text by JOSHUA DECTER an early purple contributor, joshua dexter is a new york based writer, curator, art-critique and art historian. He is the author of art is a problem: selected criticism. interviews and curatorial projects (1986-2012) Shouldn’t it be just as easy to upgrade our brains using either chip implants or lab-grown brain neurons as it currently is to upgrade software, apps, computers, operating systems, mobile devices, food, sneakers, sex, sleep, refrigerators, hotel rooms, dishwashers, toilets, cars, airplane seats, body parts, and just about anything else? Well, it turns out that we are actually accelerating toward that future much quicker than I had imagined. Beyond the realm of the theoretical, real science and applied technology may be in the process of catching up to science-fiction scenarios that have envisioned sophisticated brain-machine interfaces. It appears that two predominant directions are being pursued: the growing of brain neurons in the laboratory that could be used…