When Art Meets Neuroscience: Where is the Future of Art Going
Why artists should study neuroscience and how can neuroscientists learn from art?
My curiosity to find evidence that linked together the two subjects that come from different disciplines didn’t end when I first learned about the field of neuroaesthetics. In fact, the more I immersed my self into the subject, the more eager I felt to unlock the contextual elements between the two fields. Neuoaesthetics, a new field founded by professor Semir Zeki, is futuristic interdisciplinary field that combines neuroscience, philosophy and art. Learning more about neuroaesthetics to me felt like I finally found the pieces to build the bridge-crossing riddle. I rigorously and religiously studied the works of Dr. Zeki, someone whom I highly respect and admire and who despite his busy schedule has always made time to discuss and answer my questions.
In the past century, advances in the field of visual neuroscience were behind and as described by Dr. Zeki in his book “ A Vision of the Brain”, the theories were like a domino game. In the sense that with time, as the researchers and scientists dug deeper and as the truth was being unfolded, original concepts were proven wrong, hence dismantling with it all related beliefs, thus intensifiying mysteries about the visual brain.
Color Constancy
Color constancy is the ability to recognize the color of an object despite the color of the light source. The paradox was that despite profound variations in the wavelength composition of the light reflected from a surface, the color of the object being viewed has not changed. Color constancy works so well that we barely recognize its existence or importance.
A lot of neuroscience concepts such as color constancy have been unintentionally experimented by artist like in the case of Edwin Land who astonished the world with his revolutionary invention, the polaroid instant camera. His invention also contributed a great deal in the field of understanding color constancy with his theory which he coined with the term, the retinex theory (by combining the word retina with cortex). Land strongly believed that color constancy was the key to explain color vision. Even though Land's theory discredited the works done by Newton and Young, there is no way to undermine its originality. Land pioneered this idea by exposing a Mondrian to three colored filters using three projectors, each projector only emitting one wavelength of light, short, medium and long. He found that the amount of light by each projector and the amount of light of each wavelength being reflected had no effect on the perception of his colors. Why the colors of objects stayed pretty much the same in different lighting settings was paradox of this topic and shows how human color perception is complex.
Color vision is the simplest visual attribute to understand despite its apparent complexity (Zeki, 1993).
There is an interesting phenomenon, known as the Purkinje shift, which is due to the difference in the rod and cone responses as a function of wavelength. As lighting conditions dim, the relative proportions of rod and cone contributions shift, resulting in the luminance of colors changing, take as an example, a number of red apples in a blue bowl, at dusk the reds become darker and the blues become brighter, in contrary with their appearance in daylight. This is probably because scientifically rods are insensitive to long wavelengths.
The Artistic Visual Subdivisions of the Brain
Color vision truly begins at the retina when the three types of photoreceptors absorb the light from an object. Then, the light waves determine the colors that we perceive from the combinations of the three wavelengths on the visible spectrum that approximately ranges between 390–700nm. Color vision travels from the retina to the primary visual cortex which houses two dozen specialized areas. Most prominently of those areas of vision are V1, V2, V3, V4 and V5 where each of them is considered a specialized area, though an area does not receive input from one or other pathways but rather from multiple locations that work interdependently.
- V1 and V2 — work as disriputors
- V3 — Dynamic form
- V4 — Color form
- V5 — Motion
In sum, each area is not distinct by itself, but rather depends on other elements. Scroll down for examples that shows how these areas are part of a unitary system. (Kinetic art, Fauvism..etc)
V4 — The Color Center of the Brain
The primary visual cortex of the visual brain houses many specialized areas. To name some, area V4, first discovered by professor Zeki, back in the 1970s, is solely responsible for analyzing color perception due to its wavelength-selective cells that are concerned with the human's perception of colors.
V3 — The Form Center of the Brain
Area V3 is entirely involved with form. Area V4 is also concerned with form, however, in association with color, where as area V3 is related to dynamic form.
The Fauve Movement and the Manipulation of V3 and V4
Now that we know that area V3 is concerned with form and area V4 is related to color, let me tell you about how art movements such as Fauvism led by the french Les Fauves, whether knowingly or not rebelled against human perception. In brief, the fauvest movement was mainly characterized by paiting scenes or objects with the wrong colors, divorcing color from form. A remarkable example is André Derain’s Charing Cross Bridge; viewing such paintings activates various sets of areas in addition to V4 unlike objects that are dressed in normal colors which only activate V4. Meaning, that both areas V3 and V4 are activated.
“While both V3 and V4 deal with form, their involvement is different. V3 is more involved with dynamic form (M pathway) while V4 is more involved in form in association with color (P pathway). This lead us to the conclusion that form perception is not restricted to area V4 in the temporal cortex but is a more widely distributed activity.” (Zeki, 1993).
V5 — The Motion Center of the Brain
The directionally-selective cell in area V5 was actually the first to be studied and discovered, and the findings showed that this area was attributed to motion regardless of the color of the stimulus.
In relation to our focal point of the topic, kinetic art, despite the fact that it is perceived moving while it actually not, when viewed, leads to the activation of area V5 that is specialized in motion and possibly areas V4 and perhaps V3 in some cases. An example of an art school that contributes to this is the Kinetic Op art movement.
“In creating his art, the artist unknowingly undertakes an experiment in which he studies the organization of the visual brain.” Semir Zeki
I have listed only a few examples on how some of the world’s most famous artists and art movements throughout history are unknowingly adept experimental neuroscientists. Discoveries in visual neuroscience in the previous centuray was way beyond and not as advanced as other scientific fields. If only, scientists and artists had realized the fact that they were both contributing despite their unrelated objectives earlier, what would the present outcome be?
“The millennial future which poets and artists have dreamed about is already here and, however small our contribution, it is satisfying to us to try to formulate the beginnings of an understanding of the relationship between the organization of the brain and its manifestation in art.” Semir Zeki
Moreover, if artists could understand the anatomy of the visual brain, and how the brain is indeed fascinatingly segregated, specialized, parallel, unitary and asynchronous at the same time, will this usher the rise of a new art movement/s? In the age of contextually and interdisciplinarity will we witness the rebirth of Art enlightenment.
“ Few areas of knowledge escape scientific scrutiny these days — even those often thought of as being at the opposite end of the intellectual spectrum.”