The birth of the eye: Homage to Ramón y Cajal

Two films followed by a discussion pay homage to Nobel laureate Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the father of modern neuroscience.

Ramón y Cajal was equally passionate about dissecting and mapping through eyes and brains as he was about painting and photography. His medical artistry is nowadays illustrating the delicate arborizations of brain cells for educational and training purposes.

Ramón y Cajal’s efforts to improve the state of scientific research and education in Spain were part of a broader preoccupation with Regenerationism among Spanish intellectuals.

Film screenings:

Mariposas del Alma

• Directed by Ana Martínez, 60 minutes, Spain, 2006.
• East Coast Premiere.

Nobody would have guessed that Santiago, curious and creative born born in a small village near Navarra en Aragon would become the father of neuroscience and the first Nobel laureate in Spain in 1906. This journey through brings us into the life of this scientist who was also an artist, philosopher, photographer, writer. This documentary came out for Ramon y Cajal’s 100th anniversary of his Nobel Prize and merges archival footage with with animations and interviews to merge the past, present and future of the impact of his discoveries.

Bluebrain

• Directed by Noah Hutton, 15 minutes, USA, 2016.

Begun in 2009, Bluebrain is director Noah Hutton’s 10-year film-in-the-making that chronicles the twists and turns of the Blue Brain Project—neuroscientist Henry Markram’s audacious and controversial attempt to reverse-engineer a human brain, neuron by neuron, in a massive virtual simulation on supercomputers. For the past 7 years, through his exclusive access to the project personnel and Markram’s facilities on the EPFL campus in Lausanne, Switzerland, Hutton has been steadily building towards a documentary feature set for release in 2020. With excerpts already featured in Scientific American and VICE, the film will also track several other major endeavors to understand the brain, including President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative and the Allen Institute in Seattle.

The evening will be followed by a conversation with:

• Ana Martínez, director of Butterflies of Our Soul.
• Dr. Torsten Wiesel, 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with David H. Hubel for their discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system; President Emeritus Vincent and Brooke Astor Professor Emeritus Laboratory of Neurobiology, The Rockefeller University.
• Noah Hutton, director of the Blue Brain neuroscience documentary series, now in its 7th year.
• Moderated by Luis Quevedo, ISF alumni and director and host of Ciencia, Salud y Tecnología at NTN24.

Pre-screening reception from 6:15 pm to 7 pm at Lower Level, Greenberg Building (Collaborative Research Center.)