Association of Neuroesthetics Berlin School of Mind and Brain Institut für Raumexperimente
The Neuroesthetics Talk Series – A platform for Art and Neuroscience
Building on the belief that both the arts and neuroscience have purchase on understandings of the human condition, the Association for Neuroesthetics is launching a public talk series, together with the Berlin School of Mind and Brain (Humboldt-Universität) and the Institut für Raumexperiment led by Olafur Eliasson.
In monthly talks speakers from various disciplines will be invited to present their work.
The events will be a platform for dialogue, linking artists, scientists and scholars, as well as a space for interdisciplinary research to be presented and shared publicly.
Venue for 6 and 20 May:
Berlin School of Mind and Brain LuisenstraSSe 56 2nd floor, Festsaal 10117 Berlin 6 May (Wednesday), 18.30 Michelangelo PISTOLETTO (Painter, action and object artist, art theorist)
Michelangelo Pistoletto is an Italian artist, world renowned as a protagonist of the Arte Povera movement. His work mainly deals with the subject matter of reflection. His artistic research starts in the ‘50s with self-portraits: studying his personal identity Pistoletto has come to the reflective - metallic - canvas as a conceptual instrument. He began painting on mirrors in 1962, connecting painting with the constantly changing realities in which the work finds itself. In the late sixties he began bringing together rags with casts of classical Italian statues to break down the hierarchies of ”art” and common things, finding in an art of impoverished materials the concept of Arte Povera. Believing in the responsibility of the artist as a “sponsor of thinking”, in 1994 he announced his pro- gramme Progetto Arte, whose ambitious aim is to work towards the unification of creative, social and economic aspects of human existence. In 1996, he founded the art city Cittadelarte – Fondazione Pistoletto in an aban- doned textile factory near Biella, as a centre and laboratory to support and research creative resources, and to develop innovative ideas and possibilities.
“If art is the mirror of life, I am the mirror maker” – M.P.
The talk, moderated by the neurobiologist Ludovica Lumer and introduced by the art historian Elena Agudio, will be an attempt to reflect on the emergence of self-awareness and to focus on the scientific perspectives of Pistoletto’s work and research. The process of self-identification, its development, the relationship of the self to the world, and the dialogue between the work of art and the observer will be the centre of analysis.
20 May (Wednesday), 18.30 David FREEDBERG Pierre Matisse Professor of the History of Art, Columbia University; Director, The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America
David Freedberg is best known for his work on psychological responses to art, and particularly for his studies on iconoclasm and censorship (see, inter alia, Iconoclasts and their Motives, 1984, and The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response, 1989). His recent work is on the history of science and on the importance of the new cognitive neurosciences for the study of art and its history. Following a series of important discoveries in Windsor Castle, the Institut de France and the archives of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, he has for some time been concerned with the intersection of art and science in the age of Galileo. While much of his work in this area has been published in articles and catalogues, his chief publication in this area is The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, his Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History (2002). He is now devoting a sub- stantial portion of his attention to collaborations with neuroscientists, e.g. Vittorio Gallese, working in fields of vision, movement and emotion.
Association of Neuroesthetics e.V.
The sciences, the humanities and the arts approach the natural world and our experience of it from different perspectives. Although traditionally considered separate disciplines, the desire for more holistic understanding has intensified the exchange between them. “Neuroesthetics” is one such node of interdisciplinary exchange, bridging various approaches to questions of art and human experience. From one side, rapid development in the neurosciences have produced an extensive database of insights that can further our understanding of both artistic appreciation and the processes of creativity. From the other, artists and those in the humanities continually engage with questions of experience, value and knowledge and their expertise is becoming increasingly relevant to scientific explorations aiming to understand these vital human characteristics. The European non-profit Association of Neuroesthetics, based in Berlin, has been founded to promote this exciting dialogue and lasting cooperation between the arts and the sciences. www.association-of-neuroesthetics.org