Millennium Dome: Distorted corridors of the mind

THE HUMAN brain is the most complex structure in the universe - and that includes the Millennium Dome - so it was a tough assignment for anybody to try to portray its most intriguing creation, the mind.

The mind zone makes a brave stab in the right direction by combining art and perception with intelligent hardware and a colony of leaf-cutting ants, which yesterday proved to have a mind of their own by keeping to their warm nest.

Visitors begin the tour with a trip to a "robot zoo", a collection of intelligent machines programmed for survival.

The ants, had they been running around their miniature Perspex pavements, were supposed to be example of programmed intelligence in nature. Born with an ability to carry out a limited number of tasks to perfection, ants have little room for mind expansion, however.

A corridor of distorted mirrors and a set of infra-red cameras, which detect heat rather than visible light, emphasise the role of the senses in the perception of the exterior world.

Crouching above the scene is a giant sculpture of an adolescent boy, a somewhat incongruous example of gilded, inquisitive youth at the end of the 20th century. A cold Dome, however, played tricks on another character of the Mind Zone. An "invisible" sculpture by Gavin Turk was supposed to have been shrouded in smoke, but the special effects had unfortunately condensed on to the figure's cold glass cabinet.

Walking through a corridor of voices, starting with a baby's babble and ending with a handful of very adult languages, exemplified the unique ability to speak in many tongues. The problem, however, was there was little to explain the importance of language development, both in terms of evolutionary origins and the mental evolution of a speechless baby into a chattering child.

Further on, a piece of clever software based on a neural network attempted to search the Internet by establishing its interconnections rather than merely drawing up a linear list of websites.

Mark Broughton, the director of special projects at Marconi, a sponsor of the zone, acknowledged that trying to portray something as complex and amorphous as the mind - and yet still be entertaining - was a tall order. "The mind is a difficult concept for people to get their heads around."

Providing the last-minute glitches can be sorted out, and the ants and smoke can be encouraged to return, the mind zone might still work - as long as you use a little of that other cerebral attribute, imagination.