Neuroaesthetics Projects

Our Neuroaesthetics projects are designed to develop strange tools to understand what is happening to the brain when we make and experience art. This is a collaboration between neuroscience and studio art disciplines. Understanding why the brain ‘makes art’ and why we react to art in certain ways has hitherto been the domain of the humanities, but increasingly interventions by the ‘hard sciences’ have proven fruitful. We want to suggest that neuroscience can help us develop strange tools to better understand why humans make and experience art. Specifically, we will look at the act of observational drawing and record the ‘flow’ states occurring when humans make art and also when they experience it. Our goal is to gather EEG data and ask questions about it that can lead to new ways to teach, understand, and experience drawing. The Strange Tools Research Lab will use qualitative and quantitative mixed methods in designing studio art and neuroscience experiments to define new research questions and inform future tool development to gather new types of data. These Neuroaesthetics projects are led by Strange Tools Research Lab team members.