Week 7: Neuroscience + Art

    Learning and exploring the concepts, ideas, and overall knowledge we know about our brain neurologically is such a fascinating topic to go about. This field has always been of great interest and now looking at both art and neuroscience is truly mind-opening. Considering how the brain has only been studied for a century, is mind-blowing and I definitely feel there is a lot more to learn. Only studying this for this much time, gives me a frightening feeling about what else can be uncovered but also anxious as this is a body part we all live with closely. 

Exploring Dreams:

    Freud and Jung were the first developers of the idea of dreams, and the conscious mind but interestingly became further and further apart from being friends over the years. Jung's idea on the collective unconscious is what influenced my understanding as I also believe it cannot be so negative but in fact, our brains, all have built-in creativity or "psychic archetype layer since or her birth" which cannot be learned and is specific to our own. On the other hand, Freud encompasses how Religion is a fallacy and an escape which I can, to some extent, agree with.  

Differences Between Jung and Freud | Difference Between. http://www.differencebetween.net/science/psychology/differences-between-jung-and-freud/. Accessed 14 May 2022.

Planetary Re-Enchantment

    Professor Vesna working with a scientist to stage the Octopus Brainstorming was another topic that influence my learning when it came to relating neuroscience and art more closely. Seeing the visible colored lights and sounds for the audience especially when the signals synchronized to indicate mental attunement was capturing. Bringing the idea two people can be interconnected despite being completely different minds can be new science and visually demonstrating can be a new art forms.

“How to Create an Authentic Brand Story That Actually Improves Trust.” Neil Patel, 3 May 2021, https://neilpatel.com/blog/create-authentic-brand-story/.

Plus and Minus:

    One final topic that influenced my understanding was a project that correlated clay art with synapses which are essentially connected neurons at certain sites. Both clay art and synapses assemble and remove through, obviously, different reasons. Synapses do this because of sensory inputs, motor exercises, and reward or punishment-derived actions. Clay artists remove and assemble for their desired projects and their likings. What makes these two differ from anything else is other art forms or bodily functions add materials such as oil painting on a substrate or chipping away marble to make a statue. 

Cell Press. Birth of a Neural Circuit / Cell, October 3, 2019 (Vol. 179, Issue 2). 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4gNamS8Ars.

References:

Cristina Albu - CMA Journal - Simon Fraser University. https://www.sfu.ca/cmajournal/issues/issue-ten--enchantment--disenchantment--reenchantment/cristina-albu.html?fbclid=IwAR1twyrqbeKqNrJSUXSihLVGvX_D9ARndxDv3USnw2pTENE_iXHJtIo8v54. Accessed 14 May 2022.

“Project 2: Plus and Minus.” Art & Neuroscience, https://www.artneuroscience.com/projects/plusminus. Accessed 14 May 2022.

Vesna, Victoria. “Neuroscience and Art part 1: Consciousness / Memory” Neuroscience + Art | Lectures.  Mar. 2012.

Vesna, Victoria. “Neuroscience and Art part 2: Unconsciousness Mind / Dreams” Neuroscience + Art | Lectures.  Mar. 2012.

Villa, Katherine L., et al. “Inhibitory Synapses Are Repeatedly Assembled and Removed at Persistent Sites In Vivo.” Neuron, vol. 89, no. 4, Feb. 2016, pp. 756–69, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.01.010.