British Friends of The Hebrew University

Art and the Brain

The British Friends treated 200 patrons to an evening of creativity and champagne at the British Academy this past December. President Emeritus, Professor Hanoch Gutfreund, shared fascinating insights on the brain’s capacity to appreciate aesthetics – the result of a uniquely innovative study recently carried out at the HU’s award-winning Interdisciplinary Centre for Neural Computation (ICNC) on the relationship between creativity and the mind. The outcome of the unique encounter between 10 of Israel’s leading artists and 10 leading researchers and professors from ICNC, declared by the EU as a Centre of Excellence, culminated in the monograph Art and the Brain. One of the 80 handmade limited edition prints featured in the book was on display.

To sum up a stimulating evening, BFHU Chairman Michael Gee said: “Art and the Brain demonstrates the ingenuity of HU’s researchers, their ability to cross disciplines and so strive towards informing all of us. We would like to thank all those donors who attended for their invaluable support of the Hebrew University.”