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Background: Collage is a modality of expression which involves repurposing and juxtaposing fragments. Our aim was to explore both how and what collage, as an arts-based research method, might contribute to enlivening understandings of the experiences of families affected by rare conditions., Methods: During 10 weeks of collaging workshops participants created artistic representations of their experiences. The methodology produced a convivial atmosphere where participants talked openly about everyday challenges., Results: The collages and conversations produced offer a means through which to consider the complex and multiple positions which families affected by rare disease interpolate. Particularly, the collages prompt cross-cutting thematic reflections on motherhood and care, the challenges of being heard, and balancing family life alongside medicalisation., Conclusions: The opportunity to convey topics and feelings through a medium which was both tentatively open yet conceptually complex allowed the broaching of sensitive and elusive themes in a safe, expressive, and non-threatening manner.

Performing dance is an intrinsically social art form where at least one person moves while another person watches. Dancing in groups promotes social bonding, but how does group dance affect the people watching? A group of dancers and dance novices watched a 30 min dance video individually in an fMRI scanner. In a follow-up behavioural study, the same people watched the video again and provided continuous enjoyment ratings. Firstly, we computed cross-recurrence of continuous enjoyment ratings and inter-subject correlations (ISCs) in fMRI separately for both groups, and with the choreographer of the dance work. At both behavioural and neural levels, dancers responded more similarly to each other than novices. ISCs among dancers extended beyond brain areas involved in audio-visual integration and sensory areas of human movement perception into motor areas, suggesting greater sensorimotor familiarity with the observed dance movements in the expert group. Secondly, we show that dancers' brain activations and continuous ratings are more similar to the choreographer's ratings in keeping with sharing an aesthetic and artistic perspective when viewing the dance. Thirdly, we show that movement synchrony among performers is the best predictor of brain synchrony among both expert and novice spectators. This is consistent with the idea that changes in emergent movement synchrony are a key aesthetic feature of performing dance. Finally, ISCs across perceptual and motor brain areas were primarily driven by movement acceleration and synchrony, whereas ISCs in orbital and pre-frontal brain areas were overall weaker and better explained by the continuous enjoyment ratings of each group. Our findings provide strong evidence that the aesthetic appreciation of dance involves a common experience between dance spectators and the choreographer. Moreover, the similarity of brain activations and of enjoyment increases with shared knowledge of - and practice in - the artform that is being experienced, in this case contemporary performing dance., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

This article describes a community collaborative project, "I've got yer back," that utilized the craft of needle felting to raise awareness and develop understanding of the anatomy of the human spine. The project took place in 2023 and engaged with participants from across the United Kingdom and abroad and its completion was timed to coincide with National Back Health Awareness week in October 2023. We describe the process of creating a vertebra using needle felt and examine how the particularities of the process and the use of the sense of touch helped participants notice and understand the complex form of the human vertebra. We consider how the project encompassed creative processes of hands-on learning to enhance knowledge about this aspect of human anatomy. We discuss how the project evolved to include public and academic participation in a shared goal and argue for the effectiveness of seemingly simple and straightforward art or craft workshops in teaching relatively complex science. The article includes detailed feedback from participants who reflect on the process of learning through making and how it went on to affect individuals in very different, and sometimes very personal, ways., (© 2024 The Author(s). Anatomical Sciences Education published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Association for Anatomy.)

Objectives: This study explored the views of young people from diverse backgrounds, with or without a history of self-harm, on the motivation and impacts of sharing self-harm imagery online and the use of their social media data for mental health research., Design: Thematic analysis of 27 semi-structured one-to-one interviews., Setting: Two workshops were conducted in 2021., Participants: We recruited 27 study participants aged 16-24 (60% male). Sixteen (59%) participants were refugee and asylum seekers (RAS)., Results: Two main themes were generated: (1) Online imagery of self-harm captured perceived motivations for sharing such images, the potential impacts on others and possible need of censorship. This theme was characterised by mixed attitudes towards motivations for sharing, with some perceiving this as attention seeking, while others thought of it as help seeking or sharing of pain. Overall, participants agreed that images of self-harm can be triggering and should include trigger warnings. (2) Data sharing for mental health and self-harm research captured views on the use of social media posts and images for research purposes, and levels of trust in public and private organisations. It outlined positive views on their data being shared for research for public benefit, but highlighted issues of consent. The two most trusted organisations to hold and conduct research were the National Health Service and Universities. Participants from the RAS group were more inclined to agree to their data being used and had higher levels of trust in government., Conclusion: Young people care about their privacy and use of their data even when it is publicly available. Coproduction with young people of resources to support understanding and develop innovative solutions to gaining informed consent for data sharing and research for public benefit is required. Young people from excluded communities, post-immigration RAS and males should be purposively involved in future social media research., Competing Interests: Competing interests: AJ was a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies and subgroups., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.)

