Why brain images are not representation of the self: the transparency of the brain/body/machine system

Brain imagery is central to the representation of personal identity at the expenses of the living body. This essay explores how visual and performance art, cognitive science, and neuroscience have contributed to the dissemination of the idea that to “be” means to “have a brain”. Brain scans as forms of “inner portraits” have naturalized a reductive vision of personhood, overshadowing the entanglement of the body with the environment and technological apparatuses. The supposed transparency of brain images is questioned through artworks by Abdoulaye Konaté, Jan Fabre, Pierre Huyghe, and Refik Anadol among others, and discussed via the concept of visibilization: a medial process that renders visible what is not visual. MRI and fMRI are shown to be a acoustic operation involving the brain, the body, imagers, and the environment in a relational system. The article calls for a rethinking of human subjectivity as part of material, epistemic, and narrative networks.