WEBVTT - This is Your Brain on Art 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.680 Works dot com. Hey wasn't the stuff to blow your mind? 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:15.880 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas, and 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.200 today we're talking about your brain on art. We were 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:23.079 discussing the way that art Guard Funcle's music transforms the 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:28.160 mind um scans of of the brain while listening to 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:30.360 some of his classics while listening to say Bright Eyes 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:34.240 or even some of his work with Paul Simon. Oh yeah, 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:36.760 we're not gonna mention Paul Simon. He told us that 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:39.479 it's it's in his the agreement that we signed with him. 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.400 We're not allowed to talk about all Simon or ps 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:45.280 as he refers to him, excellent, excellent. So I mean 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:47.280 that's kind of limiting. Do you think maybe we should 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.159 just talk about art? Yeah? Yeah, I think your art. Yeah, 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:52.080 let's open it up a little and let's just talk 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.200 about art as a whole, as in, uh more specifically 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:59.360 visual arts, paintings to certain degree, sculptures. Yeah, yeah, Like 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:01.680 it's some I we're standing in front of a piece 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:03.080 of art. I mean, this is what we're trying to 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:06.480 get to and why we're completely arrested. What is happening 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:10.240 in our brains? Why why are we so attracted to 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.080 some will be arrested if you were trying to touch 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:15.960 the art. Yeah, by the way, Yeah, don't try to, like, uh, 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:18.720 make a big scene with a friend and then don't 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:22.440 expose yourself to it. Yeah, don't don't, Okay, yeah, no, 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.680 no overcoats nakedness underneath, and don't make a big scene 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:27.600 with a friend and then try to get them painting 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:30.440 off of the wall and run away with it. Doesn't work. Yeah, 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:32.880 but no, I mean seriously, haven't you ever had a 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:34.720 moment where you're standing in front of something and you 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:39.039 were just completely floored, You're just smacked. Yeah, specifically, like 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:41.320 really the last couple of years, I have two examples 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.000 of like recent experiences. I love going to art museums, 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:47.800 especially like modern art museums. But in the last year 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.520 or two I got to see that a young museum 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:53.400 in San Francisco, and there is a piece there by 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.800 an artist by the name of Irving Norman, who I've 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:01.400 mentioned before on this podcast. And the is this enormous 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.920 wall sized piece from nineteen sixty six called War and Peace. 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.079 And I when I there were other pieces in the room. 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:09.240 But when I saw that one, it was just one 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:11.000 of these where I just stared at it because it's 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:14.720 it's enormous, divide into three pieces, uh and uh. Like 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:18.519 on either end there these just this dark um sort 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:23.440 of metropolis esque visions of of like this nightmare capitalist 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:27.720 future that that the artist was was perceiving and fearing 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:30.040 back in the day. He was also influenced by VS 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:32.400 by the Spanish Civil War, so there's a lot of 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:34.560 like the horrors of war and the whole central piece 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:39.080 or these two titans, these two enormous pale figures, and 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.800 they're about to strike these weapons together, like these giant clubs, 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:45.679 and the clubs are like hollowed out and filled with 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:49.000 all these tiny people, and it's just this amazing, just 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.160 nightmarck image with all this stuff going on in it, 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.760 and there's you know, neon and and cities and bones 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.399 and and war and strife and and all these symbols 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:00.320 hidden in it, and it just it just you in. 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:02.960 I just remember just standing there and just just standing there, 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.400 just wanting to continue standing there in front of it. 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:07.760 Another another artist that really impressed me in the last year, 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:12.040 so it was Richard Sarah h when well, actually, when 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.400 both of us were in New York for the World 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.639 Science Festival, UM, I snuck over to along with my wife, 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.040 snuck over to the New York Museum of Art and UH, 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:24.000 and we mainly went over to catch this Alexander McQueen 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:27.360 piece they did with the fashion guy Savage Beauty, and 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:29.639 that was really cool. But then we we wandered into 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:33.679 this section about Richard Sarah and Uh in this amazing retrospective. 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:35.640 He does a lot of sculpture, and a lot of 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.520 his work is just black and white, especially is more 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.920 painting type work, and it's it'll be just like a circle, 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.200 like a black circle, enormous on a large white plane. 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:47.600 But then the closer you get, you see all this texture, 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:50.560 like the circle is is it like comes out at you. 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:52.840 It's I mean, it's it's a three D it looks 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.640 like it's made out of charcoal or earth or or 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:57.920 or it's just sort of worn there and it just 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.520 I had a really nice experiences staring at these various 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.800 pieces and just being sucked into the into the contrast 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.160 of it. So how about you, what what have you 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.640 been into? Art wise? I love modern art, but one 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:12.840 of the things that's just stayed with me throughout the years. 