Week 7: Neuroscience and Art 

As an Anthropology Major neuroscience is something that we do not study in my field. However, we do somewhat study art and the different forms of it in each culture. In addition, we also learn to understand why a person thinks the way they dory studying their culture, their economic status and their environment. Like anthropologist who studies an an individuals background; neuroscience can help us understand why a person interprets something different from others. By studying their brain scans neuroscientists can somewhat get an understanding of what is going on. In addition, Neuroscience can also can also be interpreted as a form of art. For example, Giovanni Frazzetto and Suszanne Anker writer of "Nueroculture" states that "artist Jonathan Keats put his Brain, as well as its original thoughts, up for sale...he registered his brain as a sculpture created by himself through the act of thinking...produced an exhibition and catalogue at the San Francisco Modernism Gallery...artwork consist of MRI images of his brain activity..."(Frazzetto & Anker  816). Which can be seen in the image below. 


However, the idea that some individuals will interpret things differently started with "Phrenology". According to Victoria Vesna Lecture 3 video, Phrenology is the attempt to look at a persons character through scans. In addition, Mark Cohen states that in phrenology at one point started to study the  bumps  in a person's head.  Each bump then corresponds to certain brain activity. 



Therefore, our brain can influence how individuals interpret art or if  they can even interpret it. Furthermore, art can also influence neuroscience, by presenting MRI scans as art pieces. Ultimately, I believe that our consciousness is a huge factor of how we interpret art as a whole, because it determines who we are as a person. 










Works cited 

Cohan, Mark. Lecture. 21 May 2017 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eDq8uTROeXU>

Frazzetto, Giovanni. Anker, Suszanne "Nueroculture". web. 21 May, 2017. 

Vesna, Victoria. Lecture "Neuroscience and Art part 2" Web 21May, 2017 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/20939975@N04/7396454674/

http://amp.livescience.com/49060-brain-artwork-gallery.html

http://www.featherofme.com/tag/drawing-2/page/3/

http://www.artbusiness.com/1open/111209.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3217423.stm

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 23, 2017 at 3:43 PM

    I like how you talk about the connections between your major anthropology and neuroscience. Maybe you can elaborate on the relations between these two and art.

    ReplyDelete

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