Week 7 Blog


Neuroscience & Art

The functions of the brain and its connectivity to our subconscious, dreams, and body functions all intersect with art in this week’s lectures. The brain is one of the most complicated organs in the human body, containing our subconscious, conscious memories, our deepest thoughts, creativity, and commanding our bodies on a daily basis. It is only natural that the brain, so abstract and difficult to understand and control, can be used in art. One of the projects that emulate this is Suzanne Anker and Giovanni Frazzetto’s Neuroculture Project, which is used to show the intersection between neuroscience and popular culture. This can also be seen in Brainbow, which distinguishes individual neurons in the brain through fluorescent coloring and creates striking photographic images.

Brainbow
Brainstorm, 1983


Professor Vesna’s lectures on Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung showed how our subconscious and conscious mind play a critical role in our dreams and the way our minds work. Carl Jung’s five archetypes and their manifestations in archetypal images was the art that I found the most interesting this week. These images are relevant in all different cultures, religions, and settings, and it shows how the human brain can be understood in almost any context, and how art can help assist in its understanding. The connections between neuroscience and art can also be seen in popular culture through movies, like Brainstorm, which is a movie about a system of recording thoughts onto videotapes. The development of higher neuroscience technology creates a world of possibility for human discovery, and art will always be there to provide a creative, contemporary view.


Sigmund Freud & Carl Jung





















Sources/Links:

Anker, Suzanne and Giovanni Frazzetto. “Science and Society: Neuroculture.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vol. 10, no. 11, Nov 2009, pp. 815-821.

http://www.suzanneanker.com/wp-content/uploads/2009-Anker-Suzanne-Giovanni-Frazzetto-Neuroculture-Nature-Reviews.pdf

“Brainbow.” Brainbow | Center for Brain Science, cbs.fas.harvard.edu/science/connectome-project/brainbow.

Superamak. “Brainstorm (1983) [Trailer].” YouTube, YouTube, 25 Aug. 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNiZP2G-nEM.

Vesna, Victoria. “Neuroscience-pt1.mov” Cole UC online. Youtube, 17 May 2012. Web. 19 May 2019. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzXjNbKDkYI

Vesna, Victoria. “Neuroscience-pt2.mov” Cole UC online. Youtube, 17 May 2012. Web. 19 May 2019. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFv4owX3MZo

Comments

  1. PiperMonkMay 21, 2019 at 9:36 AM

    Hey Devon! It is interesting how you talk about art helping people understand the human brain because I had only thought about it the other way. How understanding the brain could help a person figure out art, but it goes both ways for sure.

    ReplyDelete

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