Week 7 | Neuroscience and Art | Asha Agarwal

Some of my favorite topics from this unit were the connections between memory, dreams, and art. What I find so interesting in the discussion of both is how much we have yet to uncover regarding the brain mechanisms that allow for familiar faces to appear in our sleep or birthday party memories from childhood to fill our heads (Vesna). As Gravitz says, “Memories make us who we are” (Gravitz). The mind is a curious and mysterious place to be, and an artist's ability to capture such vulnerability and uniqueness can be profound.



Akin, Matt. “DreamScape.” Fine Art America, 12 Dec. 2018, https://fineartamerica.com/featured/dreamscape-matt-akin.html.



A combination of both memory and dreaming I find particularly salient: daydreaming. As Dr. Fiore-Bloom writes, “daydreaming allows us to wiggle out of worry and slip into the infinite,” a skill extremely valuable to artists (Fiore-Bloom). Pulling this idea even further, the practice of daydreaming itself is an art that can be mastered by some when dedicated (Davis). Our mind’s ability to dream about and idealize what is not tangible or in physical form in front of us is something to be applauded and appreciated. Seeing and imagining what is not already there is the basis for creating something beautiful from mere materials.



Bhat, Harish. “Why Daydreaming Is a Good Thing.” Mintlounge, 4 Oct. 2021, https://lifestyle.livemint.com/news/big-story/why-daydreaming-is-a-good-thing-111633279405172.html.


Neuroscience as a field opens up so many questions and possibilities about how much our brains are really capable of and how many limits we as humans and artists can push. Every connection, dendrite, synapse, and neuron shapes our experience and allows for not only the creation of beautiful works, but the perception of such beauty as well. Art can be therapeutic and an act of healing for so many people, an experience we can thank our incredibly complex brains for (“Special Report on Art and the Brain”).


Young, Emma. “People with ‘Maladaptive Daydreaming’ Spend an Average of Four Hours a Day Lost in Their Imagination.” Research Digest, The British Psychological Society, 3 Nov. 2020, https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/06/25/people-with-maladaptive-daydreaming-spend-an-average-of-four-hours-a-day-lost-in-their-imagination/.


The brain and its abilities are beautiful and I have loved getting to dive deeper into the mutual relationship between neuroscience and art.



References:

Davis, Jeffrey. “The Art of Deliberate Daydreaming.” Psychology Today, 29 Aug. 2017, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tracking-wonder/201708/the-art-deliberate-daydreaming.

Fiore-Bloom, Thea. “Hopper, Matisse, Windows and Daydreaming.” The Charmed Studio Blog, 24 Apr. 2021, https://thecharmedstudio.com/matisse-windows-daydreaming/.

Gravitz, Lauren. “The Forgotten Part of Memory.” Nature News, 24 July 2019, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02211-5.

“Special Report on Art and the Brain.” Art & Creativity for Healing, 10 July 2020, https://art4healing.org/special-report-art-and-the-brain/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwg_iTBhDrARIsAD3Ib5hRGpcublFBcCJ3DaX1aUG3B3LTAKMiw0OXiWM_wMe6RxVm-8qPGX0aAkqUEALw_wcB.

Vesna, Victoria. “Lecture II” Neuroscience+Art | Lectures. https://bruinlearn.ucla.edu/courses/129896/pages/unit-7-view?module_item_id=4852536.

Comments

  1. Alec GoodwinMay 14, 2022 at 11:48 AM

    Hey Asha,

    Pleasure reading your blog post and loved the photos you chose. I felt that the photos perfectly capture this week's lecture. I too find Neuroscience to be an incredible area of study and even maybe pursue further education in it later this year!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AaronNoahDESMA9May 15, 2022 at 6:45 PM

    It is interesting that there is such a thing as deliberate daydreaming. I remember reading about the importance of daydreaming and giving your brain some rest in fostering creativity. Neuroscience is indeed full of interesting findings, but at the same time I think it would be important for us not to forget that the trajectory of neural development and synaptic formation is steered by our experiences, which depend on many other things besides neurochemicals in our brains.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Joana (my display name doesn't show for some reason)May 15, 2022 at 10:45 PM

    Hi Asha, I love your discussion on daydreaming as an art form and something that you can actually develop with practice, as most of us think of it as something that comes to you involutarily. Also I really like your picture selections they are awesome! Great job

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 9 | Space and Art | Asha Agarwal

Image
Space encapsulates the world beyond our world, the expansive universe engulfing our tiny dot of a planet, the cushion to the pale blue dot that is the Earth we call home. In the words of Carl Sagan discussion the image below, “Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was” (Sagan). To say this creates perspective is an understatement and all from a grainy picture that would never have made it into the final photo album (Szoldra). Every scientific finding, every piece of art, and every important person to have ever lived and loved is part of the tiniest fraction of the universe we live in. I think we can all agree: space is beautiful. “NASA - Earth - Pale Blue Dot.” Posters & Wall Prints by Posterlounge, https://www.posterlounge.com/p/720148.html. Now what is incredible is that humans have found a way to make such vastness and complexity available to the ...
Read more

Week 2 | Math and Art | Asha Agarwal

Image
What I found so interesting this week was the idea that artists feel pushed away from science by math and scientists feel pushed away from art by their draw to math. In reality, math is the big commonality between these two worlds. As we learned in lecture, a unique perspective is that all scientists and artists, regardless of their like or dislike of math, use math intrinsically in their use of computers. In addition, artists use math constantly when it comes to perception, depth, or proportions. Equations are not just for science. As discussed in Flatland, perception and point of view change scenes drastically depending on the viewer, a tool capitalized on by artists (Abbott). Shown below, an artist’s knowledge of depth perception and the related equations allows for a 2D image to appear much more expansive. Surrence, Matthew. “Depth Perception, What Exactly Is It?” The Zenni Blog, 25 June 2020, https://www.zennioptical.com/blog/depth-perception-exactly/. In addition, the inve...
Read more