Week 7 - Neuroscience and Art

 Neuroscience and art have long been intertwined even though we don’t readily recognize them together. As we interpret art our brains function in a way to relate the images we see to our past experiences and to what we want to see. Interpretation of art is what makes our own preferences unique.

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Each of us have our own background and unique personalities that allow us to relate artists in our own way. Everything from gender to politics shapes the way in which our brain interprets this stimulus. “We invest the perceived reality with values and understandings that refer essentially to our lives and bodies, but we often forget that this reality is as it appears to these perceived values and that it is not a truth in itself.” (Anapur 3) Because of this phenomenon we each have our preferences in art consumerism, especially evident in musical taste and cinema favorites. 

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Another phenomenon involved in our brain's perception of art is unrecognizable art. When people are presented with an image that can not easily be made out they spend more effort trying to figure out what it is. “Anecdotal evidence suggests that being confronted with such images arouses a need to determine what is depicted, so that additional attention is given in order to resolve the conundrum.”(Pepperell 7). An experiment conducted at a university showed a Christmas cookie randomly decorated and posted on a bulletin board. Alongside the cookie was a question asking what students saw, and many answers started flowing in. This curiosity of the unknown picture was a clear example of our brain’s tendency to try and understand what we don’t know.

 

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References:

Pepperell, Robert. “Connecting Art and the Brain: An Artist's Perspective on Visual Indeterminacy.” Frontiers, Frontiers, 30 July 2011, www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00084/full. 

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Dunn, Greg, et al. “On ‘Self Reflected’,” INteralia Magazine, 9 Dec. 2016,

www.interaliamag.org/interviews/greg-dunn-on-self-reflected/.

Dunn, Greg. “Gold Leaf Archives.” GREG DUNN NEURO ART, 2021, www.gregadunn.com/category/gold-leaf-painting-by-greg-dunn/.

Pepperell, Robert. “Connecting Art and the Brain: An Artist's Perspective on Visual 

Indeterminacy.” Frontiers, Frontiers, 30 July 2011, www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00084/full. 

Resnick, Brian. “‘Reality’ Is Constructed by Your Brain. Here's What That Means, and Why It 

Matters.” Vox, Vox, 22 June 2020, www.vox.com/science-and-health/20978285/optical-illusion-science-humility-reality-polarization. 

“How Perception in Art Changes Our Views.” Widewalls, www.widewalls.ch/magazine/perception-in-art. 

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