Scientific outreach activities play an important role in disseminating knowledge, connecting the general public to research and breaking down scientific skepticism barriers. However, the vision-impaired community is often disadvantaged when the most common audio-visual approach of scientific communication is applied. Here we integrated tactile clues in the scientific communication of immune processes involved in the autoimmune skin disease psoriasis. We fostered the involvement of the vision-impaired community through interactive experiences, including tactile scientific origami art, a haptic poster and wood-carved molecular models. Readily accessible science communication that engages a number of senses is a critical step toward making science more inclusive and engaging for individuals with a wide range of sensory abilities. The approach of the 2023 Monash Sensory Science exhibition aligns with the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion and helps to empower a more informed and scientifically literate public., (© 2023 The Authors. Immunology & Cell Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology, Inc.)

An increasing number of collaborative projects between artists and scientists raises the question regarding their value, particularly when considering the redirection of resources. Here we provide a personal account of our collaborative efforts, as an artist and a scientist. We propose that one of the most significant outcomes is something that cannot be planned for in advance: serendipitous events. Such events lead to fresh perspectives and imaginative ideas, the fairy dust underlying many great works of art and science. The unexpected nature of these desired outcomes requires from us a leap of faith on the one hand, and a deep trust in our 'partner in crime' on the other., Competing Interests: The authors declare none., (© The Author(s) 2023.)

This article discusses the role that algorithmic thinking and management play in health care and the kind of exclusions this might create. We argue that evidence-based medicine relies on research and data to create pathways for patient journeys. Coupled with data-based algorithmic prediction tools in health care, they establish what could be called health care algorithmics-a mode of management of healthcare that produces forms of algorithmic governmentality. Relying on a critical posthumanist perspective, we show how healthcare algorithmics is contingent on the way authority over bodies is produced and how predictive health care algorithms can reproduce inequalities of the worlds from which they are made, centreing possible futures on existing normativities regulated through algorithmic biopower. In contrast to that, we explore posthuman speculative ethics as a way to challenge understanding of 'ethics' and 'care' in healthcare algorithmics. We suggest some possible avenues towards working speculative ethics into health care while still being critically attentive to algorithmic modes of management and prediction in health care., (© 2023 The Authors. Nursing Philosophy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

This article synthesizes original comparative perspectives of visibility, (counter)actions, and legacy regarding queer monuments: public artworks dedicated to, and questioning or queering normativities around, the lives of LGBT+ people. It pursues a dialogic, interdisciplinary, and multisite and intercultural argument, drawing from approaches and preliminary insights from a scholarly project ( Queer Memorials ) and artist's project ( Strange Inheritance ) with topical case studies covering North America and Europe. After abductive ethnography, the analysis oscillates between theory/literature and scholarly and creative practice. It attends to the critical roles queer monuments have played in engaging with how sexual "others" have fallen in and out of place through social struggles, radical politics, and collective memory. The peer exchange provides a cross-case taxonomy of queer monuments' roles, navigating between sorrowful, celebratory, provocative, and informative types and values. It advocates both arts-based enquiry and practice as grounded pathways for narrating queer monuments' activist potential to memorialize, and visibilize, sexual and gender minorities and their overlapping rights in/to space.

