Module 2

1-Key Concepts of the video and article

Key Concepts: CNN - What the brain draws from: Art and neuroscience

Pattern processing is a very important aspect of the human species that helped us to survive when we lived as animals, and now that we no longer live that way that same aspect of our brains allows us to appreciate and understand art. Humans are able to recognize images made completely out of outlines, see faces in abstract art, and create 3-dimensional on a 2-dimensional canvas are all possible due to our highly evolved pattern processing capabilities. 

Key concepts: Aesthetics: Philosophy of the Arts

This video focuses on the definition of aesthetics, a philosophical theory of what is beautiful and what is art, based on the ideas from various philosophers, from Plato in the fourth century BCE up until the modern era. It shows how the idea of aesthetics have changed dramatically throughout the ages, either as a reaction to terrible events such as war and famine, or as a new technology such as photography frees the artist to be as free as they want to be.

Key concepts: Evolutionary Origins of Art and Aesthetics

This video focused on the neurobiological origins of art and the effects that art has on the human brain. I learned that how we perceive art is a continuation of our survival mechanisms that we have honed over the last millions of years to recognize prey and predators.

2. Which philosopher's theory on aesthetics do you feel is most important? Be sure to mention the philosophers name, era (time in history), and contribution to the aesthetic theory in your response.

I believe that RG Collingwood's advancement of the concept of expressionism in the early 20th century was the most important theory of aesthetics. He believed that the purpose of art was more to express the emotions of the artist at the time of creation of that art than it was to elicit responses in the audience. 

3 - What do you think about Changeux and Ramachandran scientific view of aesthetics and art? What was the most interesting fact you discovered from each speakers lecture? 

Changeux’s lecture gives us a neurobiologist’s point of view on how we perceive art and its evolutionary origins as a descendant of tool use by primitive ancestors of humans. He gives many examples of how viewing art affects our brains on a biological level, such as how our brains perceive obvious images versus unobvious images. The most interesting fact that I learned from Changeux’s lecture was his explanation of how the brain reacts to surprise and how it relates to an artist’s search for novelty in their art.

Ramachandran’s lecture’s main idea seemed to be that art is about ‘deliberately altering’ an image to ‘produce pleasing effects on the human brain.’ The most interesting thing that I learned from Ramachandran’s lecture was about teaching shapes to rats and their understanding of the rules, which in his example was teaching a rat the difference between a square and a rectangle by placing food in the rectangle and not in the square. If shown a rectangle that is even more stretched out, ie less square and more rectangular, the rat will prefer that over a rectangle with sides that are closer to the same side because that rule of rectangularity is what the rat has come to associate with food.

4 - How do the videos and article relate to the readings in the text?

The article and the neurobiological video relates to the text as an expansion on how the human brain is wired as a pattern processing machine and how that relates to our perception of art. The philosophy of aesthetics video helps to explain the history of aesthetics and how art has changed from its beginnings to where it is now, as our understanding and definition of art and beauty has changed through the centuries.

5 - What is your opinion of the films and article? How do they add depth to understanding of the topics in your reading in the text?

I enjoyed the article thoroughly because it was easier to grasp the information that was presented at my own pace and in my own voice. I had trouble with Changeux’s accent, which along with the inability to read a lot of the information on the slides that he was presenting, made following his lecture pretty difficult. I had to rewind a lot. I believe they added a lot to my understanding of the biological and neurological aspects of art, as the book doesn’t delve into them very much.