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Science, Trying to Pick Our Brains About Art
Does a Rembrandt portrait or a van Gogh still life press some special buttons in every human being's brain? Will a red painting speak to us in ways a blue one never could? Are we wired in ways that make every one of us enjoy a smiling bust and shiver at a frowning one?
And if our brains determine how art works on us, what does that tell us about art, or us -- could studying the way we're wired determine crisply that the "Mona Lisa" is truly great, or do we need some history to tell us how a complex painting speaks, or not, to all its different viewers?
The Third International Conference on Neuroesthetics, subtitled "Emotions in Art and the Brain," was held earlier this month at the Berkeley Art Museum and tried to get a start at least on answering such questions. It was a showcase for the progress that's been made in figuring out what goes on in the brain when art is seen or made. The fundamental premise of the field, stated by several of the invited speakers, is that every time something out there in the world makes us feel a certain way, it's because some particular bits of our brains are being tickled by it. A close look at a brain (the "neuro" part of the discipline) as it gets lit up by art (the "aesthetics" part) should give us insight into the links that exist between the two.
The Lightflow Rendering Interface
The Lightflow Rendering Interface is an object oriented programming interface to synthetic rendering, which provides a common environment and description language to treat light distribution in three dimensional spaces.
A major advantage of the system is that it has been made looking for complete extensibility since its creation, providing the user with simple and flexible extension mechanisms, which allow, among the others, procedural definition of: surface and volumetric patterns and materials, new parametric surface types, general lighting systems, camera lenses and output redirection.
3D graphics | Art | Python | Visual art
more in common with mathematicians than with my fellow artists.
By keenly confronting the enigmas that surround us, and by considering and analysing the observations that I have made, I ended up in the domain of mathematics, Although I am absolutely without training in the exact sciences, I often seem to have more in common with mathematicians than with my fellow artists.
- M. C. Escher
He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.
He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.
- M. C. Escher
"Without knowing it, he was a Surrealist ."
When man wanted to imitate walking, he invented the wheel, which does not look like a leg. Without knowing it, he was a Surrealist. - Guillaume Apollinaire