Background: The combination of verbal and visual tools may help unravel the experiences of advanced cancer patients. However, most previous studies have focused on a specific symptom, at only one moment in time. We recently found that a specific visual tool, originating from systems thinking, that is, rich pictures (RPs), could provide a more comprehensive view of the experiences of patients with advanced cancer., Aims: To examine whether the repeated use of RPs can make changes in subjective experiences of patients living with advanced cancer visible over time., Methods and Results: We performed a prospective study with a generic qualitative approach that was mostly informed by the process of grounded theory. We invited patients to make an RP twice, at the start of the study, and again after 2 months. Both RP drawing sessions were directly followed by a semi-structured interview. Patients with all types of solid tumors, above the age of 18, and with a diagnosis of advanced, incurable cancer, were eligible. Eighteen patients participated and 15 patients were able to draw an RP twice. In eight RP-sets, considerable differences between the first and second RP were noticeable. Two patterns were distinguished: (1) a change (decline or improvement) in physical health (five patients), and/or (2) a change in the way patients related to cancer (three patients)., Conclusion: RPs are a valuable qualitative research method that can be used to explore the experiences of patients with advanced cancer, not only at a single point in time but also over time., (© 2021 The Authors. Cancer Reports published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Since the Covid-19 pandemic 2020 we have experienced so much of our lives through our computer and phone screens - including the 1,787,366 people have shared the image of the Mona Lisa on social media. I consider how we can design artworks to communicate digitally utilising a range of senses testing the notion that if you enable visitors to galleries and museums to touch sculptures it should enable greater understanding about complex ideas. The focus of my artworks was the history of the transmission of disease. I original designed ceramic sculptures that incorporated touch sensitive electronic sound components. Touching objects and visiting galleries became off limits during the pandemic so the touch hypothesis could not be tested, and instead QR codes were used to allow the digital viewer to extend their experience beyond the visual. The project started as an art in science experiment in incorporating sound, sight and touch into sculpture, but finally became my personal memorial to 2020 pandemic and a tribute to the many we have lost to Covid-19.

There is growing interest in developing creative applications for robots, specifically robots that provide entertainment, companionship, or motivation. Identifying the hallmarks of human creativity and discerning how these processes might be replicated or assisted by robots remain open questions. Transdisciplinary collaborations between artists and engineers can offer insights into how robots might foster creativity for human artists and open up new pathways for designing interactive systems. This paper presents an exploratory research project centered on drawing with robots. Using an arts-led, practice-based methodology, we developed custom hardware and software tools to support collaborative drawing with an industrial robot. A team of artists and engineers collaborated over a 6-month period to investigate the creative potential of collaborative drawing with a robot. The exploratory project focused on identifying creative and collaborative processes in the visual arts, and later on developing tools and features that would allow robots to participate meaningfully in these processes. The outcomes include a custom interface for controlling and programming robot motion (EMCAR) and custom tools for replicating experimental techniques used in visual art. We report on the artistic and technical outcomes and identify key features of process-led (as opposed to outcome-led) approaches for designing collaborative and creative systems. We also consider the value of embodied and tangible interaction for artists working collaboratively with computational systems. Transdisciplinary research can help researchers uncover new approaches for designing interfaces for interacting with machines., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Gomez Cubero, Pekarik, Rizzo and Jochum.)

The skin is a cutaneous paper, more precisely "the paper of self," which covers the entire body. Origami is the art of paper-folding. SKIN and ORIGAMI, beyond the word play around paper, are similar in several respects-the polygonal network, the basic folds, and pleat folding. The idea of producing artwork connecting the cutaneous physiology of the skin with the art of origami is meant to pay an artistic tribute to the skin. We firstly took photographs of different skins, with different magnifications, which were developed on different-sized squares of paper in order to make folded structures. With skin physiology being reinterpreted through origami in this way, we logically called this first educational--artistic exhibition PEAUrigami associating the French word "peau" (skin) with "origami." After PEAUrigami® dedicated to the physiology of the skin, exhibited during the European Academy of Dermato-Venereology (EADV) 2019 Congress in Madrid, Spain, I continued my creative work on skin with the artistic reinterpretation of the main dermatoses within the framework of the PEAUrigami® [DERMATOGAMI] exhibition. This exhibition, which will be presented at the EADV 2020 Congress in Vienna, Austria, in October 2020, is created from photos of skin affected by the main dermatoses and is based on the etymology of the dermatosis presented. The Greek or Latin origin of the Dermatosis is translated visually via the art of Japanese paper-folding. So, "acne" from the Greek term ακμή (akmế) , which means "tip", "summit," will be reinterpreted via a pointed origami structure produced from photos of the skin of acne sufferers. ( SKINmed . 2021;19:-0).

