Artist and researcher Ralph Borland has been in residence with the EthicsLab at the Neuroscience Institute, exploring creative responses to neuroscience, ethics, and technology.

Join us as Ralph shares insights from his residency, including concepts for a large-scale light sculpture, and opens up new possibilities for collaboration between artists and scientists. 

This presentation invites us to think about what happens when art and science meet, and how creativity can illuminate questions at the intersection of health, technology, and ethics. 

Date:  Tuesday, 2 December 2025

Time:  13:00-14:30

Venue: Neuroscience Institute Auditorium, UCT (in-person only)

All are welcome!

 

In this presentation, Ralph Borland will share insights from his art residency with EthicsLab at the Neuroscience Institute. Over the past few months, Ralph has been engaging with researchers across the institute, developing proposals for artworks and a residency programme. He will discuss some of his creative and conceptual responses to the themes emerging from the work of neuroscientists and ethicists concerned with technology and healthcare, including plans for a large-scale light-based sculpture. His presentation will also outline possibilities for future collaborations between artists and the institute. If you’re interested in how transdisciplinary collaboration can enrich both artistic and scientific practice, join us for this presentation and discussion!

Ralph Borland is a Southern African artist and researcher whose work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and featured at several public sites in Cape Town. He completed an undergraduate degree in Sculpture and English at the University of Cape Town, followed by a Master’s in the creative use of computers and electronics at New York University. His long-running collaborative project African Robots & SPACECRAFThas been exhibited at Zeitz MoCAA and the Dakar Biennale. His art–research project Bone Flute—a collaboration with an orthopaedic surgeon in a public hospital—explores the making of a flute from a 3D-printed replica of his own femur. The work emerged from a research fellowship with the Future Hospitals group at the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA) at the University of Cape Town.

See Ralph’s research site: https://objectsindevelopment.net