My body keeps changing my mind Audrey Goldstein at NESAD, Julian Opie at the ICA, Kirsten Forkert at the Berwick BY RANDI HOPKINS

Audrey Goldstein creates elaborate structures that look as if they’d have to be functional, with looping wires and attachments that simulate complex circuitry or arcane instruments of torture, or perhaps radical methods of treating terrible disease. Her works evoke the intricate systems of the human body, as well as their visual and metaphorical connections to man-made systems like science, medicine, electronics, and alchemy.

Goldstein’s latest body of work zeroes in on the processes of the human brain, with cabinets that the artist hopes will help heal the aching brain in each viewer’s own personal skull. Opening at the New England School of Art and Design on October 7, "Audrey Goldstein: The Medicine Cabinets" presents four cantilevered suspended cabinets, each containing visual metaphors for various brain processes and structures, and each made with the idea that viewers could find something there to assuage their psychological, emotional, and/or intellectual wounds. And for those who think they’re beyond help: the cabinets are also just plain cool to look at.

It’s something in the way we move that’s captured the imagination of clever artist and master of the simple outline Julian Opie, who has been turning his attention — and distinctive graphic style — to the striding human figure, creating full-length animated portraits of people walking that mix realism with cartoonish two-dimensionality. On October 6, courtesy of the Institute of Contemporary Art’s public art arm, Vita Brevis, Suzanne Walking and Julian Walking will be installed on the Northern Avenue Bridge, a pedestrian walkway connecting Boston’s downtown and seaport areas, where they’ll be striding for more than a year. Opie, who’s also known for his cover art on the CD The Best of Blur, will be at the ICA opening day to speak about his approach and his process.

More than 150 artists open their studio doors during the first weekend in October as part of Roxbury Open Studios, and that includes the intrepid gang at the Berwick Research Institute, a hotbed of artistic activity in a former whoopie-pie bakery in Dudley Square. The Berwick is hosting an ongoing series of artists who’ve been invited to work in its studio as part of its "Artist in Research" series. This fall, Kirsten Forkert was invited to use the Berwick and its environs as a lab for her investigation into how we formulate definitions of what is "public." She and other Berwick alums will be on hand over the weekend for some sophisticated show-and-tell.

"Audrey Goldstein: The Medicine Cabinets" @ the New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University, 75 Arlington St, Boston | Oct 7–Nov 16 | 617.573.8785 or http://www.suffolk.edu/nesad | Julian Opie’s Suzanne Walking and Julian Walking @ the Northern Avenue Bridge, Boston | Oct 6 2005–Oct 31 2006 | Opie speaks at the Institute of Contemporary Art, 955 Boylston St, Boston | Oct 6 | 6:30 pm | $7 general admission | 617.927.6635 or http://www.icaboston.org/ | "Kirsten Forkert’s AIR project & other Berwick artist works" @ the Berwick Research Institute, 14 Palmer St, Roxbury | Oct 1–2 | 617.442.4200 or http://www.berwickinstitute.org/