VOD

ARTIS is an initiative created by two young scientists (Julia Eva Fortmueller and Alon Barshap) who believed that art can serve as a powerful gateway to scientific work.

The initiative invites artists from a wide range of disciplines to lead workshops for scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Participants work and create together in a unique space designed to help them acquire creative tools for their scientific work.

Over the years the program hosted Israeli artists from a range of disciplines, including Sound (Yossi Fine and Yuvi Kahana), Choreography (Bosmat Nossan and Nitzan Lederman), Culinary (Shallom Simcha Albert), Writing (Gon Ben Ari), and Photography (Alex Farfuri), as well as art-based research practice (Michal Lev).

The evening will feature a screening of ART.IS (40 min, English, English titles), a film by Eyal Gilo exploring the connection between Science, Art, and the Creative Act. 
 

ART INSPIRED SCIENCE  A discussion in English with the program's creators, participating artists and scientists on finding answers, living with questions, and the true intersection between art and science.

The third meeting in a series - dialogues with researchers who have written essays on various aspects of illusion in their fields of research, as appeared in the 2026 edition of ‘Poetry of Science’, a periodical published once a year concurrently with the Weizmann Institute’s annual Ofer Lider prize for encouraging creative writing among scientists award ceremony. The editor of ‘Poetry of Science’ is Idan Barir, a translator of poetry and prose from Portuguese, Arabic, English, and Turkish.

“The neural networks involved in positive expectations, those that incite a sense of hope, satisfaction, and motivation, are not limited to the mental realm. They influence the entire body, activate the immune system, and stimulate healing processes. Placebos, in this sense, serve as a portal to understanding the power of the brain to shape a physiological reality – how thought or faith can stimulate actual biological mechanisms.” (Prof. Asya Rolls)

The placebo effect is a phenomenon in which a patient receives a sham treatment, but the brain and the immune system are stimulated into performing an actual healing process. 

Prof. Asya Rolls in a dialogue with Idan Barir, on the potential of understanding the relationship between body and soul, the extent to which physical reality can be based on illusions created in the brain, and the role of faith and hope in the healing process.
Prof. Asya Rolls – Researcher at the School for Neurobiology, Biochemistry, and Biophysics at Tel Aviv University’s Life Sciences Faculty.

Sponsored by the Berginsky Center for the Interface between Science and Humanities

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo

The second meeting in a series – dialogues with researchers who have written essays on various aspects of illusion in their fields of research, as appeared in the 2026 edition of ‘Poetry of Science’, a periodical published once a year concurrently with the Weizmann Institute’s annual Ofer Lider prize for encouraging creative writing among scientists award ceremony. The editor of ‘Poetry of Science’ is Idan Barir, a translator of poetry and prose from Portuguese, Arabic, English, and Turkish.

“Alongside science’s demand for precision, society’s need for resolutions, nationalist movements and identity politics, with media polarizing opinions, and language whittling away to exclamation points, a hushed renaissance of incertitude is emerging. Challenging certainty and blurring the boundaries between “fact” and “fiction”, this psychedelic renaissance reminds us of the value of wonder and astonishment, but especially the willingness to entertain the unknown.” (Prof. Shauli Lev-Ran)

The use of psychoactive substances - hallucinogens, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and additional ingredients - has, in recent years, returned to the world of science and medical treatment in what has been designated as the “Psychedelic Renaissance”. Science recognizes the medicinal properties of psychedelic materials, but it is not always prepared to accept the undefined and unquantifiable aspects of its treatments. Prof. Shauli Lev-Ran in a dialogue with Idan Barir on hallucinations and reality within the context of this psychedelic renaissance - both as an established and historically cogent cultural phenomenon and as a considerable (even though yet unsatisfied) reawakening in research and treatment.

Prof. Shauli Lev-Ran – Psychiatrist and addiction treatment specialist, Researcher of psychiatric effects of psychoactive substances, Associate Professor at the Psychiatric Department of Tel Aviv University’s Faculty for Medical & Health Science’s School for Medicine, Fellow at The Center for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Canada, Co-founder and Academic Director, Israel Center on Addiction.

sponsored by the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and Humanities
Free admission (based on availability)

The first meeting in a new series – dialogues with researchers who have written essays on various aspects of illusion in their fields of research, as appeared in the 2026 edition of ‘Poetry of Science’, a periodical published once a year concurrently with the Weizmann Institute’s annual Ofer Lider prize for encouraging creative writing among scientists award ceremony. The editor of ‘Poetry of Science’ is Idan Barir, a translator of poetry and prose from Portuguese, Arabic, English, and Turkish.
 

