Mental Mapping explores how internal networks, such as memory, perception, and emotion, shape the way we experience and navigate the world. This exhibition delves into the intersections of neuroscience, creativity, and visual storytelling.

Reception: April 24, 2025, 6:30-8:30 PM

Artist Talk: June 10, 2025, 6-8 PM

Location: The Somerville Armory
191 Highland Ave, Somerville, MA

Admission is free.

Joshua Sariñana presented his research project—Utilizing Large Language Models and Art to Represent Cognitive Networks—at the Harvard Psychiatry Research Day, exploring how spatial cognition influences identity across physical, social, and digital environments. Using large language models (LLMs) to analyze qualitative interviews, he examined how individuals navigate interconnected spaces, shaping their sense of belonging and adaptation.

Joshua Sariñana’s latest research, Neural Synchrony of Minds and Machines: Hippocampal Mechanisms to Advance AI and Virtual Networks, has been published in Leonardo, the leading peer-reviewed journal on the intersection of science, technology, and the arts. Read the Paper »

Spark, With Nora Young, by CBC Radio explores how neuroscience and technology intersect to enhance our understanding of memory. Joshua Sariñana explains how memory engrams—networks of neurons encoding experiences—can be visualized and artificially activated using advanced techniques like optogenetics.

This Roundtable discussion explores the intersections of neuroscience, art, artificial intelligence, and memory through a collaborative discussion featuring a choreographer, designer/artist, an environment and community organizer, and neuroscientists. The conversation highlights Joshua Sariñana's Mental Mapping project, which visualizes the connections between our internal cognitive networks and external environments by using photography, storytelling, and AI tools.

The podcast episode of Culture Matters at the Urban Media Art studio features Joshua Sariñana discussing his project Mental Mapping: The Art of Exploring Connections, which bridges neuroscience, visual art, and AI to examine how individuals connect their internal experiences with their external environments.

A few images from my series Mental Mapping were selected for Point of View, the first community zine published by Photoworks SF. The zine features work from over 100 photographers and highlights a wide range of visual perspectives.

Joshua Sariñana, PhD, December’s Artist of the Month, is a neuroscientist-turned-artist whose work bridges the gap between cognition, space, and visual storytelling. With a background in neuroscience research at MIT, where he studied brain networks and memory, Sariñana integrates scientific principles into his artistic practice. Read the Interview

In his presentation at the Museum of Science’s Youth Internship Program, Joshua Sariñana presents Exploring Connections, discussing how neuroscience, artificial intelligence (AI), and art interact, focusing on the hidden networks that shape our internal and external worlds. He highlights the parallels between brain function and AI and the roles of motivation and experience in shaping our cognition and behavior. Explored are how art and AI can reveal hidden patterns and challenge conventional perceptions.

This WIRED interview between Joshua Sariñana and Sinead Bowell explores the digital afterlife. They discuss the interplay between neuroscience, technology, and memory, discussing how advancements in understanding and manipulating memories could impact science, medicine, and identity. Joshua Sariñana highlights the potential of technologies like AI and neurotechnologies to reconstruct, externalize, and even upload memories, raising ethical concerns about privacy, equity, and data bias.

The Poetry of Science interview on GBH, hosted by Jim Braude and Margery Eagan, features Joshua Sariñana and Makinde Ogunnaike discussing their interdisciplinary project that combines poetry, photography, and science. The initiative explores the personal and professional lives of scientists, using poetry as a medium to make complex scientific ideas accessible and emotionally resonant. Sariñana emphasizes how the project bridges gaps between abstract scientific concepts and human experiences, inspired by James Baldwin’s reflections on art and truth.

In a conversation with Michael Kirchoff, Joshua Sariñana discusses the intersection of neuroscience and photography, revealing how his dual background informs his creative process.

Joshua Sariñana presented at the Science Gallery Museum and Trinity College, Dublin, as part of the Neurohumanities Public Lecture series. His lecture, Interrogating Science and Art Through Neuroscience and Photography, explored the intersections of neuroscience, photography, and art to investigate how visual perception transforms from sensory input into emotional and contextual meaning.

Representation of Hidden Communication was featured on VSCO New, spotlighting a visual narrative rooted in my time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The project documents the often unseen, intricate world of neuroscience research through portraits of my colleagues and the lab environments we worked in.

In an interview with VICE Magazine, Joshua Sariñana, a neuroscientist and photographer, explores the intricate relationship between memory, perception, and photography.

Photography, Memory, and the Future explores how photography serves as a bridge between memory and imagination, grounding the past while shaping our understanding of the future. It highlights the inaccuracies of human memory and the role of photographs as stable placeholders for recalling personal and collective histories. Discussing the brain's visual and memory systems, the lecture delves into the hippocampus's integration of space and time for episodic memory, emphasizing that individuals with memory deficits cannot imagine future scenarios without visual aids. Through examples from iconic photographs to neuroscientific insights, the lecture underscores the emotional, societal, and personal significance of photography in memory formation and its transformative potential for envisioning the future.