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:15.520 Is a painting by John Singer Sergeant. And I'm not 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:17.680 a huge fan of him. By the way that his 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:19.640 his whole body of work I think is really beautiful, 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:21.799 but I'm not like, oh man, this guy's the best. 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:26.279 But there's a huge painting at the Isabella Stewart Gardner 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:28.560 Museum in Boston that I used to just go and 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:30.839 stand in front of all the time, and it's called 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.719 L Hello. It's E L J A L EO, and 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:39.480 it's just incredible. It's just it's there's like slightly erotic, 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:41.920 and then you know it's by the way it's painted 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.560 in the eighteen hundreds, and um, you know this is 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:48.040 an American painter, so it's not you know, it's not 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:50.960 that racy. But there's a woman who is dancing and 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.320 she's swaying to the side, and there are men playing 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:58.159 the guitars in the background, and it's just very moody 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:00.719 and there's a lot of space in the painting, and 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:02.520 for some reason, I always feel like I'm going to 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.400 be sucked in, and so it's very much a mood 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:08.480 for me. Um, And every time I look at it again, 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:12.520 same thing. I have a different understanding of that painting. 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:14.919 And I think that's what's so fascinating about art is 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:17.680 each time you go back to a particular piece, you 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.960 tend to get more from it. And how amazing that 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:23.800 someone can create something from their brain like that and 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.320 give you a new, fresh experience every time you look 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:31.760 at it. And that is actually what VS. Ramachandra, neuroscientists 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.400 who we've talked about quite a bit, says the purpose 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.440 of art is. He says it's to enhance, transcend, or 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.800 indeed even distort reality. And he's really big on this 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:43.839 because he says that the reason why we're so engaged 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:46.760 with something is we're looking at it and it's not reality. 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.359 It is somehow a caricature of it, but it has 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.320 distilled the essence of some sort of truth in it. 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:55.679 And we're going to talk a little bit more about 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:57.880 that today and and try to even see if we 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:01.039 can get some science behind the art going on. Yeah, 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:02.960 I mean it's you even hear stories that I've never 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.240 had this reaction, but you hear stories about people who 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:09.119 have had just severe reactions encountering amazing art, like people 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.880 who have fainted, people who come to tears staring at 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.320 a piece, and uh, I mean that and that just 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:17.760 speaks you know, maybe not everyone has the capacity to 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:20.960 be touched like that or that or the right wiring 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:23.320 um as we'll discuss. You know, there may be some 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:25.960 elements of synesthesia at work there. But you had just 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:28.200 the idea that a painting on a wall created by 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.120 um an artist that has been dead for centuries, can 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:35.360 still just evoke this visceral response in the viewer that 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:37.480 it can, and also that it can. It can anger us, 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:39.440 they can frighten us, they can disturb us. It can 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.200 it can bring us to tears. It can captivate our minds. 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:45.160 Like you know, you go and you see a really 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:47.680 awesome piece at a museum, it continues to play a 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:51.000 part in your thought patterns for weeks, months, years to come. 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.520 And it's so subjective, right, And this is why Ramachandran 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:59.000 and also Professor samr. Zeki, also a neurs scientists have 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:01.159 looked into this to see if there's some sort of 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.279 unified theory of art that they can scratch at. And 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:09.040 of everybody wants to do this, righted theory of humor 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.400 or the brain or I mean, everybody just wants a 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.200 tidy explanation. And uh so we're going to talk about 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.160 that quite a bit today, particularly Romantron Dron and some 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:19.720 of the thoughts that he has on this. Um doesn't 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:23.040 mean that it's exactly correct and we can just tie 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.440 this up and call it a day. No, not at all, because, 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:27.360 as we all know, the art is subjective and it's 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:31.080 very hard to pin down. But what has happened is 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:36.640 that there's a newish field called neuroesthetics that has bubbled up. Um. 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.400 This is basically a field that's trying to try to 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:42.960 use the tools of modern neuroscience, like brain imaging to 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:46.160 get at the crux of art. Um and this, uh, 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.280 the artist is in a sense a neuroscientist. In fact, 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.320 some mere Zeki that the neurobiologists that I spoke of, 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:55.320 has said that the artist is in a sense a 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:59.480 neuroscientist exploring the potentials and capacities of the brain. Uh, 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.720 though with different tools, And I thought that was really interesting. 