"All history is contemporary history, according to  Italian historian Benedetto Croce. Any representation of the past (including those inescapable academic history research papers) is shaped by the reality within which it is created; it reflects prevalent beliefs, ideologies, hidden assumptions, writing strategies, and more. The difference between Travels to the Past and history in its academic sense is that historians are expected to be aware of the contemporary nature of their writings.” (Avner Wishnitzer)

Public discourse often raises the possibility of simultaneously returning to a glorious past and the greatness of a nation. Prof. Avner Wishnitzer and Idan Barir discuss the credibility, the validity, and the glory of that past, and the question of whether this past, which can ostensibly be visited or returned to, is indeed the one that historians refer to in their historical research.

Prof. Avner Wishnitzer – Historian, author, translator, Head of the Middle Eastern and African History Department at Tel Aviv University, and co-chair (with Prof. On Barak) of the Laboratory for the Histories of Climate Change at Tel Aviv University's Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies

The series is sponsored by the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and Humanities.

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo

Yair Assulin will be speaking with Prof. Tzachi Pilpel, a geneticist and evolutionary researcher from the Department of Molecular Genetics, the director of the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and Humanities, and the  2023 recipient of the Landau Prize for Science and Research. The conversation will focus on how processes of change and development manifest from the scientist’s perspective, what evolution can teach us about history, the impact of technological revolutions on research, the role of science in our era, and what it is like to be a scientist during paradigm shifts.

Sponsored by the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and Humanities, with participation from the audience.
 

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo

Yair Assulin will be speaking about quantum computing with Prof. Roee Ozeri, a physicist in the Department of Physics of Complex Systems at the Weizmann Institute of Science who researches cold atoms used to develop a universal quantum computer and for precision measurements (among other things). He also serves as Vice President for Resource Development and Communications. We will explore what quantum computing truly means, how close we are to its realization, and the significance of a non-binary world that lets us solve previously inaccessible problems, as well as highlight the opportunities, challenges, and questions it creates and the broader implications of this technological revolution.
 

Sponsored by the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and Humanities, with participation from the audience.

Dialogues with researchers who have written essays on various aspects of illusion in their fields of research, as appeared in the 2026 edition of ‘Poetry of Science’, a periodical published once a year concurrently with the Weizmann Institute’s annual Ofer Lider prize for encouraging creative writing among scientists award ceremony. The editor of ‘Poetry of Science’ is Idan Barir, a translator of poetry and prose from Portuguese, Arabic, English, and Turkish.

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo

Yair Assulin, a writer and thinker, who taught Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature at Yale University in the past, writes a regular column in Haaretz newspaper and hosts the thought program on ‘Kan’. Idan Segev, Professor of Computational Neuroscience at the Center for Brain Sciences at the Hebrew University, whose central focus is the study of neurons and neural networks in mammalian and human brains, with the aim of understanding “what makes humans unique.” The conversation will address the revolutionary times we live in, the opportunities, challenges, and burning questions facing humanity today, and highlight the critical importance of partnerships between researchers in the natural sciences and those in the social sciences and humanities, so that we can thrive in a new world. 

Under the auspices of The Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and the Humanities

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo
 

As part of our series of dialogs between writers and scientists, author Yaniv Iczkovits (winner of the Agnon Prize, Prime Minister’s Prize for Hebrew Literary Works, Ramat Gan Prize and Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize) whose works have been translated to 18 languages and adapted for television series, in dialog with Professor Masha Niv, researcher of the chemistry and biology of the sense of taste from the Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the Hebrew University. A conversation about the five senses and also the sixth, on language and morality, and also about what is beyond good and evil, on the layers of place and body, and also of the soul that lies within them. 

With audience participation. Under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and the Humanities.

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo

As part of our series of dialogs between writers and scientists, Noa Yedlin, winner of the Sapir Prize and the Prime Minister’s Prize for Hebrew Literary Works, and author of bestsellers ‘House Arrest’, ‘Stockholm’, People like us’ and ‘The wrong book’, which were adapted for television and theatre, in dialog with Professor Yifat Merbl from the Department of Immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science. A conversation about truth and fiction, literary characters and real people, on imaginary boundaries and the origins of make-believe.

With audience participation. Under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and the Humanities.

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo
 

As part of our series of dialogs between writers and scientists, writer Zeruya Shalev (winner of the ACUM Prize, French Femina Prize, the German Die Welt award and others) whose books ('Love Life', 'Thera', ‘Wonder’ and more) have been translated into 28 languages and were bestsellers in Israel and around the world, in dialog with Professor Shafi Goldwasser, a researcher in computer science and cryptography (2012 Turing Award winner) at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
A conversation about encryption and the secrets of the heart, discovery and inspiration, and what should be peeled off or discarded, in order to discover and to create. 

