DOCSLIB.ORG

Three Emotional Stories: Reflections on Memory, the Imagination

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Three Emotional Stories: Reflections on Memory, the Imagination Neuropsychoanalysis, 2011, 13 (2) 187 Three Emotional Stories: Reflections on Memory, the Imagination, Narrative, and the Self Siri Hustvedt (New York) In this essay, I propose that memory and the imagination partake of the same mental processes: that they are driven by emotion and often take narrative form. Through reflective self-consciousness, human beings are not bound to the phenomenal present. They can recall themselves in the past, imagine themselves in the future, and inhabit fictive realms. Borrowing William James’s distinction be- tween narrative thought and reasoning, as well as the difference between first- and third-person perspectives, I describe the varying approaches of fiction, psychoanalysis, and neuroscience to remembering and imagining. Conscious episodic memories are consoli- dated by emotion, but they are also reconsolidated—subject to Freud’s “deferred action”—to fictionalizing over time. Story organizes the affective material of memory into a temporal, linguistic schema that is necessarily dialogical: “I” implies “you.” As articulated representation, narrative recollection inevitably distances and cools past emotion. This is not true of involuntary and traumatic memories that are sensorimotor, affective replays of an event, are not codified in language, and cannot be located in a subjective time or space. Research into self- versus other-“processing” in the brain has largely failed to understand that at an explicit, represen- tational level, there is no difference between memories and fantasies about self and other. Culling insights from Freud and research in neuroscience and phenomenology, I argue that a core bodily, affective, timeless self is the ground of the narrative, temporal self, of autobiographical memory, and of fiction and that the secret to creativity lies not in the so-called higher cognitive processes, but in dreamlike reconfigurations of emotional meanings that take place unconsciously. Keywords: emotion; imagination; memory; narrative; self; time In a 1995 essay on memory, “Yonder,” I wrote the and intellect. Augustine connected imagination to both following sentence: “Writing fiction is like remember- emotion and will. The will directs internal vision to- ing what never happened” (p. 41). It seemed to me ward memories, but it also transforms and recombines fifteen years ago, and still seems to me today, that the them to create something new (Brann, 1991). “My mental activity we call memory and what we call the memory,” Augustine writes in Confessions, “also con- imagination partake of the same mental processes. tains my feelings, not in the same way as they are pres- They are both bound up with emotion and, when they ent to the mind when it experiences them, but in a quite are conscious, often take the form of stories. Emotion, different way that is in keeping with the special powers memory, imagination, story—these are all vital to our of the memory.” The emotions, Augustine tells us, are subjective mental landscapes, central to literature and all there—desire, joy, fear and sorrow—and they can psychoanalysis, and, much more recently, hot topics in all be called to mind, but: the neurosciences. Ever since Plato banned poets from his Republic, If we had to experience sorrow or fear every time that we mentioned these emotions, no one would be will- philosophers have debated the role of imagination and ing to speak of them. Yet we could not speak of them its link to memory. Traditionally, imagination referred at all unless we could find in our memory not only the to the mental pictures we conjure in our minds, as op- sounds of their names, which we retain as images im- posed to direct perception. For thinkers as diverse as printed on the memory by the senses of the body, but Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, and Hegel, the imagination also the idea of the emotions themselves. [Augustine, occupied a middle zone between the bodily senses 1988, pp. 220–221] Siri Hustvedt is an acclaimed American novelist and essayist. Correspondence to: Siri Hustvedt, 544 2nd Street, Brooklyn, New York, NY 11215, U.S.A. ([email protected]). © 2011 The International Neuropsychoanalysis Society • http://www.neuropsa.org 188 Siri Hustvedt Surely, Augustine’s thoughts remain cogent: remem- entist inevitably regard memory and imagination from bering is not the same as perceiving. We remember different perspectives. For the novelist, the story does what we have perceived, although we need ideas or all the work. When I am writing fiction, I am concerned concepts and names—language—to recognize and or- with what feels right and feels wrong. I see images ganize the material we have brought to mind. The in my mind as I work, just as I do when I remember. seventeenth-century Italian philosopher and historian Often I use landscapes, rooms, and streets that actually Giambattista Vico regarded memory and imagination exist as backdrops for the actions of my fictional char- as part of the same faculty, rooted in sense perceptions. acters. I am directed by the story, by the creation of a The imagination, he wrote, is “expanded or compound- narrative that resonates for me as emotionally, rather ed memory,” and memory, sensation, and imagination than literally, true. The novel develops an internal logic are skills of the body: “It is true,” he insisted, “that of its own, guided by my feelings. these faculties appertain to the mind, but they have For the analyst, a patient’s personal memories are their roots in the body and draw their strength from it” crucial, but so are fantasies and dreams. They exist (quoted in Luft, 2003, p. 143). within the dialogical atmosphere of the analytic room Vico’s comment is startlingly like the phenome- and the abstract conceptual framework the psychoana- nology of the twentieth-century