LaurenNoggleDESMA9: Event 2: Neuroscience & Art

This week I attended a virtual event held by Dr. Daniel Jay, a professor of Molecular, Developmental, and Chemical Biology with a unique background studying visual arts and perception. This event covered topics relating to how the brain works to perceive art and how artists have used this knowledge to develop techniques that take advantage of these neural mechanisms to enhance the art experience. This event was incredibly fascinating and tied in very well to our lecture this week on biotechnology and art. I would highly recommend this event to any fellow classmates, as it really deepens our understanding of how art works to invoke emotion as well as exploring the functions behind our neural connections.

Dr. Daniel Jay, Courtesy of Dan Jay Art

Dr. Jay shared a major scientific discovery relating to how our brain takes our visual sense and converts that information into a digestible format that we can understand. This function requires our brain to convert a 3- dimensional world into a 2- dimensional map with neural circuits, allowing for the higher cortical center to perceive this space as 3- dimensional. The ability to understand the mechanism and the machinery involved in creating the final visual image in our head enables us, as scientists, to now manipulate the visual experiences through targeting the perception mechanism directly.

Color Blending Technique, Courtesy of thoughtco.com

Over time with practice of directly targeting these mental manipulations, artists can have the viewer experience become something completely false or imaginary due to the simple and strategic artistic approaches outlined by Dr. Jay. This event has taught me the artists’ importance to create and observe their work from the viewer's perspective, as well as shown me how to push the visual bounds through utilizing well studied and understood neural mechanisms to create an image larger than life.