With audience participation. Under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and the Humanities.

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo
 

Part of a series that brings together literature experts and scientists, this session is a conversation with Almog Behar, writer, poet and cultural researcher, and recipient of the 2010 Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works. Behar’s books, including ‘Ana min El Yahud’, ‘Rachel and Ezekie’l, and ‘Tz’imon Barot’, are highly acclaimed and have won several awards. Some of his poems and stories have been adapted for the cinema. Behar’s works tackle Israeli cultural identity and the relationship between Hebrew and Arabic.

Almog Behar will be joined in conversation by Professor Tzachi Pilpel, geneticist and evolutionary researcher, Head of The Department of Molecular Genetics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, and Head of the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and the Humanities. The audience is invited to participate in the discussion, which will focus on language, culture, and their evolution. 

The session is sponsored by the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and the Humanities.
 

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo

As part of our series of dialogues between writers and scientists, we will host Roy Chen –author, translator and the Gesher Theater’s in-house playwright – who received the 2023 Agnon prize for his latest book 'Great Uproar', and who also received the Rosenblum award for Performing Arts, The Prime Minister’s Prize for Hebrew Literary Works and the Yitzhak Navon Ministry of Culture and Sports Award for the Preservation and Cultivation of Israeli Cultures.

His latest book, 'Great Uproar' is currently being translated into Italian and Russian. His previous book, 'Souls', received high acclaim and is currently being translated into English. His plays include: 'Someone Like me', 'Floating Island', 'In the Tunnel', 'Alice', 'Anybody Here', 'the Odyssey', 'The Treasure Under the Bridge'. His play 'The Dropout' has been recently performed at the Beit Lesin Theater. His plays and adaptations have been performed around the world (the play 'Someone Like Me' was performed last January in Milano in Italian). He translates from Russian, English and French. His most recent translations include: Chekhov’s 'The Seagull' (Ho! Series 21, HaKibbutz HaMeuhad) and A.A. Milne’s 'Winnie-the-Pooh' (Keter Books).

Chen will join us for a dialogue with Dr. Leeat Keren from the Dept. of Molecular Cell Biology about ideas, research, discovery and the link between the mind and the soul. 

The audience is invited to participate. Under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the interface between science and the Humanities

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo

As part of our series of dialogue between writers and scientists, Eshkol Nevo – whose books have been translated to 13 languages, have sold more than 1 million copies, have won literary awards in Israel and abroad (The Raymond Vallier Award in France, two Wdei Wizo awards in Italy, the Euskadi de Plata award in Spain, two Steimatzky awards in Israel and more) and have been adapted to theater, television and the cinema (Three Floors was adapted to a film directed by Nanni Moretti) – in a dialogue with Dr. Tal Ilani, a scientist in the Department of Structural Biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Their dialogue will focus on the puzzles of chemistry and biology that link people and proteins and about what must be peeled away or removed in order to discover and invent.

The audience is invited to participate under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the Interface Between Science and the Humanities.

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo
 

As part of the series of dialogues between the literati and scientists, Prof. Haim Weiss, who teaches literature on the sages in the Department of Hebrew Literature at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, serves as co-editor of the review journal Pens, and whose first book of prose – Forgotten Books – was published about a year ago by Persimmon Books and edited by the writer Haim Be’er, will be hosted by Prof. Ehud Friedgut, a professor of Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The conversation will cover discovery and inspiration, and what has to be peeled off or removed in order to discover and invent.

The audience is invited to participate. The meeting will be held under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the Interface Between Science and the Humanities
 

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo
 

The first in a series of conversations between literary scholars and scientists will feature two writers with a background in science:
Tehila Hakimi, writer and poet, with a degree in mechanical engineering, won the Bernstein Literature Award for 2015 and the Prime Minister’s Prize for Hebrew Literary Works 2018, and whose latest book Shooting in America has been received critical acclaim, will be in conversation with Alex Ben-Ari, poet, translator and editor, graduate of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Bar Ilan, winner of the 2014 Ditzni Prize for Poetry, and whose latest book of poems, Tchi, was published a few months ago. They will discuss poetry and prose, discovery and inspiration, and what has to be peeled off or removed in order to discover and invent.