French philosopher lyst brings to his work. When listening to a patient’s Maurice Merleau-Ponty [1908–1961], who understood memory, a psychoanalyst would keep in mind Freud’s imagination as an embodied reality, dependent on sen- idea of Nachträglichkeit—what James Strachey trans- sory perceptions, but which nevertheless allows us lated as “deferred action.” The adult patient may have entrance into possible, even fictive spaces, l’espace memories from when he was 5 years old, but those potentielle, “potential space” (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). memories have been reconfigured over time. The ana- D. W. Winnicott (1971) used the same term in relation lyst would be alert to repetitive themes and defenses to his thoughts on play and culture. Unlike other ani- in his patient’s speech, but also voice cadences, hesita- mals, human beings are able to inhabit fictional worlds, tions, and, if his patient is looking at him, the motions to turn away from the phenomenal present and imagine and gestures of a body. What is created between ana- ourselves elsewhere. Rats, even sea snails, remember, lyst and patient is not necessarily a story that represents but they don’t actively recollect themselves as char- historical fact, but one that reconstructs a past into a acters in the past or hurl themselves into imaginary narrative that makes sense of troubling emotions and futures. neuroses. For patient and doctor, as for the novelist, How do we conceive the imagination now? From the narrative must also be felt; it must resonate bodily Galen in the second century, to Descartes and his pine- as emotionally true. al gland where he located phantasie or the imagination The neuroscientist is trained to conceive of sub- in the seventeenth, to phrenology in the nineteenth, and jective memory and creative acts through objective Freud’s abandoned “Project” (1950 [1895]) near the categories, which she or he hopes will unveil the dawn of the twentieth, thinkers have sought the ana- neurobiological realities of a self that both remembers tomical sites of mental functions. We have not solved and imagines. Following Endel Tulving and others, the the mystery of the mind’s eye, or what is now framed neuroscientist will probably divide memory into three as a brain/mind problem. Terms such as neural repre- categories: (1) episodic memories (conscious personal sentations, correlates, and substrates for psychological recollections that can be localized to a specific place phenomena do not close the explanatory gap—they re- and time); (2) semantic memories (impersonal recall of veal it. There is a vast literature on this, and the debates information—cats have fur, Kierkegaard wrote under are ferocious. A solution does not seem immanent. pseudonyms), and (3) procedural memories (uncon- Suffice it to say that our inner subjective experience scious learned abilities, such as riding a bike, reaching of mental images, thoughts, memories, and fantasies for a glass, typing) (Roediger & Craik, 1989; Tulv- bears no resemblance to the objective realities of brain ing,1984, 1993). As a memory researcher, the neuro- regions, synaptic connections, neurochemicals, and scientist would be aware of Joseph LeDoux’s work on hormones, however closely they are connected. the enduring synaptic connections formed by emotion I am not going to solve the psyche/soma problem in memory—fear in particular—and she or her would here, but I can put some pressure on that old sentence know that memories are not only consolidated in our of mine: Writing fiction is like remembering what never brains, they are reconsolidated (Debiec & LeDoux, happened, or, to rephrase it, How are remembering and 2009; LeDoux, 2002; Nadar, Schafe, & LeDoux, 2000). imagining the same, and how are they different? Although it is unlikely that our neuroscientist has read The novelist, the psychoanalyst, and the neurosci- Freud carefully, she or he would unwittingly agree Three Emotional Stories 189 with him that there is no original “true” memory: auto- the linguist Emile Benveniste (1971) refers to as a biographical memories are subject to change. Finally, pronominal axis of discourse. The “I” implies a “you,” theoretically, at least, our neuroscientist’s subjective even if that “I” is just listening to one’s inner self.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Introduction and Methods the Field of Neuroesthetics Is a Recent Marriage
    Introduction and Methods The field of neuroesthetics is a recent marriage of the realms of neuroscience and art. The objective of neuroesthetics is to comprehend the perception and subjective experience of art in terms of their neural substrates. In this study, we examined the effect of a number of original pieces of art on the brain of the artist herself and on that of a novice as she experienced the artwork for the first time. This allowed us to compare neural responses not only amongst different visual conditions but also between an expert (i.e. the artist) and a novice. Lia Cook lent her artwork to be used in this study. The pieces, which she believes to have an innate emotional quality, are cotton and rayon textiles. All of the pieces are portraits with a somewhat abstract, pixelated appearance imparted by the medium. In order to better understand the neural effects of the woven facial images, we used several types of control images. These included (i) scrambled woven pieces, or textiles that were controlled for color, contrast, and size but contained no distinct facial forms; and (ii) photographs, which were all photographs of human faces but were printed on heavy paper and lacked the texture and unique visual appearance of the textiles. All of the pieces are 12.5 in. x 18 in. The expert and novice were each scanned with functional MRI while they viewed and touched the tapestries and photographs. The subjects completed 100 trials divided across two functional scans. Each trial lasted a total of 12 s, with jittered intervals of 4 s to 6 s between trials.
