Atelier des Lumières: A Special Journey to Van Gogh’s Masterpieces

It is an extraordinary exhibition where there is no museum, there are no solid paintings and yet it is a feast for all the senses and for the soul.  Vincent Van Gogh’s (1853-1890) genius brushworks become alive in a mesmerizing movement of images, colors, light and sound. The irises, sunflowers, olive groves, haystacks, his self-portrait and more, are all projected for 30 minutes on a surface of 3300m², covering all over from the floor across the walls and up to the ceiling 10 meters high. It is an exhilarating experience. The “multisensory” digital art exhibition plunges one into a world

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Siri Hustvedt on the Creative Impulse and the Meaning of Life

Siri Hustvedt, the prizewinning writer and scholar, describes the meaning of life through her work, the joy she finds in the creative impulse and the urgency to write driven by it. Her knowledge of psychoanalysis, art and neuroscience is woven in her stories in which she asks the essential question  “Who are we ? ” In an interview about the creative impulse, the intersubjective experience of art and the emotional punch found in art, she discloses her “writing self. ” Märit Aronsson (M) : I’d like to start with a great question; what is art? Siri Hustvedt (S) : There

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Therapeutic Effects of Dancing

  On how dancing boosts morale and revives the soul “ In the dance, one finds the cinema, the comic strips, the Olympic hundred meters and swimming, and what’s more : poetry, love and tenderness,”  said Maurice Bejart, the exceptional choreographer, opera director and dancer. Long before neuroscience confirmed that our brains are wired to move along with music, dancing was there. Babies, children, and adults, all instinctively move to the rhythm of the music. Cognitive research states that human beings are universally synchronized with the chords of music. Moreover, the rhythmic movement lifts our mood, regulates the mental and

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Intelligent Life of Plants

How the intelligence of the trees is measured and what it means for maintaining our life on earth Plants are sentient beings which have emotions, who feel the pain when damaged, enjoy Mozart, can respond to unspoken thoughts of humans and more. Cleve Backster, a former intelligence agent, best known for his experiments with plants using a polygraph (lie detector) instrument in the 1960s long before science has discovered the intelligence of plants capable of cognition, learning, memory and communication. He hooked up the galvanometer of the polygraph instrument to his house plant and to his astonishment, he found that

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The Whistle of the Condor

  Rondador (panpipe) is one of the oldest instruments played in Latin America. It is a wind instrument made of condor feathers, bamboo and cotton string. When played, its pure sound echoes across the Andean mountain peaks where the condors fly. A well-known folk song played with this instrument is “El Condor Pasa”.  In the original lyrics, an allegory is made to the condor flying high above in the sky as the symbol of freedom and dignity. As flying, he looks at the Andean miners working below and his flight becomes the miners’ aspiration for freedom and a dignified life.

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Hypnos, the God of Sleep and his Powers

The story of how Hypnos, the god of sleep made Zeus fall asleep and how the Greeks went across the Aegean and won the  Trojan war. The Greek god Hypnos was represented as a gentle and calm young man, with wings attached to his temples. His voice had enormous power over the mortals and immortals including Zeus, the god of the gods. The word hypnosis derived from his name is used today as a psychological method to put someone into a deeper state of consciousness where pure attention is heightened. When conducted properly into this state of mind, one can

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Echoes in the Heart

Lyrics: Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air And deep beneath the rolling waves in labyrinths of coral caves The echo of a distant tide Comes willowing across the sand And everything is green and submarine And no one showed us to the land And no one knows the whereas or whys But something stirs and something tries And starts to climb towards the light Strangers passing in the street By chance two separate glances meet And I am you and what I see is me And do I take you by the hand And lead you through the

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Inner Dialogue

  One wonders only when he is alone and seeks the truth. – Einstein “Inner dialogue with oneself is an essential human condition ” states psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). Murmuring, out loud, intuitive, singing, contemplating…in whatever mode, the conversation made with oneself is the characteristic of all human beings. From an early age on, one speaks to himself without any external trigger, relentlessly accommodates and comforts himself … in the form of talking aloud either through objects or directly with oneself. It allows us to reflect, to come back to our self while distinguishing us from our environment, and

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