Online Theme Portal »The Brain«

In view of the immense growth of knowledge in the field of neurosciences, and its increasing significance for society and public discussion, the Gemeinnützige Hertie-Stiftung initiated an online theme portal entitled »www.dasGehirn.info«.

The starting point of the project initiative was the fact that in German-speaking countries, no online source yet exists for comprehensively editing knowledge in the field of brain for different target groups. An Internet portal is now planned for representing the brain and its functions and diseases in an attractive and up to date way.

The target groups are members of the interested lay public of all age groups, including school pupils, students, the relatives of patients with diverse brain illness, as well as scientific institutes who can use the portal for the representation and mediation of research results. The relevance of the portal not only concerns contents, but multimedia editing as well: the intuitive user concept, the basis of which is a three-dimensional, »mobile« model of the brain, combines various, edited multimedia thematic fields, which deepen the various themes in emerging complex levels of information,  and thereby accounts for user requirements. The range of information is continually extended and updated by editorial contributions, and a select community of interested persons.

In order to guarantee the portal’s consistent levels of innovation, the Hertie-Stiftung approached the ZKM management with the request, as cooperation partner, to assume responsibility for the field of new media. In the collaboration between the management and the Institute of Visual Media, an advisory board was established, which convened for the first time at the ZKM on August 11, 2009. The advisory board advised the project directors in implementation planning and implementation supervision both technically as well as in terms of design, thereby guaranteeing design and technical quality control for the online theme platform. So as to do justice to the above-mentioned requirements, a seven-person advisory board was appointed of the following members:

• Prof. Daniel Fetzner, Furtwangen University, faculty for Digital Media
• Sabine Hirtes, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Institute for Animation, Visual Effects and digital Post-production
• Kurt Jansson, Editor at Spiegel Wissen, Hamburg
• Bernd Lintermann, Institute for Visual Media, Karlsruhe / Director of the Advisory Broad
• Dirk Lüsebrink, computer scientist, media artist, Berlin
• Prof. Dr. Rupert Vogel, Vogel & Partner