    [Show full text]
  • The Right Hemisphere in Esthetic Perception
    ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 14 October 2011 HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2011.00109 The right hemisphere in esthetic perception Bianca Bromberger, Rebecca Sternschein, Page Widick,William Smith II and Anjan Chatterjee* Department of Neurology, The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA Edited by: Little about the neuropsychology of art perception and evaluation is known. Most neuropsy- Idan Segev, The Hebrew University of chological approaches to art have focused on art production and have been anecdotal and Jerusalem, Israel qualitative. The field is in desperate need of quantitative methods if it is to advance. Here, Reviewed by: Juliana Yordanova, Bulgarian Academy we combine a quantitative approach to the assessment of art with modern voxel-lesion- of Sciences, Bulgaria symptom-mapping methods to determine brain–behavior relationships in art perception. Bernd Weber, We hypothesized that perception of different attributes of art are likely to be disrupted by Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms damage to different regions of the brain. Twenty participants with right hemisphere dam- Universität, Germany age were given the Assessment of Art Attributes, which is designed to quantify judgments *Correspondence: Anjan Chatterjee, Department of of descriptive attributes of visual art. Each participant rated 24 paintings on 6 conceptual Neurology, The University of attributes (depictive accuracy, abstractness, emotion, symbolism, realism, and animacy) Pennsylvania, 3 West Gates, 3400 and 6 perceptual attributes (depth, color temperature, color saturation, balance, stroke, and Spryce Street, Philadelphia, PA simplicity) and their interest in and preference for these paintings. Deviation scores were 19104, USA. e-mail: [email protected] obtained for each brain-damaged participant for each attribute based on correlations with group average ratings from 30 age-matched healthy participants.
    [Show full text]
  • Files/2014 Women and the Big Picture Report.Pdf>, Accessed 6 September 2018
    The neuroscientific uncanny: a filmic investigation of twenty-first century hauntology GENT, Susannah <http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0091-2555> Available from the Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/26099/ A Sheffield Hallam University thesis This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Please visit http://shura.shu.ac.uk/26099/ and http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html for further details about copyright and re-use permissions. THE NEUROSCIENTIFIC UNCANNY: A FILMIC INVESTIGATION OF TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY HAUNTOLOGY Susannah Gent A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Sheffield Hallam University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2019 Candidate Declaration I hereby declare that: 1. I have not been enrolled for another award of the University, or other academic or professional organisation, whilst undertaking my research degree. 2. None of the material contained in the thesis has been used in any other submission for an academic award. 3. I am aware of and understand the University’s policy on plagiarism and certify that this thesis is my own work. The use of all published or other sources of material consulted have been properly and fully acknowledged. 4. The work undertaken towards the thesis has been conducted in accordance with the SHU Principles of Integrity in Research and the SHU Research Ethics Policy.
