ART and ORGANISM an exploration of the biology of aesthetic experience

1. ART and ORGANISM an exploration of the biology of aesthetic experience

2. Bricks in the wall of words(enclosing a wilderness of meaning) • Determinism • (internal, external, wisdom) • DDEEP Ethology • (Description, Development, Evolution, Ecology, Physiology) • Input, integration, output • (sensing & perception, cognition, action) • Cognition, affect, motivation • (integrative processes: memory & thinking, feeling & survival) • Needs • (homeostasis, health, sociality, esteem, self-actualization)

3. Communication is a problem

4. WORDS The best things cannot be told, the second best are misunderstood. After that comes civilized conversation; after that, mass indoctrination; after that, intercultural exchange. And so, proceeding, we come to the problem of communication: the opening, that is to say, of one's own truth and depth to the depth and truth of another in such a way as to establish an authentic community of existence. (Joseph Campbell 1968)

5. Mind Map • The “larger” meaning of your words • To help make the implicit explicit • Diagram your “free associations” about a specific concept

6. DETERMINISM Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. DETERMINISM is a central biological concern that will echo throughout our inquiries . . . What can we change? . . . or not? . . . . . Will we ever stop trying?

7. Domains of Ethology • Description • Development • Ecology • Evolution • Physiology

8. Input, integration, outputsensing & perception, cognition, action • Stimuli • the sense organs and their limits (relevant) fragments of the world . . . Supernormal, configurational • Processing • Cognition; affect; motivation; memory, consciousness • Acting • response (or not); change in inner or outer state

9. Bricks in the wall of words(enclosing a wilderness of meaning) • Cognition, affect, motivation • (integrative processes: memory & thinking, feeling & survival) CONSCIOUSNESS

10. NEEDS Maslow’s need hierarchy • Physiology(food, drink, exercise, homeostasis) • Safety(security, order, protection) • Belonging(sociability, acceptance, love) • Esteem(status, prestige, acknowledgment) • Self-Actualization(personal fulfillment)

11. we teach as much to understand as to be understood

12. ART and ORGANISM Art is something we DO! It is an extreme expression of CREATIVITY. A critical trait for a species that is always confronting unique challenges. Art emerges from our basic biology; it . . . has causes and consequences involved with our survival . . . as individuals and as a species

13. ART and ORGANISM Art involves incorporating unique perceptions They may be your perceptions or another’s But your incorporation of their uniqueness makes them part of you “A mind once stretched by an idea (like a heart once stretched by love) will never regain its former shape.”

14. Internal and External Influences on the Aesthetic Experience “Closed genetic programs” of response interact with “Open genetic programs” to evoke the “aesthetic response”

15. Aesthetic Response ?? “We may dance toward it and away, achieve glimpses, and even dwell in its beauty for a time; yet few are those that have been confirmed in that knowledge of its ubiquity which antiquity called gnosis and the Orient calls bodhi: full awakening to the crystalline purity of the bed or ground of one’s own and yet the world’s true being. Like perfectly transparent crystal, it is there, yet as though not there; and all things, when seen through it, become luminous in its light” -- Joseph Campbell 1968 -- speaking of “aesthetic arrest”

16. INTRINSIC vs EXTRINSIC attractiveness Why do we find things attractive? • Are certain designs intrinsically attractive? • Are “BEAUTIFUL” people intrinsically attractive Clue: They involve mathematical regularities that also appear in other attractive images

17. The Spiral The equiangular spiral was invented by Descartes in 1638. Torricelli worked on it independently and found the length of the curve. Jacob Bernoulli in 1692 called it 'spira mirabilis' and it is carved on his tomb in Basel. It occurs naturally in many places like sea-shells where the growth of an organism is proportional to the size of the organism. In his book Growth and Form , D'Arcy Thompson devoted a whole chapter to this curve . . . , contrasting it with the Spiral of Archimedes which is formed by coiling a cylinder as a sailor coils a rope upon the deck .

18. Spiral a problem in aesthetics:What is the most "pleasing" division of this line segment into two parts? Some people might say at the halfway point, others might say at the one-quarter or three-quarters point. The "correct answer" is, however, none of these, and is found in Western art from the ancient Greeks onward Here, if the left-hand portion is of length u = 1, then the right-hand portion is of length v = 0.618... A line segment partitioned as such is said to be divided in Golden or Divine section. What is the justification for endowing this particular division with such elevated status? The thinking is that the length u, as drawn, is to the whole length u+v, as the length v is to u. [1 : 0.61803…]

19. SPIRAL PATTERNS Broken Pebbles In the nature art of Andy Goldsworthy Leaves

20. Underlying Structures of Forms beginning with 1, add two adjacent numbers to provide the next: the ratio between any two Fibonacci numbers after 3 is 1:1.6 -- the “Golden Mean”

22. The Golden Mean is probably as old as civilisation, but was studied by the Ancient Greeks who used it in the design of  their temples. It's described as "the smaller is to the larger, what the larger is to the whole." It's also known as the Golden Section or the Divine Proportion. It is a way to divide a line in such a way as to create an ideal relationship between the parts. Plato in the Timaeus considered it the most binding of all mathematical relations and makes it the key to the physics of the cosmos. Phi evokes emotion or aesthetic feelings within us because the Divine Proportion  can be seen as the beauty and organisation within the cosmos. From the Golden Mean Discussion Group page [http://thegoldenmean.homestead.com/] The Golden Mean

23. Underlying Structures of Forms • Leonardo de Vinci’s idealization of human form • proportions and symmetry • The Fibonacci ratio is also represented here

24. Human universals?Cultural invariants ? • The “average” face corresponds to a “prototype” based on previous exposure • Instead of remembering many faces, we only need remember deviations from the prototype

25. Cultural invariants ? • The face of a baby has distinctive proportions that evoke protectiveness • This “morph” combine “babyness” with traits of a mature woman

27. Symmetry People (like many animals) prefer symmetrical images Symmetry is associated with healthy development symmetry of a mate seems correlated with reproductive success

28. Haeckel’s “artforms in nature” Siphonophore Foraminifera

29. Who or What is in Charge ? • What is an aesthetic experience? • What is consciousness? • Do we need to be conscious to have an aesthetic experience?

30. Why should we care ? The Truths of Art and Science! • Art is among the purest expressions of human creativity • Creativity is among our most potent coping mechanisms • The aesthetic experience affects our confidence in our beliefs – “truth”