My brain on art
I stumbled upon this article, Art and the Limits of Neuroscience, courtesy of jaylake. The article by Dr. Alva Noe is pretty interesting, taking on as it does the new discipline of neuro-art. Which isn't, at this time, much of a discipline yet. The part of the article that got me thinking was the fact that neuroscience, in studying art, wasn't asking the right questions.
It wasn't asking questions like, Why do we think "Guernica" is important? What is it about the combination of color and pigment in a Caraveggio that moves us? Or not? How do we come to agree on blue, when we don't all perceive the same color?
There are so many interesting questions, really fascinating topics, that muddling about with the rather banal things they are exploring seems a shame.
But the stopper for me was that it made me think about some things I haven't thought about. It's easy to get caught up in the notion that we are brains in boxes. That there is some specific, unique, "us-ness" inside our fleshy self that houses that which makes each of us unique. We can be a head in a jar, a brain in a box.
Rubik's Cube Brain by Jason Feeney
And then, when something happens, some event beyond our control, everything changes. We really aren't a brain in a box. We're a whole, complicated system.
All my life I've been an artist. I've always had a studio. I've had gallery shows, illustrated books. I painted routinely. When I was 49, I was diagnosed with epilepsy. I've always had it, just not known it. Anti seizure medication was prescribed, which I dutifully took. And I stopped painting.
Oh, there have been a few months here and there where I've done some artwork. But not like I used to. And it's not that I can't, I draw at work. I can sit down and paint if needs be. I just don't have the passion to do so. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
After I settled in and found anti-seizure meds that worked for me, I started writing. I write like I used to paint. When I'm not writing, I think about writing. It's an identical obsession, a shadow twin of the artist I was, the writer I've become.
Now, I wonder if this change has been influenced by my change in chemistry. And I wonder, as I continue to work to change myself so that I can be free of medication, how this might continue to shape me. What happens next? This comes with a lot of uncertainty. I don't know how I feel about the realization (it only took 8 years) that my artwork stopped with my diagnosis. I don't know how I feel about the future me, and what she'll be like. Will I alter yet again? Will the new me care about writing, or art?
There are no answers, of course. It wouldn't be interesting if there were.
It wasn't asking questions like, Why do we think "Guernica" is important? What is it about the combination of color and pigment in a Caraveggio that moves us? Or not? How do we come to agree on blue, when we don't all perceive the same color?
There are so many interesting questions, really fascinating topics, that muddling about with the rather banal things they are exploring seems a shame.
But the stopper for me was that it made me think about some things I haven't thought about. It's easy to get caught up in the notion that we are brains in boxes. That there is some specific, unique, "us-ness" inside our fleshy self that houses that which makes each of us unique. We can be a head in a jar, a brain in a box.
Rubik's Cube Brain by Jason Feeney
And then, when something happens, some event beyond our control, everything changes. We really aren't a brain in a box. We're a whole, complicated system.
All my life I've been an artist. I've always had a studio. I've had gallery shows, illustrated books. I painted routinely. When I was 49, I was diagnosed with epilepsy. I've always had it, just not known it. Anti seizure medication was prescribed, which I dutifully took. And I stopped painting.
Oh, there have been a few months here and there where I've done some artwork. But not like I used to. And it's not that I can't, I draw at work. I can sit down and paint if needs be. I just don't have the passion to do so. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
After I settled in and found anti-seizure meds that worked for me, I started writing. I write like I used to paint. When I'm not writing, I think about writing. It's an identical obsession, a shadow twin of the artist I was, the writer I've become.
Now, I wonder if this change has been influenced by my change in chemistry. And I wonder, as I continue to work to change myself so that I can be free of medication, how this might continue to shape me. What happens next? This comes with a lot of uncertainty. I don't know how I feel about the realization (it only took 8 years) that my artwork stopped with my diagnosis. I don't know how I feel about the future me, and what she'll be like. Will I alter yet again? Will the new me care about writing, or art?
There are no answers, of course. It wouldn't be interesting if there were.