Week 7: Neuroscience and Art

                                                              Paralysis by Robert Pepperell

Neuroscience in art has been a way to understand the human conscious and subconscious mind as a way of emphasizing the importance of human identity despite the impersonal nature of the field of neuroscience (Vesna). 

                                                          Uncertainty 4 by Robert Pepperell

For audiences and artists alike, art is already a mode of communication by which we process information in relation to our identities and the external characteristics of the artwork. Art, by default, is visual data that our minds process, based on our construction of the world around us (Blaszczyk). Visual indeterminacy is an example of this phenomenon, as our brains make up real images out of incoherent data (Hertzmann). Our brains have the ability to assign function and meaning to a mixture of nonsensical elements (Pepperell). The marriage of intersection and art allows us to make sense of lines, patterns, and colors on a flat canvas (Landau).

                                                             Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

The Mona Lisa is an example of our brains’ ability to make meanings out of visual data. To an audience, her facial features are dynamic as the artwork plays with our peripheral and central vision systems(Landau). As you look away from her mouth and towards her eyes, your peripheral picks up shadows that appear to extend her smile (Landau).

The intersection of neuroscience and art demonstrates the creativity of the human brain and its processing systems. It shows that creativity and imagination are structural components of human beings. The inclusion of neuroscience in art shows us just how we appreciate art and how it is made.

Works Cited

Blaszczyk, Connie. “3Q: The Interface between Art and Neuroscience.” MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2019, https://news.mit.edu/2019/3-questions-sarah-schwettmann-interface-between-art-and-neuroscience-0416.

da Vinci, Leonardo. Mona Lisa. 1503.

Hertzmann, Aaron. “Visual Indeterminacy in GAN Art.” ArXiv.Org, 10 Oct. 2019, https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.04639.

Landau, Elizabeth. “What the Brain Draws from: Art and Neuroscience.” CNN, 15 Sept. 2012, https://www.cnn.com/2012/09/15/health/art-brain-mind/index.html.

Pepperell, Robert. “Connecting Art and the Brain: An Artist’s Perspective on Visual Indeterminacy.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, vol. 0, Jan. 2011, doi:10.3389/fnhum.2011.00084.

Pepperell, Robert. Paralysis. 2006.

Pepperell, Robert. Uncertainty 4. 1992.

Vesna, Victoria, “Consciousness/Memory.” DESMA 9, 9 May 2022, UCLA, Bruin Learn. Lecture.