events | Creating Creativity

Art and "science" of phrenology: Erkenne Dich selbst (know yourself)

Creativity has always represented a survival means during the hardship times I experienced several times in my life. For me creativity develop in many modalities and be embodied by several physical media —some of which do not necessarily to aesthetics production. Solving an equation or writing computer programs are creative expressions and often an underlying aesthetics is present in many mathematical and logical cognitive processes.
I am also interested int the nature of creativity and how it relates to the brain morphology and physiology; this interest led me to pursue a PhD on the other hemisphere of the planet, namely Deakin University in Australia. My research "Form Mind Body Space Time" explores the relationship between the aesthetics of human movement and cognitive states; the methodology follows a methodological approach, weaving art and design practices to exercise science and neuroscientific investigations. My objective is to record and measure anedoctal evidence with rigorous experiments —acceptable in scientific terms. One of my research questions is if the mindfulness and aesthetics of human movement, as found in yoga postures to performance arts has influence on mental processes.
My personal research intersect the growing popularity of cognitive sciences in contemporary culture. In the last decades the scientific practices related to neuroscience have expanded from the scientific labs and experiments on mice brain to involve human participation at much greater extents. Probably there are two different developments which are responsible for the broadening of neuroscience among general population: the development of non invasive neuroimaging technology as well as the affordability of electroencephalography (EEG) —the recording of the brain electrical activity. Although the most sophisticated neuroimaging equipment, such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), remains in the domain of the scientific community, EEG has become widespread not only in the medical professionals offices but also in homes, mainly for its use in computer games. Neurofeedback and the effects of spiritual practices on the brain have also become the subject of articles and reportage in mainstream media, with photographs of meditation practitioners wearing a EEG headset.
So it is with great anticipation (and expectation) that I will be attending the symposium The Default Mode Network in Aesthetics and Creativity where "leading neuroscientists from top research institutes will gather in New York for a two-day symposium to discuss what the brain is doing when in a wakeful resting state. The DMN – a network of brain regions typically found to be suppressed when individuals focus on their external environment – has been hypothesized to generate spontaneous thoughts during daydreaming and may be crucial for self-referential mental processing, social interactions and the understanding of many neurological disorders."  Tonight keynote speaker Dr. Bill Kelley, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth University, will "present on the Default Mode Network, its history, and our emerging understanding of its function in creative thought."

Events NYC | Neuroscience: Eric Kandel on Memory at CUNY

Erkenne Dich selbst (know yourself)

This evening my walkabouts took me across the street from the Empire State Building: the Graduate Center of CUNY presented Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel, as launching event of the new Interdisciplinary Committee for Science Studies. Eric R. Kandel, M.D., professor at Columbia University and director of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 2000.

In his presentation dr. Kandel focused on memory and introduced the history of research on memory as a system problem and as molecular problem. He started with phrenology (from the Greek φρήν "mind" and λόγος "knowledge"): the popular XIX century discipline (now considered pseudoscience) was developed by the German physician Franz Joseph Gall and assigned cognitive functions and emotions to areas of the brain. The history of how cognitive functions became assigned to specific brain region was quite fascinating and quite amusing to learn how intelligence and emotional responses were determined as function of measurement of the skull.

Dr. Kandel's presentation progressed into contemporary neuroscience and introduced memory related topics such as the relationship between short term, long term, implicit and explicit memory, spatial learning in the hippocampus, influence of aging and how memory is effected by emotions. He also mentioned his upcoming book on art and neuroscience, with references to the German expressionism as well as Gestalt and visual illusions. The content was delivered with great clarity to be fully understood and appreciated even by an audience without specific more technical knowledge in the field of neuroscience.

In the QA session the audience introduced major themes such as neuroscience and ethics: can evil have a biological explanation?

Unfortunately the QA session ended before I was able to ask a question on mnemonic systems from the ancient Greece, Rome and the Renaissance ---as narrated in The Art of Memory by Frances A. Yates. As an artist interested in neuroscience and concerned with the transformation of space, the association between space and memory is quite relevant to my work.

To be continued...

PS The Empire State Building has nothing to do with dr. Kandel's presentation, I only took the photo on my way to CUNY, as I am always fascinated by the interaction of light with landmark building ---and I am not the only one, remember Andy Warhol? As the topic of the lecture was memory and this blog (as many others) is a collection of visual memories...why not including it?