Colin is one of Britain’s leading neuroscientists, member of twelve academies of science and winner of awards in Britain (including the Edinburgh Medal), the United States, France, Switzerland, Ireland and the Czech Republic. He is best known for his part in the discovery of neural plasticity – the ability of the brain to modify itself in response to stimulation, experience and injury.
After studying in Cambridge and Berkeley, California, he worked in Cambridge and then Oxford, and has been a visiting professor at some of the world’s greatest universities and research institutes, including MIT, New York University, Bell Telephone Labs and the Salk Institute. He directed the Oxford Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, was the Chief Executive of the UK Medical Research Council, and is now Professor of Neuroscience & Philosophy at the School of Advanced Study in London.
Colin’s fascination with the arts has influenced his scientific quest to understand how we perceive the world. He has been a visiting professor at the Royal College of Art, and he now directs a network of scientists and philosophers, working with artists, chefs, designers and dancers to rethink our fundamental understanding of the senses.
Colin has a parallel life as a broadcaster and writer. He writes for the national press and has written, presented or contributed to hundreds of TV and radio shows, including presenting a 13-part series on brain and mind for the BBC. He was an adviser for, and appeared in, the full-length documentary Tim’s Vermeer, which was nominated for a Bafta in 2014.
Colourful Music and Tasty People
Sir Colin Blakemore will challenge the audience to think about whether we can trust our senses, looking closely at some of the Fringe’s most exciting acts that question the relationship between what we see, hear or touch and the reality of the physical world around them. From the famous Rubin face/vase illusion to prosopragnosia and synaesthesia, Colourful Music and Tasty People will ask audiences to look at the worlds of both science and art with a fresh perspective.