Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Week 7: Art and Neuroscience


Neuroscience is described as “the study of how the nervous system develops, its structure and what it does” (Nordqvist ). In particularly, the way the brain exists and processes has taken on the word of consciousness.  Consciousness has been attempted to be explained by artists and scientist alike and take on unique perspectives. A second interesting perspective is how the brain interacts and reacts to the presence of art, particularly of the audio form. These responses of the brain have been recorded and captured by technology.






Artist expressing consciousness as a picture


The first topic of consciousness is a very particular and difficult one. According to Braverman, consciousness is to be able to “direct their awareness to themselves and experience a sense of Self.” Such a description directly reflects an artists’ ability to convey a specific experience through his or her art. A person can direct sense of themselves and their surroundings onto an art median that can express themselves about a particular subject. From a scientific perspective, the consciousness from a brain can be directed towards very specific objectives where parts of the brain, as seen below, are responsible for certain parts of human life. 





Although it has been said that every conscious person is a unique individual, it has been found that “different listeners will show very similar patterns of brain activity” (Ghose). It can be interpreted from this that perhaps the brain has all of the same basic functions within each individual person. This is reflected by the way many unique individual brains react to the same music the same way. Despite the fact that our brains may react the same way, many individuals still express their uniqueness in personal preference of music choice. The human brain may process music the same way person to person, but the human consciousness is what makes us unique from each other.









Braverman, Asaf. "Consciousness." Consciousness. N.p., 2011. Web. 13 May 2015



Cherry, Kendra. "Consciousness." Psychology.about.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 May 2015.



Ghose, By Tia. "In Brain Scans, Music Is A Universal Language." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 10 Apr. 2013. Web. 13 May 2015.



Nordqvist, Christian. "What Is Neuroscience?" Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, 26 Sept. 2014. Web. 13 May 2015.



1 comment:

  1. Consciousness has been discussed by both artists and scientists as you say. Have you considered the philosopher as both an artist and a scientist? I read some works on philosophy by writers such as Descartes and the Enlightenment thinkers discussing the biological and spiritual nature of the consciousness and what control we have over our consciousness.
    Hamilton Trinh

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