Art and Neuroscience

Interesting. Thanks for posting!

You wrote a very interesting article.
I've read certain parts of the brain can show more activity when doing artistic activities, as well as during certain moods and behavior, but the brilliance of creating a masterpiece, of any kind, I believe comes from an aspect of the artist that is deeper than the workings of their brain; I believe it comes from the soul, and the artists mentioned used their gifts not knowing or caring about insights into the mind. The true beauty of a gift is that what is so easy to one, is impossible for another, and you may as well examine in this light, the automechanic that can make your car purr again. - My opinion
Something as simply as the transfer of in formation created by images that reflect in our eyes, the fusion of those two images to creation one image that combines the best aspects of both... Vision is just one example of the workings our or brain. I don't think we can ever fully understand the brain and how it works until we can recreate the fascinating functions that it performs.

Unfortunately, I did not catch the entire episode yesterday, but did notice that comments were made stating that, in effect, the relationship between art and science does not go both ways. If we look to work work of several prominent contemporary artists, however, we can see that this is not the case. In fact, there are artists working who not only comment ON science, but use science and develop new technologies to ask questions -- to ask what it really means to be human TODAY. One example: the Australian performance artist called Stelarc who explores the nexus of the biological body and external technologies. In a nutshell, he basically alters his body with various technologies thus transforming himself into a cyborg. These provocative works gets to the heart of the trajectory of medical sciences and asks how far we are willing to go and what happens when the line between human and machine cannot be easily seen.

As a practicing artist (and educator), I am often disappointed by the focus on historical art -- especially when discussing crucial contemporary issues. Why not look to artists of our own time?