    [Show full text]
  • Neuroesthetics and Healthcare Design
    Neuroesthetics and Healthcare Design AUTHOR(S) Upali Nande, PhD; Debajyoti Pati, PhD; and Katie McCurry ABSTRACT: While there is a growing consciousness about the importance of visually pleasing environments in healthcare design, little is known about the key underlying mechanisms that enable aesthetics to play an instrumental role in the caregiving process. Hence it is often one of the first items to be value engineered. Aesthetics has (rightfully) been provided preferential consideration in such pleasure settings such as museums and recreational facilities; but in healthcare settings it is often considered expendable. Should it be? In this paper the authors share evidence that visual stimuli undergo an aesthetic evaluation process in the human brain by default, even when not prompted; that responses to visual stimuli may be immediate and emotional; and that aesthetics can be a source of pleasure, a fundamental perceptual reward that can help mitigate the stress of a healthcare environment. The authors also provide examples of studies that address the role of specific visual elements and visual principles in aesthetic evaluations and emotional responses. Finally, they discuss the implications of these findings for the design of art and architecture in healthcare. FOR COMPLETE ARTICLE PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW TO HERD JOURNAL Link: http://www.herdjournal.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Abstract&mod=Pu blications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=1 &id=ADECCB0061A6483AB6E92E9379350BCE&Author=&ReturnUrl=dirmod%2 Easp%3Fsid%3D%26nm%3D%26type%3DPublishing%26mod%3DPublications %253A%253AArticle%26mid%3D8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791%26ti er%3D4%26id%3DADECCB0061A6483AB6E92E9379350BCE For a personal copy of this article please contact: t 214.969.3320 Debajyoti Pati at [email protected] www.cadreResearch.org Email: [email protected] CADRE is a nonprofit research and development initiative, supported and funded in part by HKS, Inc.
    [Show full text]
  • The Aesthetic Mind This Page Intentionally Left Blank the Aesthetic Mind Philosophy and Psychology
    The Aesthetic Mind This page intentionally left blank The Aesthetic Mind Philosophy and Psychology EDITED BY Elisabeth Schellekens and Peter Goldie 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX26DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York # the several contributors 2011 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King’s Lynn ISBN 978–0–19–969151–7 13579108642 Contents List of Figures viii Notes on Contributors ix Introduction 1 Elisabeth Schellekens and Peter Goldie Part I.
    [Show full text]
  • UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO the Monochroidal Artist Or
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO The Monochroidal Artist or Noctuidae, Nematodes and Glaucomic Vision [Reading the Color of Concrete Comedy in Alphonse Allais’ Album Primo-Avrilesque (1897) through Philosopher Catherine Malabou’s The New Wounded (2012)] A Thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Art History, Theory and Criticism by Emily Verla Bovino Committee in charge: Professor Jack Greenstein, Chair Professor Norman Bryson Professor Sheldon Nodelman Professor Ricardo Dominguez Professor Rae Armantrout 2013 Copyright Emily Verla Bovino, 2013 All rights reserved. The Thesis of Emily Verla Bovino is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2013 iii EPIGRAPH PRÉFACE C’était en 18… (Ça ne nous rajeunit pas, tout cela.) Par un mien oncle, en récompense d’un troisième accessit d’instruction religieuse brillamment enlevé sur de redoutables concurrents, j’eus l’occasion de voir, avant qu’il ne partît pour l’Amérique, enlevé à coups de dollars, le célèbre tableau à la manière noire, intitulé: COMBAT DE NÈGRES DANS UNE CAVE, PENDANT LA NUIT (1) (1) On trouvera plus loin la reproduction de cette admirable toile. Nous la publions avec la permission spéciale des héritiers de l’auteur. L’impression que je ressentis à la vue de ce passionnant chef-d’oeuvre ne saurait relever d’aucune description. Ma destinée m’apparut brusquement en lettres de flammes. --Et mois aussi je serai peintre ! m’écriai-je en français (j’ignorais alors la langue italienne, en laquelle d’ailleurs je n’ai, depuis, fait aucun progrès).(1) Et quand je disais peintre, je m’entendais : je ne voulais pas parler des peintres à la façon dont on les entend les plus généralement, de ridicules artisans qui ont besoin de mille couleurs différentes pour exprimer leurs pénibles conceptions.
