WEEK 7: NEUROSCIENCE + ART

 Christopher deCharm's TED Talk "A look inside the brain in real time" revealed to me the fascinating possibility of scientists being able to connect real-time brain activity to people's thoughts, emotions etc.  (deCharms 2008).  This made all the readings and lectures in this module all the more exciting as such technology can actually test hypotheses such as Freuds' of the two kinds of minds. Furthermore, the world of art can benefit as one can now gauge reactions extremely accurately. Imagine a focus group for a movie being studied via fMRI in order to measure their liking for the film - neuroscientists have already shown that the neural activities of small samples can be used to predict those of the population (Falk). 

Scientists studying the different neural activity based on a person feeling anger or disgust

It was also surprising to learn that researchers have shown that our dreams' good/bad nature can be predicted via studying neural activity and that our brain uses the same pathways to generate dreams that it does to retrieve memories when we are awake (Marzano). This paints dreams as a form of unconscious analysis of our memories that occurs as it would when we were conscious but is now sans any distractions. Since art requires one to delve into their own experiences, this finding could explain why so many artists use dreams as the basis for their work (Wolfe). Jasper John's Flag only came about as he dreamed of painting the American Flag and went straight to work the next morning (Atlas Obscura). 

Johns, Jasper. Flag. 1954.

However this makes one wonder if these developments endanger the ability for art to be interpreted in a
diversity of ways due to the fact that its creators have no way to accurately predict the audience's 
reaction to the art. One could use fMRI technology to iterate on their art and make a piece that gets the 
exact reaction they want from a large audience. This takes away the beauty of debate and discussion 
that occurs when people analyze the meaning and quality of a piece. Thee universal quality of art is 
what makes it a language for all humans - to mold the reaction you want seems like an adulteration
(Jones).


Star Trek (2009) was blamed for missing its so called
'target audience' but was still a critical success


DeCharms, Christopher. “A Look inside the Brain in Real Time.” TED. 2008.

Falk, Emily B., et al. “From Neural Responses to Population Behavior.” Psychological Science, vol. 23, no. 5, 2012, pp. 439–445., https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611434964.

Oaten, Megan, et al. “Moral Violations and the Experience of Disgust and Anger.” Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, vol. 12, 2018, https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00179.

Marzano, C., et al. “Recalling and Forgetting Dreams: Theta and Alpha Oscillations during Sleep Predict Subsequent Dream Recall.” Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 31, no. 18, 2011, pp. 6674–6683., https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.0412-11.2011.

Onion, Rebecca. “6 Masterpieces Made While Artists Slept.” Atlas Obscura, Atlas Obscura, 3 May 2016, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/6-masterpieces-made-while-artists-slept.

Jonees, Jonathan. “Art Is Universal – No Country Should Claim a Masterpiece for Their Own.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 1 Oct. 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/jonathanjonesblog/2015/oct/01/rembrandt-art-universal-country-claim.

Trinos, Angelo Delos. “10 Movies That Misunderstood Their Target Audience (& How).” CBR, 1 Dec. 2021, https://www.cbr.com/movies-misunderstood-audience/.













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