neuron

or nerve cell

Any of the cells of the nervous system. Sensory neurons relay information from sense organs, motor neurons carry impulses to muscles and glands, and interneurons transmit impulses between sensory and motor neurons. A typical neuron consists of dendrites (fibres that receive stimuli and conduct them inward), a cell body (a nucleated body that receives input from dendrites), and an axon (a fibre that conducts the nerve impulse from the cell body outward to the axon terminals). Both axons and dendrites may be referred to as nerve fibres. Impulses are relayed by neurotransmitter chemicals released by the axon terminals across the synapses (junctions between neurons or between a neuron and an effector cell, such as a muscle cell) or, in some cases, pass directly from one neuron to the next. Large axons are insulated by a myelin sheath formed by fatty cells called Schwann cells. Bundles of fibres from neurons held together by connective tissue form nerves.

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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. To date, there have been hundreds of 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.

References

External links

• MAIL ART-BRAIN CELL-FRACTAL
• Mailart.org: Arriving Mail Art Brain Cell No. 682 (None-Socks-Post) From Ryosuke Cohen (Japan)