Brain Cell
Encyclopedia
Brain Cell is a mail art
project begun by Ryosuke Cohen
in June 1985. The project is basically a networked art project where individual artists create their own 30x42cm work of art with stamps, drawings, stickers and so forth. This is sent to Cohen, who prints each cell - 150 copies each - with a Cyclostyle
(now out of production). One copy is sent to the author, as well as other participants. New editions are published every 8 to 10 days. As of January 2009, there have been 732 issues.
Cohen described the origin of the project's name in 1985:
"Well, I’ll title my work “Brain Cell”, because the structure of a brain through a microscope looks like the diagram of the Mail Art network. Thousands of Neurons clung and piled up together are just like the Mail Art network, I believe."
Brain Cell is an art experiment in the vein of networked mail art
, where a network expands from A to B, B to C, C to A and so on. These type of art projects emphasise user collaboration, with different artistic inputs being modified, copied, forwarded and even returned to the originator. This produces a series of cybernetic cells, which can interact in a non-linear order. Brain Cell has enlisted over 5,000 contributors from 80 nations since 1985.
Mail art
Mail art is a worldwide cultural movement that began in the early 1960s and involves sending visual art through the international postal system. Mail Art is also known as Postal Art or Correspondence Art...
project begun by Ryosuke Cohen
Ryosuke Cohen
is a mail artist. He was responsible for the Brain Cell mail art project, which he began in June of 1985 and retains thousands of members in more than 80 countries, e.g. Hans Braumüller, Theo Breuer, Michael Leigh or Litsa Spathi. In August 2001 he began the Fractal Portrait Project...
in June 1985. The project is basically a networked art project where individual artists create their own 30x42cm work of art with stamps, drawings, stickers and so forth. This is sent to Cohen, who prints each cell - 150 copies each - with a Cyclostyle
Cyclostyle (copier)
The Cyclostyle duplicating process is a form of stencil copying invented by David Gestetner in London in 1890. A stencil is cut with the help of small toothed wheels on a special paper underlaid with carbon paper which serves as a printing form. Gestetner named the Cyclostyle after a drawing tool...
(now out of production). One copy is sent to the author, as well as other participants. New editions are published every 8 to 10 days. As of January 2009, there have been 732 issues.
Cohen described the origin of the project's name in 1985:
"Well, I’ll title my work “Brain Cell”, because the structure of a brain through a microscope looks like the diagram of the Mail Art network. Thousands of Neurons clung and piled up together are just like the Mail Art network, I believe."
Brain Cell is an art experiment in the vein of networked mail art
Mail art
Mail art is a worldwide cultural movement that began in the early 1960s and involves sending visual art through the international postal system. Mail Art is also known as Postal Art or Correspondence Art...
, where a network expands from A to B, B to C, C to A and so on. These type of art projects emphasise user collaboration, with different artistic inputs being modified, copied, forwarded and even returned to the originator. This produces a series of cybernetic cells, which can interact in a non-linear order. Brain Cell has enlisted over 5,000 contributors from 80 nations since 1985.