Looking at ourselves​ – Imaging technologies applied in archaeology, brain sciences, then design

Of all the senses, humans have evolved to greatly rely on our visual system coupled with our ability to interpret what it is we are seeing; the movement of prey in a landscape, bodily cues in social interactions, color tint differences in eatables, facial expressions, to name a few. 
It is not by chance that many of the tools developed to study ourselves, whether through artifacts we created in the past, or through our physiological workings, rely on, and output, visual data. Both the fields of Archaeology and of Brain Sciences make use of and develop such tools as a regular part of research methodology.
Technologies such as fMRI have significantly enhanced our capacity to visualize localized neural activity, enabling us to chart the intricate landscape of our own minds.
The field of Computational Archaeology develops and applies digital tools to 3D scanned artifacts and excavated surroundings, in order to better understand past homminin activity.
While many of these tool’s analytics have shared aesthetic value and a cultural-technological context, they are what they are: as-objective-as-possible expressions of peering at what exists.

Designer Prof. Dov Ganchrow
Product designer and associate professor in the Industrial Design Department (B.Des, M.Des) at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem

This exhibition is sponsored by Elisabeth and Alain Krenstowski in memory
of Martine Dassault

3D Printing supported by Stratasys

Acknowledgments:

Doron Altaratz, Dror Revach, Maya Vinitsky, Tidhar Zagagi, Naomi Kaempfer,
Yossi Siso, Boris Belocon, Hila Deshesh, Nitsan Debbi, Yishai Kritz

We are interested in the question of how somatosensory information is processed in the cortex. To that goal we stimulate the body of human participants using a light brush, while measuring neuronal responses using fMRI.
The body is represented in the cortex and as the brush moves along the participant body, the loci of activity move along their cortical surface.
The brain images in this exhibition focus on one property of neural responses – their selectivity. In primary sensory regions, neurons respond
to the activation of only a small part of the body.
As we move away from the regions, the responses become less selective.
By characterizing this change in selectivity, we can learn about the large-scale organization of hierarchies in the somatosensory domain.
This study was conducted by Tsahi Asher and Dr. Noam Saadon-Grosman at the labs of Prof. Shahar Arzy and Prof. Yonatan Loewenstein from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Prof. Yonatan Loewenstein
The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, the Department of Cognitive Sciences and the Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality

At the Computational Archaeology Laboratory, we use the tools of the future to understand the past. 

Research at the lab harnesses mathematical and computational methods to support and advance archaeological research, documentation and visualization. The laboratory is equipped with high precision 3D scanners, which provide three dimensional digital models of archaeological finds and associated data. To analyze the models, the lab has developed a set software programs equipped with research -oriented computational tools. This exhibition uses Artifact GeoMorph Toolbox 3 – D which allows the analysis of aggregated 3D geometric morphometric data, relating to assemblages of artefacts rather than a single specimen.
Through the analysis of artifact assemblages, we can highlight variabilities among technologies, hominin populations, degrees of skill, and more.
This study was conducted by Dr. Gadi Herzlinger as part of a dynamic team of students, engaged in archaeological field work as well as archaeological research, with a clear educational goal to promote archaeological thought and sciences.

Prof. Leore Grosman
Professor of prehistoric archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology and the head of the Computational Archaeology laboratory, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Product designer, and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design professor, Dov Ganchrow is intrigued by such tools for what they tell us about ourselves – and they do so twice: Once as analytics and secondly as representations of our interests and capabilities. These visualization tools also have great potential as an disruptive or alternative and subjective creative means. Tools that by the very definition of a tool, propose the creation of something new.

Curator, Dr. Michal Mor
Curator of the Hebrew University of Jersualem