The audience is invited to participate. The meeting will be held under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the Interface Between Science and the Humanities

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo
 

As part of the series In Conversations between Writers and Scientists,
Prof. Rafi Weichert, poet and translator whose poems and translations have won many awards, editor of Keshev LeShira (Listening to Poetry),
is conducting a dialogue with Prof. Yadin Dudai, Professor (Emeritus) of Brain Sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science and Global
Distinguished Professor of Neural Science at New York University, who studies memory mechanisms in brain and in interacting brains in human
societies. They will discuss memory and imagination, veridical and false recollections, the uniqueness of mother tongues, the exact meaning of
words and its conversion from one language to another, advantages, and disadvantages of poets as translators, the importance of learning by
heart, and the future of fiction and poetry in the age of creative artificial intelligence.

The audience is invited to participate.

The event will be held under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and the Humanities.

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo
 

The poet and author Agi Mishol is invited to participate in a dialogue with Prof. Roni Paz, Dean of the Faculty of Biology and Neuroscientists- They will talk about the role of emotions in poetry and in the brain, in the scientist and the poet, and about inspiration and creation through characters and memories.
The audience is invited to participate. 

The event will be held under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the Interface
between Science and the Humanities.
 

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo

As part of the series of dialogues between the literati and scientists, the writer Assaf Inbari,
whose “ Home” , “The Tank” and “;The Red Book” bring to new life the core of the Israeli and Zionist narrative through an inspiring literary and historical work, will talk with Prof. Amos Tanai, a researcher in the Department for Computer Science and in the Department of Molecular Biology.
They will talk about the gap between facts and a good tale, Judaism versus Zionism and spirit versus science, and aging versus regeneration of cells, people and ideals.

With the participation of the audience.

The event will take place under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and Spirit.

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo
 

Ronny Someck, a poet and artist whose poems have been translated into 44 languages and whose books “Hermes" and  "The Difference of Love" ; recently appeared, is invited to participate in a dialogue with Prof. Benny Geiger, a researcher in the Department of Immunology and Regenerative Biology at the Weizmann Institute, who researches the molecular language in which cells in the living body communicate with each other and share information with their environment. They will talk about the delivery room of songs, and the moment of birth of a scientific discovery. Also about the poet and the scientist as hunters
and on the gap being increasingly erased between life and the short, dotted lines.
 

The audience is invited to participate.
 

The event will be held under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and the Humanities.

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo
 

The third in the series of dialogues between literati and scientists with Dorit Rabinyan, an author and screenwriter.  Her book ‘Persian Brides’ won her the Winner Award for Young Authors; her second book ‘Our Weddings’ was also very successful both in Israel and worldwide, and in London the book won the Charles Orde Wingate Award.  Her books have been translated into about 30 languages. Her last book ‘Hedgerow’ was at the center of a public scandal due to its being cancelled from the curriculum of the Ministry of Education.

Rabinyan has been awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for Hebrew writers, the Akum (Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Israel) award for the encouragement of creativity, and the Bernstein Award for Literature.

Rabinyan is invited to a dialogue with Dr. Meital Oren-Suissa, a researcher in the Brain Research Department of the Weizmann Institute of Science.  In her research, she focuses on the connection between genetic sex and the structure and function of the nervous system, in both ill and healthy states.
The discussion will be about the laboratory of literature, creation and creativity in science, about what was discovered and what had to be peeled off or removed, to find and invent and the place of gender identity in all of this.

The audience is invited to participate and the event will be held under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and the Humanities.
 

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo

The second in the series of discussions between authors or poets and scientists, hosting Etgar Keret - author, screen-writer, cartoonist and director. 
His books have received worldwide critical and commercial acclaim, with over 100 of his books having been adapted for the screen, and Prof. Roee Ozeri, a physicist in the Department of Complex Systems in the Faculty of Physics and who serves as Vice President for Resource Development and Communications at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

A discussion about artificial intelligence, quantum, time travel, parallel universes - what attracts them to such topics

With the participation of the audience, and under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the interface between science and spirit.

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo
 

A series of meetings between authors or poets and scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science who have chosen whom to ask and about what. A discussion about creation and creativity, discovery of concepts and inspiration, about what was revealed and what had to be peeled off or removed in order to find and invent. The audience is invited to participate.

Haim Be’er, the author of novels such as, "Feathers", "Et Hazamir", "The Pure Element of Time", "Upon a Certain Place", "Back from Heavenly Lake", "Their New Dreams", "Back from the Valley of Spirits", "The Shadow of his Hand", books of articles, essays, research and poetry.  Haim Be’er won the Bialik Prize, the Agnon Prize as well as a long list of other prizes.

Prof. Tzachi Pilpel is a geneticist and researcher of evolution. He is interested in the structure of the genome, its evolution and its control. Prof. Pilpel heads the Department of Molecular Genetics and the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and the Humanities. His sins are writing, prose and poetry.

The event will be held under the auspices of the Braginsky Center for the Interface between Science and the Humanities.

Photography and editing by Ziv Shilo