Hierarchy in natural and synthetic materials has been shown to grant these architected materials properties unattainable independently by their constituent materials. While exceptional mechanical properties such as extreme resilience and high deformability have been realized in many human-made three-dimensional (3D) architected materials using beam-and-junction-based architectures, stress concentrations and constraints induced by the junctions limit their mechanical performance. A new hierarchical architecture in which fibers are interwoven to construct effective beams is presented. In situ tension and compression experiments of additively manufactured woven and monolithic lattices with 30 µm unit cells demonstrate the superior ability of woven architectures to achieve high tensile and compressive strains (>50%)-without failure events-via smooth reconfiguration of woven microfibers in the effective beams and junctions. Cyclic compression experiments reveal that woven lattices accrue less damage compared to lattices with monolithic beams. Numerical studies of woven beams with varying geometric parameters present new design spaces to develop architected materials with tailored compliance that is unachievable by similarly configured monolithic-beam architectures. Woven hierarchical design offers a pathway to make traditionally stiff and brittle materials more deformable and introduces a new building block for 3D architected materials with complex nonlinear mechanics., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2020 The Authors. Published by Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Understanding how art makes impressions upon the perceiver has been a fundamental topic of philosophical interest since the time of ancient Greece. However, the extent of artistic perception and aesthetic appreciation has been the topic of empirical studies only recently, following the emergence of psychology as an independent field of science. The present study discusses the hypothesis that the impression created by artwork on the viewer can be predicted by examining activity of neuronal networks. In particular, we focus on neural activity evoked by abstract stimuli that matches elements of the viewers' previously learned conceptual dictionary. We show that artistic appreciation fundamentally depends on how easily the author's intent expressed in his or her artwork can be abstracted and decoded, on a neuronal level, into new or merged concept networks. More diverse intellectual and personal experiences-and their corollary neural networks-may facilitate the creation of new networks. These new networks, in turn, modulate the extent to which art can be apprehended and appreciated., (© 2020 The Authors. PsyCh Journal published by Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.)

Conversations surrounding end of life and death can be difficult or taboo for some, meaning that matters of organ and body donation are not widely discussed. To Donate or Not to Donate? That is the Question! is a comic developed to raise awareness and challenge common misconceptions about donation by encouraging the publics to engage in informed discussions about the different options available. This case study proposes graphic medicine as an alternative method of presenting donation information to a public audience, and illustrates how the comic medium can communicate body donation information in an accessible and engaging way.

Background: To provide holistic care to patients with advanced cancer, health care professionals need to gain insight in patients' experiences across the different domains of health. However, describing such complex experiences verbally may be difficult for patients. The use of a visual tool, such as Rich Pictures (RPs) could be helpful. We explore the use of RPs to gain insight in the experiences of patients with advanced cancer., Methods: Eighteen patients with advanced cancer were asked to draw a RP expressing how they experienced living with cancer, followed by a semi-structured interview. Qualitative content analysis, including the examination of all elements in the drawings and their interrelationships, was used to analyze the RPs, which was further informed by the interviews., Results: The RPs clearly showed what was most important to an individual patient and made relations between elements visible at a glance. Themes identified included: medical aspects, the experience of loss, feelings related to loss, support from others and meaningful activities, and integration of cancer in one's life. The added value of RPs lies in the ability to represent these themes in one single snapshot., Conclusions: RPs allow for a complementary view on the experiences of advanced cancer patients, as they show and relate different aspects of patients' lives. A RP can provide health care professionals a visual summary of the experiences of a patient. For patients, telling their story to health care professionals might be facilitated when using RPs., (© 2019 The Authors. Cancer Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Graphics are becoming increasingly important for scientists to effectively communicate their findings to broad audiences, but most researchers lack expertise in visual media. We suggest collaboration between scientists and graphic designers as a way forward and discuss the results of a pilot project to test this type of collaboration., Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests.

Objective: To explore the impact of an innovative intergenerational art event showcasing retirement village life on attendees' understandings of older adults and ageing., Methods: A survey of 93 art event attendees was conducted immediately after 16 sessions of the event (78% response rate). Respondents reported on their event experience and its impact on their understandings of older adults and attitudes towards ageing. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) used to test for differences between age groups (18-34, 35-64 and 65+ years)., Results: Over 90% of attendees reported the art event helped them develop an understanding of the lives of older people, with the greatest impact on young and middle-aged adults. The majority of young and middle-aged adults, however, expressed concern about their own ageing., Conclusion: Results suggest that intergenerational art events have the potential to increase understandings of older adults and their lives, but this may not translate into personalised comfort with ageing., (© 2018 AJA Inc.)

Competing Interests: Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

Background: The arts can increase public awareness of mental health. Stigma about psychosis remains high despite common occurrences of psychotic experiences in the general population (e.g. hearing voices, seeing visions, and other unusual sensory experiences). Targeted approaches may therefore benefit stigma reduction. This project aimed to produce an immersive art installation that increased public understanding of psychotic experiences., Methods: Development stages included workshops with people with lived experience, training actors to perform "voices", sourcing artworks, and producing a voice hearing simulation and video installation., Results: The exhibition was implemented as intended, gained positive visitor feedback (N = 150), felt immersive, enhanced subjective understanding of voice hearing, increased compassion and was not unduly stressful. A production team meeting (N = 10) identified exhibition strengths, challenges, and potential modifications., Conclusions: This successful, large-scale pilot of an immersive art exhibition combined creative, academic, and experiential perspectives. It enabled visitors to "hear voices" and increased their understanding of psychotic experiences.

