Week 7 - Neuroscience and Art

This week’s material had to do with art that explores consciousness, or how our minds interact with the world. Neuroscience is a modern field that emerged in the 20^th century, and I am fascinated by how part of it was shaped by the dynamic relationship between Freud and Jung. As depicted in the movie A Dangerous Method, they were very different people yet somehow clicked, developing early psychoanalysis techniques and having disagreements about the state of the unconscious (Goodfriend).

 

A Dangerous Method (2011)

The relationship between neuroscience and art continues the common theme of a present-day effort to foster dialogue between artists and the scientific community (Lehrer). Artists apply creative thinking while being exposed to the latest scientific research to translate scientific concepts and technologies into art, and art is a powerful medium to educate the public.

Recently, the Neuro Bureau wanted to bring together neuroscience and art through an annual Brain Art Exhibition/Competition at the Organization for Human Brain Mapping. In last year’s exhibition, a work called “Memory Traces” presented an abstraction of memory traces in neural tissue, showing how memory is extracted from various locations in our brain (Badhwar).

Memory Traces

It’s interesting that the use of recreational drugs like LSD led to an explosive era of counterculture and some of the finest music ever produced (Young). For example, the closing song “Tomorrow Never Knows” from The Beatles Revolver album was songwriter John Lennon’s enthusiastic attempt to sonically capture his experience with LSD. Lyrically, it was inspired by a book called The Psychedelic Experience by the Harvard professor Timothy Leary (“Tomorrow Never Knows”).

Revolver (1966)

Sources:

Badhwar, Amanpreet, and Estrid Jakobsen. “The Interplay between Neuroscience and Art.” Organization for Human Brain Mapping, 3 June 2017, www.ohbmbrainmappingblog.com/blog/the-interplay-between-neuroscience-and-art.

Goodfriend, Wind. “Freud & Jung in ‘A Dangerous Method.’” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 1 Oct. 2012, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychologist-the-movies/201210/freud-jung-in-dangerous-method.

Max, D. T. “Proust Was a Neuroscientist - Jonah Lehrer - Book Review.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Nov. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/books/review/Max-t.html.

“Tomorrow Never Knows.” The Beatles Bible, The Beatles Bible, 18 Apr. 2018, www.beatlesbible.com/songs/tomorrow-never-knows/.

Young, Rob. “How Psychedelia Transformed Pop Culture.” New Statesman, 8 Sept. 2015, www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2015/09/how-psychedelia-transformed-pop-culture.

Images:

“A Dangerous Method.” Roger Ebert, 14 Dec. 2011, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-dangerous-method-2011.

Badhwar, Aman. Memory Traces. www.amanbadhwar.com/paintings_flashback_flashforward.php.

“Revolver.” The Beatles, www.thebeatles.com/album/revolver.