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.000 This kept coming up again and again in this research 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:09.160 that artists are the original neuroscientists. Yeah, instead of using 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:13.040 a scalpel or a or or some sort of scanning mechanism, 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.080 they're using well, maybe a scalpel or um or a 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:20.240 paintbrush or a jar, a giant robotic cloaca. It just 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:22.960 it just varies determining on exactly what kind of archer 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:25.040 you're really going for. But see, it's interesting you bring 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:26.960 up the cloaca because they say that, you know that 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:29.760 neuroscience thinks that we can take this end product of art, 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:32.920 right and reverse engineer to figure out how the mind works. 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.800 And in a sense when when it was was the 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:38.560 artist of VIM I can't remember his last name, Milloy, 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:42.400 I think when he created this cloaca out of this 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:46.480 machine was really trying to get at the the process 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:50.040 of digestion, the second brain right, right, So a lot 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.680 of this is trying to work out our humanness. Yeah, 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.559 and a and as we're talking about analyzing the brain again, 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.719 it searched to to remind everyone that these the very 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:00.840 scanning techniques that are used. A lot of it boils 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:02.520 down to looking. We're able to look at the brain. 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:04.959 We're able to see how blood moves in the brain 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.760 when areas of the brain are engaged. Just as we're 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:09.960 discussed with memory, the way that memory is a complex 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:13.600 system that interacts at various points in the brain in 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:17.319 different systems of memory. The brain itself is rather complicated, 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:18.760 but but we can look at it, we can see 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.120 what's lighting up and we can and it's it's through 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:25.040 that technique we attempt to understand exactly how we're processing 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.800 things such as stimuli such as art or music and 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.600 other studies. Well, and that's what's so fascinating about this 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:34.080 field of neurasthetics. That's exactly what they're trying to do. 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.680 They're saying, this is knowable. We can actually take the 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.120 brain and we can start to map it so that 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.719 we can see when people feel anguish or when they 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:48.240 feel uh, you know, titilated or um, you know, all 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.400 these different things that are going through someone's mind. They 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.080 feel like eventually they can tag it in the human 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.199 brain and start to say, okay, how how did that 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.080 actual piece of art do this to us? You know, 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:02.280 what's what's going on? Um? And this is from Jonah 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:06.600 Laire's Psychology Today article about this UM and he's talking 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.240 specifically about the Mona Lisa smile and saying that this 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.679 Mona Lisa, which has captivated audiences for hundred spears, everyone's 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:16.959 so familiar with this piece of the Mona Lisa, we 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:19.559 really forget how captivating it is because it's it's so 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:24.480 it's so overproduced in culture that and so I mean, 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:26.599 we forget that it's amazing art and it's one of 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.679 the great masterpieces of of of human artistry, right, and 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.520 people are you know, there's always the question about whether 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:39.240 or not she's smiling or smirking, or she's actually quite miffed, right, 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.000 And how amazing that you can look at this painting 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.599 and no one can agree on exactly what her perspective is. 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.040 I would see it like she's about to smile, like 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:51.520 I've like I've told a joke that she's a little shy, 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.079 says she doesn't want to laugh or give me like 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:56.000 a full smile, but I can tell that I've made 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.960 her chuckle inside. See, I think that she just had 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.880 a little bite of mutton and uh, you know, she's 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.000 trying to hold still, but she's got a big water 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:09.319 of food in her mouth. That's my interpretation. Actually. Margaret Livingston, 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.320 she's a neuroscientist at Harvard, argues that da Vinci exploits 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:15.840 the peculiar structures of the retina and this is really interesting. Um. 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:18.760 This is again from the article from Jena Lair in 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.400 Psychology Today. It says, the facial expression of the Mona 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.000 Lisa fluctuates depending on which part of our retina we 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.480 are using to look at her mouth. When we first 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:28.839 look at the painting, our eyes are automatically drawn to 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.240 her eyes, which means our peripheral vision perceives her smile. 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.280 This part of the retina naturally focuses on the shadows 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.560 cast by her cheekbones, which served to exaggerate the curvature 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:42.240 of her lips. As a result, our peripheral vision concludes 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.480 that the Mona Lisa is smiling. Livingston demonstrated this by 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.480 blurring the entire painting with Adobe Photoshop to replicate what 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:51.600 we would see if we were relying solely on peripheral vision. 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.920 The end result is a much happier Mona Lisa that 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:57.560 when we focus on her mouth, retina ignores the shadows. 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.400 The brain blurniness disappears. Instead, we thick safe on the 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:04.000 lips of the Mona Lisa, which are virtually expressionless. All 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.760 of a sudden, she's no longer happy. Excuse me happy. 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.040 The painting has literally changed before our eyes. H It 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.160 says this ambiguity is intriguing. Living Ston argues, as we 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.720 keep staring at the painting to figure out what she's 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:19.480 actually feeling, which I think that that she's nailed it. 