I Want More!

Unveiling the Wonders of the Dopamine System through Art & Neuroscience

What makes us want more — and what would it mean to want differently?

I Want More! is a transdisciplinary workshop series created by the artist and researcher Eliana Araque, exploring the dopamine system — our brain’s central driver of desire, ambition, learning, love, addiction, and creativity — through an integrative blend of neuroscience, embodied practice, art, and philosophy.

The series invites participants to uncover the hidden patterns of wanting and striving that shape both personal lives and collective structures. Across five themed sessions, it offers a space to reflect, move, create, and connect — tracing dopamine’s influence from the intimacy of romantic desire to the architecture of political power, and from the grip of addiction to the freedom of creative flow.

Each session combines scientific talks, somatic practices, surprise artistic interventions, philosophical dialogue, and collective rituals. The result is a learning experience that is rigorous and playful, embodied and intellectual, personal and political.

I Want More! is currently in its public launch phase. It is presented at Re:publica 2026 and was part of the 10th anniversary celebration of the Berlin Science Week 2025 in collaboration with UNUM e.V. with Prof. Dr. med. Wolf-Julian Neumann as the guest neuroscientist.

The program is actively seeking partners, collaborators, and sponsors to support the development of its full content and to bring it to wider audiences.

Photo documentation of I Want More for the BSW 2025.

Why This, Why Now?

We live in an age of relentless stimulation — algorithmic feeds designed to exploit our reward systems, economies built on manufactured desire, and political cultures that weaponize ambition and fear. The neuroscience of dopamine is no longer just a scientific topic: it is a lens through which we can understand some of the defining tensions of our time.

And yet this knowledge remains largely inaccessible outside academic contexts. I Want More! was created to change that.

By making the neuroscience of motivation tangible and experiential, the program cultivates a deeper awareness of how our internal chemistry shapes our external realities — and how this understanding can help us envision more conscious, connected, and sustainable ways of living and relating. It bridges scientific literacy with somatic intelligence, and disciplines with communities, welcoming participants from diverse backgrounds into a meaningful shared inquiry.

The Sessions

How a Session Works

Each 90-minute session follows a consistent arc that is itself dopaminergic by design — built on rhythm, surprise, and the interplay between individual reflection and collective experience:

• Grounding — a short embodied practice to land in the body and prepare for learning
• Surprise! — an unexpected artistic intervention to activate the dopamine system
• Scientific talk & Q&A — accessible neuroscience with space for questions
• The Art of Giving — a collective closing practice
• Networking & ritual close
• …and much more.

Science, art, movement, and community are not separate modules — they are woven together throughout, so that each session is experienced as a whole rather than a sequence of parts.

Get Involved!

Open to collaboration & partnership

I Want More! is actively seeking:

• Institutional partners : venues, universities, cultural organizations, and science institutions interested in co-presenting or co-developing the program
• Sponsors: organizations aligned with education, wellbeing, neuroscience, or the arts who wish to support the program’s growth
• Collaborators — scientists, artists, philosophers, and educators who want to contribute their expertise to a living, evolving series

If this resonates with your work and vision, I would love to hear from you!
contact@eliana-araque.com