Opening Date: 25 February, 2018

The exhibition is part of the Art & Brain Week of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences at the Hebrew University, in cooperation with the Jerusalem Cinematheque. Curators Michal Mor and Alona Shani-Narkiss have compiled nine posters, pairs of architectural elements from the Suzanne and Charles Goodman Brain Sciences Building, which is being built on the campus of the Hebrew University, with elements from the brain world produced by M.R.I photographs, microscopic photographs and more. The posters show the similarity between the brain and architecture, as well as the inspiration they give each other. In addition to the banners, a one-minute time lapse video documents the construction site, which follows five years of constructio.

What happens when brain science researchers meet with architects to realize their vision of creating the ultimate space in which intensive research activity brings together researchers from different disciplines? The realization of this dream was made possible when scholars, architects and donors joined forces under the auspices of the Hebrew University to establish a single unique building in Israel.

The Suzanne and Charles Goodman Building for Brain Sciences, which will soon open on the Edmond J. Safra Campus, was designed by renowned architect Norman Foster and the Jerusalem office of Baer, Shifman-Nathan Architects, and incorporates formal influences that simulate and inspire the human brain. The synergy between the architect and the scientist took place on various levels. On the one hand, the architects were inspired by concepts and structures from the realm of the brain and applied it to the interior design of the building and its encasement. On the other hand, they had to design a building that would serve the unique needs of brain researchers, the campus of architectural tradition, and the city, with its many characteristics.

A central element in the vision of ELSC was to establish a building that would encourage multidisciplinary ties between researchers on a daily basis. In the encounter between the architect and the researcher, the possibility of translating the vision into physical realization was enacted. Charts, microscope photographs, imaging scans and mathematical formulas collected over the past century have become visual tools in the hands of architects and have been translated into concrete components in the modern structure.

Every year there is a NanoArt competition of students from the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. This competition allows them to be creative not only in their field but also in art. Atoms and molecules, structures created as a result of the processing of various materials that are used in chemical and physical processes, and advanced magnification equipment become spectacular works. Through the microscope, students discover new worlds that they paint and provide new ways to observe.

Prof. Daniel Mandler | Shimrit Malul | Prof. Daniel Harries | Dr. Jennifer Glenis | Sharona Floresheim | Tal Yizrael | Leora Wise | Dr. Meital Reches | Max Epstein | Vasil Sribny | Dr. Ofra Benny | Maayan Liebman-Sharon | Yaara Nirel

Curators: Ofer Amram, Lilach Orenstein
Opening Date: 21 December, 2016 | Closing Date: 21 December, 2016

During 2015-2016 scientists and artists have found a different way and a different language to translate the scientific formulation into artistic aspects. A unique and direct meeting between the parties brings the outcome you will see here today. "Our departure as researchers outside of the campus borders and outside of the borders of ourselves as researchers, proved to be highly successful. The artists influenced the way we see our world and our researches, and this connection has opened a road to create around us a real art" according to Prof. Danny Porat.

The center for Nano-science and Nano-technology provides a basis and a wide and multidisciplinary frame that brings together researchers from various fields of research, and unifies them with researching the unique effects that occur in the Nanometric range, where the material characteristics are changing and the traditional multidisciplinary borders are blurred. The artists heard about the different physical and chemical characteristics of the Nanometric materials, and lerned from applications like: tiny sensors, drug carriers inside the body, electronic components and optical components. As a result of the conversations, the meetings and the visits in the laboratories, the artists created an artistic interpretation to the contents they have been exposed to. The Nanoart project is an outcome of the cooperation between The Hebrew University Center for Nano-science and Nano-technology, the Municipality of Jerusalem and groups from the fields of dramatic arts and plastic arts.

The meaning of the name "Nano" from Greek Nanos is "dwarf". It is common to think we are living in the Nano period, since this word became to be used on a daily basis, and behind it there is a scientific world that slides to the non-scientific world as well. The origin of the Nano world is in the length unit of Nanometer which equals to the length that received if we divide one meter to 1,000,000,000 equal pieces.  It is clear that such a size is invisible to a naked eye, and also to the regular microscopes, and it is hard to illustrate. It is approximately the thickness of a hair which has cut to 10,000 equal pieces.

In fact, the Nano world describes objects in the size of less than 100 Nanometer, that surprisingly having different characteristics from those larger sized materials, which we can see and hold. The Nanometric objects that can have different shapes (sphere, rod etc.) are made of dozens to hundreds of atoms which are held together by Chemical forces. To the Nanometric materials there are characteristics like color, solubility, etc. that are resulting directly of their small size, and as said, they are different from the characteristics of the same materials which have a macroscopic size. For example, a Nanometric particle of gold can have red or blue color (accordingly to its size), which is different of course from the gold color we know, in the smallest objects we are able to see.

The different Physical and Chemical characteristics of Nanometric objects make them particularly attractive in many applications, such as: tiny sensors, drug carriers inside the body, electronic components and optical components. The huge research that has been made in the scientific world, and today also in the industry, tries to take advantage of the special characteristics of those materials (there are thousands of different Nanometric materials) in favor of the human beings and the mankind. Nonetheless, the people of science not once find themselves hard to explain the Nano world concept to the general public.

NanoArt team: Tirtsa Lavi, Michal Mor, Eyal Ezri, Prof. Danny Porath.

About the Projects (in Hebrew)