the socio-cultural sphere of our society.

 

The scientific symposium, in close connection with the art event, is our heart project. Contradictions and new findings challenge us to question our attitude and point of view repeatedly and to reposition ourselves. Art can help us to do this; it is not an ornamental accompaniment to our society but forms patterns for our social behaviour and shapes our being.

 

Images, sounds, ideas and experiences influence us much more than our conscious will. Art - as a decision-making aid, which through the experience of other dimensions, relativizes our own position and thus broadens our view.

 

We have included in our event the researchers of quantum gravity. The search for the world formula is undoubtedly a presumptuous title for our limited abilities. But as always, the path itself is a revelation.

 

We will take a look at our small planet from the infinite cosmos and try to make it possible for everyone to experience the dimensions in which we move. We will awaken the feelings of humility and modesty in the face of the incomprehensible that surrounds us and in which we live.