Increased integration and synergy between formal and informal learning environments is proposed to provide multiple benefits to science learners. In an effort to better bridge these two learning contexts, we developed an educational model that employs the charismatic nature of arachnids to engage the public of all ages in science learning; learning that aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas associated with Biodiversity and Evolution). We created, implemented, and evaluated a family-focused, interactive science event- Eight-Legged Encounters (ELE )-which encompasses more than twenty modular activities. Volunteers facilitated participant involvement at each activity station and original artwork scattered throughout the event was intended to attract visitors. Initial ELE goals were to increase interest in arachnids and science more generally, among ELE participants. In this study, we tested the efficacy of ELE in terms of (i) activity-specific visitation rates and self-reported interest levels, (ii) the self-reported efficacy of our use of volunteers and original artwork on visitor engagement, and (iii) self-reported increases in interest in both spiders and science more generally. We collected survey data across five ELE events at four museum and zoo sites throughout the Midwest. We found that all activities were successful at attracting visitors and capturing their interest. Both volunteers and artwork were reported to be effective at engaging visitors, though likely in different ways. Additionally, most participants reported increased interest in learning about arachnids and science. In summary, ELE appears effective at engaging the public and piquing their interest. Future work is now required to assess learning outcomes directly, as well as the ability for participants to transfer knowledge gain across learning environments., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest. The founding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to publish the results.

When two people move in synchrony, they become more social. Yet it is not clear how this effect scales up to larger numbers of people. Does a group need to move in unison to affiliate, in what we term unitary synchrony; or does affiliation arise from distributed coordination, patterns of coupled movements between individual members of a group? We developed choreographic tasks that manipulated movement synchrony without explicitly instructing groups to move in unison. Wrist accelerometers measured group movement dynamics and we applied cross-recurrence analysis to distinguish the temporal features of emergent unitary synchrony (simultaneous movement) and distributed coordination (coupled movement). Participants' unitary synchrony did not predict pro-social behavior, but their distributed coordination predicted how much they liked each other, how they felt toward their group, and how much they conformed to each other's opinions. The choreography of affiliation arises from distributed coordination of group movement dynamics., (Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Topics in Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Cognitive Science Society.)

Synchronized movement is a ubiquitous feature of dance and music performance. Much research into the evolutionary origins of these cultural practices has focused on why humans perform rather than watch or listen to dance and music. In this study, we show that movement synchrony among a group of performers predicts the aesthetic appreciation of live dance performances. We developed a choreography that continuously manipulated group synchronization using a defined movement vocabulary based on arm swinging, walking and running. The choreography was performed live to four audiences, as we continuously tracked the performers' movements, and the spectators' affective responses. We computed dynamic synchrony among performers using cross recurrence analysis of data from wrist accelerometers, and implicit measures of arousal from spectators' heart rates. Additionally, a subset of spectators provided continuous ratings of enjoyment and perceived synchrony using tablet computers. Granger causality analyses demonstrate predictive relationships between synchrony, enjoyment ratings and spectator arousal, if audiences form a collectively consistent positive or negative aesthetic evaluation. Controlling for the influence of overall movement acceleration and visual change, we show that dance communicates group coordination via coupled movement dynamics among a group of performers. Our findings are in line with an evolutionary function of dance-and perhaps all performing arts-in transmitting social signals between groups of people. Human movement is the common denominator of dance, music and theatre. Acknowledging the time-sensitive and immediate nature of the performer-spectator relationship, our study makes a significant step towards an aesthetics of joint actions in the performing arts.

This paper explores the influence of visual sources on Roger N. Shepard's 1971 mental rotation experiments and the centrality of ambiguity as one of his experimental and artistic concerns. Sources include Shepard's statements about ambiguity as expressed in the book, Mind Sights, and a recent interview. Parallel investigations of ambiguity by the contemporary artists Al Held and Robert Smithson are considered. Shepard utilized a wide range of visual sources while formulating his experimental design, namely Necker cube illusions, hypnopompic images, René Magritte, and M.C. Escher. In addition, he drew upon key art historical theses of the time, such as Ernst Gombrich's theories about schemas. For Shepard as for Gombrich, the world of appearances is a world of ambiguity.