Week 7 Neurosci +
Art
I am sure that a lot of you have
heard of the expression “What You See May Not Be Real,” and this is especially true in the worlds of neuroscience and art. Mark Cohen in the lecture talks about various
equipments and researches such as Stratton’s inverting glasses, these findings
suggested that our brain is able to adapt to an altered visual world, this perceptual
adaptation is fascinating and can be applied in how we perceive things in daily
lives (Cohen).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kohUpQwZt8
Landau argues that
several elements of art that we take for granted, can trick our brains into
interpreting meaning from the arbitrary (Landau). Particularly, artists often
manipulate the arrangement of lines, colors and different angles to play with
our minds. For example, some artists will use luminance to give the illusion of
3-D image; others use shadows and lights to trick the eye into perceiving
depth. Indeed, this can go back to what Cohen says about our brain is an organ
that can be trained.
http://www.moma.org/explore/conservation/demoiselles/images/demoiselles_NewFINAL.jpg
Semir Zeki, a
British neurobiologist who studies the visual brain and the neural correlates
of affective states, believes that aesthetics must obey the rules of the brain
and it is based on the understanding of the workings of the brain (Zeki 71). Zeki’s
exhibit White on White: Beyond Malevich, purportedly trying to use works of art
to understand the brain. His exhibit used white sculptures on a white wall,
then they use a white light and the light of one color together to generate
different shadows, the amazing thing is, the color of the shadows change as
your angle of vision changes. Zeki wants to show how the brain reality can
sometimes override the objective reality, he points out that not only the
perception of colors is created by the brain, some of the objective realities that
we think is real, are actually determined by brain reality (Zeki).
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/120914022137-zeki-square-circle-horizontal-large-gallery.jpg
In one of his
research, Zeki found that MRI images shows when people look at something they
find beautiful, a portion in the front part of the brain, the medial
orbito-frontal cortex will lights up, and when people see something that’s ugly, a completely different part of the brain
will light up (Lebwohl). Therefore, beauty is actually in the
brain of the beholder.
http://en.es-static.us/upl/2011/07/frontal_cortex_300-e1311277403338.jpg
Indeed, human
brain works in a very mysterious way that even scientists cannot fully
comprehend what will happen if a brain reaches its fullest potential. But that is exactly why we can somehow understand impressionism and our neurons will be hyper-activated
when we see all the distorted figures (Landau). Picasso once said, “We all know
that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the
truth that is given us to understand.” It is true that our perceptions of art works are influenced by our social and cultural values (Frazzeetto and Anker 815), but research after research shows that our brain can be trained to adapt to various situations, so what is real? What is the truth? What is the reality? The answer is inside our brain.
Works Cited
Cohen,
Mark. Neuroscience-Mark Cohen.mov. 2012. Film.
Frazzetto, Giovanni, and Suzanne Anker.
"Neuroculture." Nature Reviews Neuroscience 10.11
(2009): 815-821.
Landau,
Elizabeth. "What the Brain Draws From: Art and Neuroscience." Cable News Network, 15 Sept. 2012. Web.
18 May 2015.
Lebwohl,
Beth. "Semir Zeki: Beauty Is in the Brain of the Beholder." Earthsky, 3 Feb. 2012. Web. 18 May 2015.
Zeki, Semir. "Art and the brain." Daedalus (1998):
71-103.
Zeki,
Semir. "Centro per L'arte Contemporanea LUIGI PECCI - Prato." Web. 18
May 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment