Since ancient times, the representation of perceptions, thoughts and biographical episodes in memory has been associated with a theatre: consciousness as a stage on which the contents of memory are enacted. With the "Theatre of Memory" from Tim Otto Roth, a corresponding music-theatrical orchestration was created for the Tieranatomisches Theater (TAT) in Berlin: Following the biological model, 70 electronic audio neurons interact not electrophysiologically but via sounding spike trains in and with the historical space. In the historical space 70 electronic "audioneurons" interact via sounds based on a biological model and make the basic principles of neuronal interaction tangible.

A transdisciplinary bridge will be created by an accompanying symposium that will bring together scientists and stakeholders from the life sciences and humanities, but also from music. Together, they will explore in dialogue the neuro-theatrical boards that, in Friedrich Schiller’s proverbial sense, mean and construct the world. The focus here is on the idea of "neuron-aesthetics", which, unlike neuroaesthetics, does not primarily address cross-brain interaction patterns, but formulates a paradigm shift that goes hand in hand with the microscopic focus on single-neuron research. One of the key topics of the symposium will be memory, the 'Godot' of our neuronal theatre. Here, the music comparisons repeatedly used in neuroscience point to the importance of the spatial and temporal interplay of neurons: „much like a group of musicians in an orchestra who need to be coordinated to create a harmonic symphony, activity of neuronal ensembles must be precisely synchronized to form intact memory.” (Kol & Goshen 2021).

The neuron doctrine, which understands neurons as actors in the theatre of memory, will not only be questioned from a physiological perspective, but also contextualised in terms of the history of science and reflected upon from a philosophical perspective: It will be asked whether the world stage we experience and the underlying cognitive processes can be reduced to neurobiological processes. In addition, the interaction of music with neuronal networks and the conception of music as a spatio-temporal sound network will be discussed. The conference thus also responds to the current debate on artificial intelligence by emphasising the fascinating symphonic complexity of living intelligence.

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