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:23.320 There's that ambiguity, uh, And I think that's what intrigues 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.800 our minds. And somehow da Vinci had a really great 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:30.760 understanding of perspective and how to manipulate this. And it's 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:32.800 not just da Vinci. There are many artists who have 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:35.920 messed with all sorts of perspective. And again, this is 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:39.199 what neuroscientists are so intrigued by. How artists are seeing 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:44.360 the lines and the color and distorting and manipulating reality 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:46.680 for us. And maybe that there's some sort of insight 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:49.079 and how they see and how have they've kind of 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:51.520 gotten into the human brain and figured out how our 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:53.840 eyes are actually working. So I mean that of course 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:56.440 brings up this question about how do we see? Um, 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.480 you know, vision and perception used to be that we 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.760 thought that it was just our lens and our eyes 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.240 taking in an image, flipping it, you know, an optical 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.680 nerve transmits it to the visual cortex. Boom, We're done. 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:11.679 But it turns out it's so much more nuanced than that. 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.240 What we actually perceive. Yeah, we've we've talked in the 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:18.839 past about site and perception and about the the the 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.599 idea that there's like there's like a little area, like 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.960 a little pinprick of high detail site and then there's 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.840 a lot of low detail side. Even though we perceive, 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:29.640 we look at something and we think we're seeing it 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:33.640 all in high death, but our eyes really scanning it. Right, 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:36.280 there's the grainy parts, right, And the grainy parts turn 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:38.920 out to be really important in pattern recognition later on, 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:40.959 and we'll talk about that a little bit. Uh. In 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:46.000 the scientists David hu Will and Torsten Weesel demonstrated that um, 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.319 instead of responding to pixels, cells in the visual cortex 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:52.079 response to straight lines and angles of light, and that 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:56.800 the neurons prefer contrast over brightness, straight edges over curves, 0:13:57.040 --> 0:13:59.880 and that contrast allows to more efficiently pick out object. 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.400 Puble and Weasel became the first scientist to actually describe 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:07.160 what really looks like uh, something before it has actually 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.320 been perceived, when our mind is still creating our sense 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.559 of sight, which I thought was really fascinating, Like, again, 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:15.800 it's not this black and white, this is the process, 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:18.800 this is what's happening, there are all these different things 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.480 going on. One of my favorite exercises that I may 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.120 have mentioned this before that underlines just what's going on 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:27.440 with our eyes and how there's more going on with 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.400 our site perception than what meets the eye, and that 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:31.840 is that if you go to a mirror and you 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.400 look at one pupil and then switch your vision to 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:39.240 the other people, and you cannot see your eyes move right, 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:43.160 you have blind spots. Yeah. Yeah, and again that's such 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:47.240 a good example of how we can't necessarily always trust 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.400 our reality and how so much which is fed to 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.960 our eyes into our memory is is really just a 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:58.400 matter of very selective pieces of things that sometimes have 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.040 been manipulated for us if we haven't even manipulated for ourselves. 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.120 Turns out that Dutch artists Pit mandreon and this I'm 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.400 sure a lot of people are familiar with mandreon Um. 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.200 This is sort of like a vertical and horizontal grid 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:15.000 of paintings that he produced, usually with primary colors. Yeah, 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:16.640 and I'm gonna I'm gonna add when we do a 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:18.640 blog post to go along with this, I will make 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:22.280 sure that we have outgoing links to some examples of 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.080 these different artists that we're mentioning. Yeah. Yeah, so that 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:26.880 you will have a handy reference of that these guys 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:28.960 are and you're not having to try and spell weird names, 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.040 just the right way in doing Google image searches. Uh, 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:34.800 you know, while driving that kind of thing. And he 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:36.800 was trying to get at the heart of like a 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.200 sort of truth about forms, and he was pretty obsessive 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:42.520 about it. This plurality of straight lines in rectangular opposition 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.880 UM and Professor Zeki has said that geometrical paintings like 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:49.960 these are remarkably similar to the geometry of lines sensed 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.000 by the visual cortex, as if the painter could look 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.560 inside the process in the brain. Uh. And by the way, 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.360 when we're talking about this visual cortex and talking about processing, 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:01.920 there are really thirty areas of the brain with different 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:07.920 aspects of UM processing your vision. So we're talking about depth, vision, movement, perception. Wow. 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.480 So yeah, that again drives home there's so much going 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:12.960 on when we were just looking at something. We're looking 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.360 at that painting on the wall. It's not just I 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:17.360 am looking and then my brain is thinking about what 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:20.720 I'm seeing, it's your your thirty different sections are working 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.720 on this project. Of understanding what is before your eyes 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.720 exactly exactly. And then now think again about Leonardo da 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:31.040 Vinci or any of the other great the great classical painters. 