Interested in the mystery of consciousness? Well, the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science at Sussex will be running an exciting ‘Expo’ exploring the new science of consciousness on Saturday the 30th of June. This one-day event will take place at the Brighton Corn Exchange from 10am until 5pm. Admission is free, and everyone is welcome – as long as they keep an open mind!
There will be a fantastic showcase of new technologies and displays, developed by members of the Sackler Centre and colleagues from around the country, which exploit and explore the many aspects of consciousness, perception, and human experience. The extraordinary exhibits will include virtual reality environments, mind-bending visual illusions, biofeedback, interactive neural networks, striking scientific images of the brain, eye tracking demonstrations, psychophysics, artificial intelligence, sensory substitution devices, impossible objects, and much, much more.
Many of the exhibits will have a strong interactive component, allowing you to be immersed in, and to learn about, different aspects of your own conscious experience. There will also be the opportunity to talk with the scientists, technologists, and artists currently investigating the incredible biology of consciousness.
The Expo is a precursor to the 16th annual meeting for the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC16). The ASSC16 will be hosted by the Sackler Centre, in association with the University of Sussex, during the following week (July 2-6, 2012), also at the Brighton Dome and Corn Exchange. Awarded to Sussex in a competitive bidding process in 2010, the ASSC is the premier international meeting in its field, and is hosted in Europe only once every three years.
The conference has a global following, attracting over 500 top academics and researchers in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and consciousness research. This year’s conference chairs are Anil Seth and Zoltan Dienes from Sussex. Keynote speakers include Victor Lamme (University of Amsterdam), Josef Perner (University of Salzburg), Geraint Rees (UCL), Tania Singer (Max Planck Institute), Tim Bayne (Oxford), and Christof Koch (Caltech).
The University hopes to make the week of the ASSC16 not just an academic event, but a “citywide celebration of consciousness science”.
For more information check out www.consciousnessexpo.co.uk, the Sackler Centre website at www.sussex.ac.uk/sackler, and the ASSC website, www.theassc.org/conferences_assc16.
