ACADEMIC SYMPOSIA

ART & THE BRAIN
Sept. 9, 2006 Session Information:

Location & RegistrationScheduleSpeakersAbstracts
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ART & THE BRAIN
April 17-18, 2007 Session Information:

Location & RegistrationScheduleSpeakersAbstractsHotel Information
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THE PHILLIPS
FIRST BOOK PRIZE

CONVERSATIONS WITH ARTISTS

Art & The Brain

September 9, 2006 Session
Speaker Abstracts

SEMIR ZEKI

"The Brain's Concept of Form and its Expression in Art"

One of the most important attributes of any visual system, including the form system, is that of constancy. This refers to the fact that objects retain their identity when viewed in different lighting conditions, or from different angles or distances. This remarkable feat is achieved by the brain because it is able to form a concept of objects. In its early, analytical, phase Cubism tried to mimic this by eliminating all particular viewing conditions with results that did not satisfy. Piet Mondrian, instead, sought for the constant elements in all forms, implying that there is a sort of building block from which all forms are constituted. His experiments led him to the conclusion that the straight line is the constituent and he defined form as "the plurality of straight lines in rectangular opposition." The straight line and the rectangle constituted by straight lines became a prominent feature of paintings, from the Suprematist art of Kazimir Malevich to the compositions of Barnett Newman and many others.

In the 1960s, physiologist discovered that a characteristic of the visual form system is the presence of cells that are orientation selective, ones that respond selectively to given orientations only. These orientation selective cells came to be considered to be the physiological building blocks of form in the cerebral cortex. The general idea grew that the construction of form in the brain is a piecemeal process, with cells responding to oriented lines feeding cells that respond to more complex entities, in hierarchical fashion.

More recent physiological and human imaging experiments have shown that there are several parallel form systems, and that artists have exploited each one of these selectively.



DANIEL LEVITIN

"This Is Your Brain On Music"

I'll review what we know about the cognitive neuroscience of music through converging methodologies including lesion data from patients, neurogenetic disorders, brain imaging (PET and fMRI) and plain old cognitive psychology. Are the brains of musicians different from the brains of non-musicians? Why do some people become experts and others -- with the same amount of practice -- do not? Why do we like the music we like? What are the neural similarities between language and music?



ERIC SAIDEL

"'But Is It Art?' Animals and the Evolution of Artmaking"

Suddenly, approximately 40,000 years ago, humans started making art. But there was no speciation event triggering this cognitive and creative explosion; homo sapiens had existed without making art for tens of thousands of years. Moreover, we see evidence of this cognitive and creative explosion all over the globe. It seems obvious that there was some human development that led to this sudden concern for the aesthetic. The activity of non-human animals seems beside the point. This paper challenges those assumptions. It examines the activity of animal artists, both in the wild and in captivity, and argues that we can better understand the evolution and role of art in human society by paying attention to the activities of other animals.



MARGARET LIVINGSTONE

"What Art can tell us about the Brain"

Artists have been doing experiments on vision longer than neurobiologists. Some major works of art have provided insights as to how we see; some of these insights are so fundamental that they can be understood in terms of the underlying neurobiology. For example, artists have long realized that color and luminance can play independent roles in visual perception. Picasso said, "Colors are only symbols. Reality is to be found in luminance alone." This observation has a parallel in the functional subdivision of our visual systems, where color and luminance are processed by the newer, primate-specific What system, and the older, colorblind, Where (or How) system. Many techniques developed over the centuries by artists can be understood in terms of the parallel organization of our visual systems. I will explore how the segregation of color and luminance processing are the basis for why some Impressionist paintings seem to shimmer, why some op art paintings seem to move, some principles of Matisse's use of color, and how the Impressionists painted "air". Central and peripheral vision are distinct, and I will show how the differences in resolution across our visual field make the Mona Lisa's smile elusive, and produce a dynamic illusion in Pointillist paintings, Chuck Close paintings, and photomosaics. I will discuss why learning disabilities may be associated with artistic talent.



MARK ROLLINS

"But Is It Art? What Children's Drawings Tell Us About Art and Mind"

A basic issue about the paintings and drawings of children is: Are they art? On one line of thought, the answer is 'no.' The reason is that, for something to count as art, it must be created with intention that it be seen by others as art. Children, it is said, cannot have such intentions, because they lack the concepts of art and other minds. But this assumes that having the relevant intentions requires considerable background knowledge and conceptual sophistication. I will argue that this is not the case. Thus, it cannot be said on the basis of the intentions that are required that the work produced by children is not art.

Recent research in cognitive neuroscience (including important work by other speakers in the symposium) suggests another way to understand how artistic intentions might be formed and expressed, one that is more perception-based. I suggest that the creation of art involves the use of pictorial techniques and devices that are born out of perceptual strategies and heuristics made possible by the brain's visual system. In using these techniques, image makers encourage viewers to adopt the relevant strategies and heuristics and to attribute artistic properties to the work based on them. In that sense, they have and express artistic intentions. This, I claim, is something that children can do.



VITTORIO GALLO

No abstract. Leading an informal closing discussion between the speakers.