Week 7: Neuroscience and Art

The relationship between neuroscience and art is fascinating to me because we must understand how we think in order to understand how we create. No art can exist without a great deal of thought and different art exists because all people think differently. In today's world, we are surrounded by games, movies, books, and even drugs that all claim to positively change the way we think. This neuroculture is unavoidable and its influence on our society cannot be understated (Frazzetto and Anker).

An advertisement for Lumosity, a popular "brain-training" website

It comes to the point where many people actively alter their way of thinking in order to produce something that they normally would not. Professor Vesna addressed this in her discussion of the use of mind-altering drugs and their affect on artists.

The Beatles, presumably about to partake in recreational drug use

The effects of psychoactive drugs on artists and musicians is well documented, especially the use of LSD (The Art of Tripping). This includes people from Picasso to Jimi Hendrix to Salvador Dali. In the case of Dali, in addition to using various psychoactive drugs, he also devised unique ways to alter his way of thinking. The most notable of these was the "slumber with a key" trick (Eveleth). This is otherwise known as hypnagogic sleeping. Dali would hold a small key in his hand when he was very tired just above a small metal tray. When he fell asleep, he would release the key and it would clang on the tray. This would wake him up just a fraction of a second after falling asleep, jogging his mind. A similar technique was also used by Thomas Edison, though he used a steel bearing (Warren).

Thomas Edison's mind altering napping technique

I think this points to a very interesting way that many people choose to influence their art: using novel, mind-altering techniques. Hypnagogic sleeping has been championed as a way to increase productivity and overcome creative hurdles, though many such sleep schedules have been devised. The most dramatic of these is polyphasic sleep, in which an individual sleeps for brief periods throughout the day, eliminating the need for a long period of sleep at night (Polyphasic Society).

I think all of this points to the fascinating ways we can change our physical brain chemistry and subsequent way of thinking. It is very likely that much of the great art we enjoy today would not exist without it.



References:

"Beginners Start Here." Polyphasic Society. Polyphasic Sleep Society, 2009. Web.
 
Eveleth, Rose. "How to Sleep Like Salvador Dali." Smithsonian Magazine 7 Feb. 2013. Print.

Frazzetto, Giovanni, and Suzanne Anker. "Neuroculture." Nature Reviews Neuroscience Nat Rev Neurosci 10 (2009): 815-21. Print.

The Art of Tripping. TVF, 1993. Film.  

Warren, Jeff. "How to Use the Hypnagogic for Creative Problem Solving." Jeff Warren, Illustrations. Web. 2015.


Lumosity Advertisement <https://m1.behance.net/rendition/modules/53823883/disp/3a4c21074f94e67ec6330290d224b80f.jpg?cb=490363228>

The Beatles with LSD <http://www.beatlesource.com/savage/1962/62.04.13-05.31%20star%20club/03/13.jpg>

Fig. 1.4 - The Edison Technique <http://www.jeffwarren.org/wp-content/uploads/3.5-Edisontechnique-WEB.jpg>