Artist Nene Humphrey has been artist-in-residence since 2005 in the neuroscience laboratory of Joseph LeDoux, focusing on the emotional brain, the seat of much internal warfare (often secret war).  On Tuesday, they will talk about their mutual interest in the emotional brain through video, song and discussion. They will be joined by Amanda Thorpe  of the Amygdaloids Band, guest singer Ward White and Zoe Fitzgerald, Humphrey’s video collaborator.

Participants:  

Joseph LeDoux Joseph E. LeDoux is a neuroscientist, the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science, and professor of neuroscience and psychology at New York University. His research focuses on the brain mechanisms of emotion and memory and he has written “The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life” and “Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are. LeDoux is also a guitarist and songwriter in The Amygdaloids. www.cns.nyu.edu/home/ledoux/ www.amygdaloids.com

Nene Humphrey, exhibitor in Proteus Gowanus’ current exhibition Secret Wars, has exhibited in numerous museums and galleries throughout the United States and Europe. Profiles on her work have appeared in the New York Times, Art in America and Sculpture Magazine among others. Since 2005 she has been artist in residence at the Joseph LeDoux Neuroscience Lab at NYU where her work has focused on explorations of the brain mechanism underlying human emotions.www.nenehumphrey.com, www.circlingthecenter.com

Amanda Thorpe is the bassist and a singer in The Amygdaloids. She has four solo recordings, most recently “Promenade,” and three band recordings (with Wirebirds and Bedsit Poets). Her songs meander through the twist and turns of the emotional being.

Ward White is a Brooklyn based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. The New Yorker said, “Ward White sports a sweet, high tenor whose hints of fragility are just a ploy: when he goes after the dramatic top notes, he nails them… soaring, lyrical pop.” His last album, Done With The Talking Cure, was named as one of the best records of 2011 in MAGNET Magazine’s Year In Musicissue. www.wardwhite.net

William “Zoe” Fitzgerald is a video artist and director., he has worked freelancein art departments for commercials and films, filling creative and crew duties ranging from concept development, storyboarding, lighting design, editing, and animation. He recently started a production company called Walking House in Brooklyn, NY. www.walkinghouse.com

Predator 2 by Joy Garnett

Secret Wars, the second exhibition in Proteus Gowanus’ yearlong exploration of Battle, explores the cryptic ways of warfare waged behind the cloak of invisibility. From neurophysical conflict deep inside the human amygdala, to the broadcast signals used by spies and intelligence agencies, to the everyday observation of ordinary citizens by omniscient bureaucracies, Secret Wars reveals covert communications hiding in plain sight.

Curated by Proteus Gowanus co-creative director Tammy Pittman and anthropologist Thomas Ross Miller, the exhibition brings artists from New York, Amsterdam and Berlin to trace the gaps, silences, and blackouts that conceal vital and deadly knowledge.

Who controls secret information, and who has the power to understand it? How do we protect ourselves from unseen enemies? Who wins and who loses when the battle is unending and unknowable? Through art, artifacts, books, sound and surveillance, these installations render what is absent present and what is invisible visible. Inside a special room, mysterious and hypnotic short-wave radio messages in unbreakable codes are beamed to hidden spies. Lost treasures, occult symbols and predator drones appear and disappear, closely guarded enigmas shrouded in obscure and half-forgotten codes.

Artists and works include:

Front404 – PanoptICONS
Joy Garnett – Predator series
David Goren – “Atencion! Seis Siete Tres Siete Cero”: The Mystery of the Shortwave Numbers Stations
Nene Humphrey – Circling the Center
Anna Livia Löwendahl-Atomic – Did a Nose Launch a Thousand Ships? and Otophgraphs, fragments from The Mu{e}sum
Renée Ridgway – Revelation of the Concealed: Politics (in)form
Tony Stanzione – Safety First
Smudge Studio – TRANSCOM Room
Bryan M. Wilson – Canticle for Sebeok (Atomic Priesthood)
The Mildred Complex(ity) – Vestments for Ten Millennium (Atomic Priest Suit)