Unit 7: Neuroscience + Art

Phrenology

The study of the mind, consciousness, and "mind-body" separation is the key concept of neuroscience. The idea of consciousness has been widely used in the arts through artworks aiming to visualize what consciousness really means. Like Professor Vesna said in her lecture, neuroscience is extremely new in that the brain has been a complex part to study for over a decade. Personally, I feel that the integration of neuroscience and art began with Franz Joseph Gall who came up with phrenology, the idea that individual intellect and personality comes from the skull's shape. Although his theory and representation of the brain was wrong, he made an achievement in that he was able to help visualize how the brain works in different locations. Additionally, a Nobel Prize winner Ramon Y Cajal is the example of how a difficult topic of neuroscience can be intricately combined with art. He compared neurons to butterflies of the soul, and dendrites as the wings of the butterflies. His artworks of these neurons are carried in textbooks even today.

Ramon Y Cajal

Besides the focus on the physical brain structures, we can also see the mix of neuroscience and art through the sub topic of dreams. A key figure that sparked many artists to use the concept of dreams is Sigmund Freud. Freud divided the brain into the conscious, preconscious, and the unconscious mind. Surrealism, an art movement that arose in the 1924 was influenced by Freud's theories of dream and the unconscious mind. The famous artwork of The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali focuses on the passing of time during one's dream state. It aims to artistically represent how the time passes slowly and meaninglessly when one is sleeping.

I found this integration of neuroscience and art beautiful in that a heavy concept of brain can be represented in a more imaginative way. I once again feel the strong need of art in science once again because even as a south campus major, topics like neurons and dendrites are hard to grasp when bombarded with just scientific words. Drawings and visual representations like those of Ramon Y Cajal really help learners to visualize what it would look like if we were to open up a brain. My appreciation of art just keeps growing and growing as it opens my eyes to a new perspective in neuroscience.







Works Cited
Gardner, Howard. "Art, Mind, And Brain." Google Books. Perseus Books Group, 1982. Web. 20 May 2017.
Hamilton, Jon. "Art Exhibition Celebrates Drawings By The Founder Of Modern Neuroscience." NPR. NPR, 26 Jan. 2017.Web. 20 May 2017.
Vesna, Victoria. "Neuroscience-pt1.mov." YouTube. Uconlineprogram, 17 May 2012. Web. 20 May 2017.
Vesna, Victoria. "Neuroscience-pt2.mov." YouTube. Uconlineprogram, 17 May 2012. Web. 20 May 2017.
Vesna, Victoria. "Neuroscience pt 3" YouTube. Uconlineprogram, 16 May 2012. Web. 20 May 2017.