    [Show full text]
  • The Neural Determinants of Beauty
    bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.21.444999; this version posted May 21, 2021. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. The Neural Determinants of Beauty Taoxi Yang1*, Arusu Formuli2, Marco Paolini3, Semir Zeki1 * 1Laboratory of Neurobiology, Division of Cell & Developmental Biology, University College London, United Kingdom, 2Institute of Medical Psychology, Ludwig- Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany, 3 Department of Radiology, Ludwig- Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany *Corresponding authors: Taoxi Yang & Semir Zeki Abstract: What are the conditions that determine whether the medial orbito-frontal cortex (mOFC), in which activity correlates with the experience of beauty derived from different sources, becomes co-active with sensory areas of the brain during the experience of sensory beauty? We addressed this question by studying the neural determinants of facial beauty. The perception of faces correlates with activity in a number of brain areas, but only when a face is perceived as beautiful is the mOFC also engaged. The enquiry thus revolved around the question of whether a particular pattern of activity, within or between areas implicated in face perception, emerges when a face is perceived as beautiful, and which determines that there is, as a correlate, activity in mOFC. 17 subjects of both genders viewed and rated facial stimuli according to how beautiful they perceived them to be while the activity in their brains was imaged with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Analyticity and Systematicity in Anglophone Aesthetics Taylor D. Enoch Submitted for the Examination of the Mphil Stud Degree
    Analyticity and Systematicity in Anglophone Aesthetics Taylor D. Enoch Submitted for the examination of the MPhil Stud degree September 2016 Department of Philosophy at University College London 1 2 I, Taylor D. Enoch, confirm that the work presented here is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated throughout the dissertation. Taylor D. Enoch | 01 September 2016 3 4 Abstract The scope of this project is threefold. Firstly, it is metaphilosophical, as it concerns a question of method. Secondly, it is aesthetical, as it concerns a question of method in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Thirdly, it is historiographical, as it draws from the corpus of the philosophy of art, aesthetics and art history, and considers these texts not only by way of their ideas but also by way of their history. This dissertation entertains a significant organizational shift by adopting and adapting a narrower scope of anglophone aesthetics (AA). This shift renders AA as biphasic, admitting of earlier (EAA) and later (LAA) phases, the ‘early-late distinction’, categorized by exemplary texts per phase. Upon investigation of these texts, the EAA-LAA shift poses a constitutive methodological shift, the Problem of Systematic Inconsistency (PSI), from non-systematicity to systematicity. This inconsistency, it is argued, is merely apparent, and is explainable as a swapping of priority between analytic and systematic methods from EAA to LAA, which holds systematicity of some sort to be implicit in EAA. To elucidate this, various modes of analysis and models of system are presented. From a formalist outlook, an historiographical examination of cubism is used to concretize the proposed solution to the PSI.
    [Show full text]
  • State of the Field Report: Arts in Healthcare / 2009
    A young patient enjoys percussion lessons through the Snow City Arts program at Rush University Children’s Hospital in Chicago, IL 2009/ State of the Field Report ARTS IN HEALTHCARE Arts in Healthcare is a diverse, multidisciplinary field dedicated to transforming the healthcare experience by connecting people with the power of the arts at key moments in their lives. This rapidly growing field integrates the arts, including literary, performing, and visual arts and design, into a wide variety of healthcare and community settings for therapeutic, educational, and expressive purposes. State of the Field Report: Arts in Healthcare / 2009 A March 2003 symposium, hosted by the National contributing authors Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Society Judy Rollins for the Arts in Healthcare, brought together 40 Jill Sonke experts in medicine, the arts, social services, Randy Cohen media, business, and government to develop a Anita Boles strategic plan for advancing cultural programming Jiahan Li in healthcare. The strategic plan aimed to help advocates raise awareness of the benefits of arts editors in healthcare, better document and disseminate Olivia Goodman research demonstrating its value, move toward Elaine Sims a national funding base, and develop adequate training to educate and train healthcare workers and sponsors administrators (NEA, 2003). The participants in this Society for the Arts in Healthcare landmark symposium included representatives from Americans for the Arts the Johnson & Johnson Foundation, the American The Joint Commission Hospital Association, Johns Hopkins University, University of Florida Center for the Arts in Americans for the Arts, National Institute on Healthcare Aging, and The Joint Commission.