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:36.280 Before psychologists and neuroscientists formulated theories of depth cues, these 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:41.040 guys and and some women were actually working to create 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:46.920 these palets on their on their canvases, to manipulate your eye, again, 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.560 knowing on some level that if you draw your eye 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.320 over here, then you start to to really engage the mind. 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:56.880 You're giving the mind a bone to chew on to 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.200 figure out what is the story that's going on here, 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.040 and that this again is the crux of what uh 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.159 rum Chendren is trying to get at. Why is some 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.440 aren't so intriguing, why is this gravi us? Is there 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.159 is there one unifying thing here and it possibly is 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:15.560 that this the ability to manipulate something to the point 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:18.600 that your brain is really intrigued by it. Kind of 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:22.160 it reminds me of one of the more anequated ways 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:24.800 to deal with a vampire in myth and legend, and 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:27.440 that's to leave a knot out for it, or some 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.280 sort of either or not or something that's woven really 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.000 intricately because in the vampire will become obsessed with it 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.920 and they'll just stand there trying to untie the knot 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.320 or just feeling the uh, the weave in the fabric 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:41.240 until the sun comes up and burns them a lot. 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:43.439 I love that. So if you're about if you if 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:45.040 your flesh was about to be pierced, you would just 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.080 throw a knot like a good sailor tied knot and 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:49.600 be like here and there you go, and they would 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:51.240 sort of run off like a dog. Yeah, yeah, but 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.119 it's silly, But but I really love it because it 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:58.000 in illuminating something about It illuminates something about humans and 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.359 trying to come up with some of you know, mythical 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.240 um explanation of foul Vampuire's work. It really gives a 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.000 little insight on how we work, because that's the way 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:07.720 our brains are. Throw it up, throw it an not, 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:10.120 and it's gonna set there fiddling with it. It's true. 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:13.200 We love a good distraction. Um in a moment to hear. 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:14.800 Right after we take the break, we're going to talk 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:19.720 about other distractions and what seagull chicks hatching have to 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:24.119 do it with art. This podcast is brought to you 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:28.359 by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:33.000 at Intel. We believe curiosity is the spark which drives innovation. 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:37.120 Join us at curiosity dot com and explore the answers 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:43.280 to life's questions. All right, we're back. Seagull chicks. What 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:45.000 do they have to do with art? And what is 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:48.600 this thing called peak shift? Peak shift? Okay again, Rama Chundra. 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.160 He's thinking about art a lot these days. Right, he's 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.320 a neuroscientists. He's not a big well he is at 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:56.080 art lever now. But at the time when he was 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:59.920 thinking about this, he had been in India a sabbatical 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:03.200 seven or eight years and was realizing that he was 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.240 responding to the art around him and the art that 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:08.600 he had learned in his Western culture and and getting 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:11.040 a fuller understanding of it. And he started to think 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.560 about seagull chicks that hatch and they start to peck 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:18.120 at the mother's beak for food. And the mother seagulls beak, 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.399 by the way, is a long yellow beak with red spot. 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.000 And it's what researchers found out is that the chicks 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.080 were specifically pecking at the red spot on the beak 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:30.760 that somehow they were hardwired to realize that red spot 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:34.520 means food. So Ramchana refers to the research done in 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.680 which the beak was simulated by a fake beak with 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.879 red spot. Okay, some no, no mama chick was involved, 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.119 and they still were pecking at this red spot. So 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:46.200 then they thought, well, let's just get even more ridiculous, 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:49.600 and let's put a stick with a red dot and 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.440 and do this. Okay, same thing. They were like, we 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:54.920 love this red stick. Just give us some food. And 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:59.119 then they just to even abstract it even further. They 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:01.480 took the stick and I put three red stripes on it, 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:04.760 and the chicks went nuts. So because they're like, whoa, 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:07.960 three moms, three meals at once. Perhaps perhaps there was 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:12.119 some sort of representation on some level, this abstraction of 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.959 this idea of food in this form and this symbol 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:18.360 that made them go nuts for it. So so they're 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:23.240 hardwired to appreciate certain not art, but something in the 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:28.360 aesthetic world, some some contrast of colors and shapes, right, yes, 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.359 colors and and so what what rom Charon is saying, 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:33.359 and then this is this is sort of far reaching 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:37.000 but interesting, okay, is that abstract artists are tapping into 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:40.080 the figural primitives of our perceptual grammar and creating ultra 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:44.439