    [Show full text]
  • Neuroaesthetics, Lecture 1, 18.01.13: Introduction to the Course
    Neuroaesthetics, lecture 1, 18.01.13: Introduction to the course. First of all, my name is Per Olav Folgerø. I am Associate professor at the University of Bergen Norway. I have the strange background of being neurobiologist and art historian, but this has led to the reason why I am here, namely to teach neuroaesthetics. I am very happy and grateful to be here in Saint Petersburg to present my lectures. They are a mini-version of the course that I have presented the last four years at the University of Bergen. The lectures are intended to provide insights into recent scientific works and methods in neuroaesthetics. (next) The conception of ´Neuroaesthetics` was coded in 1999 by the neuroscientist Semir Zeki, who is a professor at the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, University College, London. Hence, it is a relatively new discipline, (next) and lies at the intersection between cognitive psychology, neurobiology and art. (next) In neuroaesthetics, models mostly deriving from cognitive psychology and modern brain scanning techniques are used in studies on how the brain responds to aesthetic stimuli. (next) Zeki’s main interest is the primate visual brain system. From 1994 onwards, his studies also included the neural basis of aesthetic appreciation of art, and in 2001 he founded the Institute of Neuroesthetics, the first of its kind in the world, at University College London. The aims of this institute are: to study the creative process as a manifestation of the functions of the brain; (next) to study the biological foundations of aesthetics; (next) to provide a scientific forum for artists; (next) to instill among neurobiologists the virtues of using the products of art to study the organization of the brain; (next) to promote the importance of learning more about the brain when approaching topics such as art, morality, religion etc.
    [Show full text]
  • VISIBLE SOUNDS Interrelationships Among Music, the Visual Arts and the Performing Arts
    Joint Research Conference of the Institute for Advanced Studies And the Israel Science Foundation Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance VISIBLE SOUNDS Interrelationships among Music, the Visual Arts and the Performing Arts Jerusalem February 21-25, 2010 Abstracts, Speakers and Performers Sunday, February 21 15:00-18:30: Feldman Building, Room 130, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Givat Ram Campus Greetings Prof Eliezer Rabinovici, Director, Institute for Advanced Studies, Jerusalem Prof. Arnon Zuckerman, President, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem Prof. Ilan Schul, President, The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Prof. Menachem Zur, The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance 1 PHILOSOPHICAL MATTERS / Chairman: Yael Kaduri Lydia Goehr Ruth HaCohen Michal Grover-Friedlander Lydia Goehr Pictures at an Exhibition: On the Possibility of Musical Ekphrasis My lecture considers a range of related questions. My Mussorgskian title interestingly relates to what Hegel writes at the end of his Phänomenologie des Geistes regarding the relation between the experience of art and the acquisition of knowledge. By reference to a history extending from Antiquity to the present, I ask in what manner, if any, music relates to poetic images beyond traditional ideals of mimesis or musical accompaniment. Is musical ekphrasis more than musical mimesis? Is musical evocation more than imitation? I also consider whether it makes sense to distinguish ekphrasis by the art of music and musical ekphrasis, given how the concept of musicality extends beyond the musical medium. Finally, I ask whether it is possible for music to describe or evoke an image that exists, no longer exists, or never existed? In this matter, I pay specific attention to the curious reference to Wagner's reference to the non-existent painting of Albrecht Dürer, according to which David slew Goliath.
    [Show full text]
  • The Cognitive-Emotional Design and Study of Architectural Space: a Scoping Review of Neuroarchitecture and Its Precursor Approaches
    sensors Review The Cognitive-Emotional Design and Study of Architectural Space: A Scoping Review of Neuroarchitecture and Its Precursor Approaches Juan Luis Higuera-Trujillo 1,2,* , Carmen Llinares 1 and Eduardo Macagno 3 1 Institute for Research and Innovation in Bioengineering (i3B), Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain; [email protected] 2 Escuela de Arquitectura, Arte y Diseño (EAAD), Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey 72453, Mexico 3 Division of Biological Sciences, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0116, USA; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] or [email protected]; Tel.: +34-963-877-518 Abstract: Humans respond cognitively and emotionally to the built environment. The modern possibility of recording the neural activity of subjects during exposure to environmental situations, using neuroscientific techniques and virtual reality, provides a promising framework for future design and studies of the built environment. The discipline derived is termed “neuroarchitecture”. Given neuroarchitecture’s transdisciplinary nature, it progresses needs to be reviewed in a contextualised way, together with its precursor approaches. The present article presents a scoping review, which maps out the broad areas on which the new discipline is based. The limitations, controversies, benefits, impact on the professional sectors involved, and potential of neuroarchitecture and its precursors’ approaches are critically addressed. Citation: Higuera-Trujillo, J.L.; Llinares, C.; Macagno, E. The Keywords: neuroarchitecture; emotional design; neuroscience; architecture; built environment; Cognitive-Emotional Design and review Study of Architectural Space: A Scoping Review of Neuroarchitecture and Its Precursor Approaches. Sensors 2021, 21, 2193. 1. Introduction https://doi.org/10.3390/s21062193 Architecture has various effects on people.
    [Show full text]