Art Studio IIIA - Week Six

 Tues April 4th


2nd Year Crit sessions followed by a catch with Jenny on my project.

Neural Redraw

After the crit session last week, I have been thinking about my project and reflecting on the idea of creating an urn, and how that fits in with a fine arts program. I felt that I needed to expand the idea, so that urn itself isn't the focus of the work as such, but then becomes part or a different idea that talks about the experience of grief.

Over the weekend, I was chatting to a friend about what going on my head at the moment around the grief process - how you know that it real and has happened, but yet you don't believe it and still keep thinking that the person will come back and is just away still. He mentioned neural redraw, so I was interested to understand a bit more about the science behind why I am thinking the way I am.

I came across the following article which immediately made a lot of sense of what I was experiencing. 


After this, I began reading The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss by Mary Fances O'Conner, which is a reference for the article above.

O’Connor, Mary-Frances. The Grieving Brain : The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss. First edition., HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2022

Key Points from the article and book - 
  • Our brain creates maps of our world, to help navigate it more efficiently - it's a prediction machine, to help predict what and when is going to happen. it is seen throughout the animal kingdom with regards to finding home/shelter/food and mates. Otherwise everday would be a constant surprise, staring from scratch - our brains like take the efficient route.
  • We are hardwired to from attachments bonds to those close to us.
  • We keep track of our relationships in along three dimensions of time, space and depth of connection or Here, Close and Now. The closer, longer and deeper the relationship, the more this is encoded into our neural maps. This first develops during infancy and allows us to soothe ourselves knowing that our caregiver/loved ones will return. Through predicting and mapping it allows out brain to know that we will be reunited, so that we are not in a constant state of panic when separated.
  • Our brain creates neural maps - we are living in two worlds at the same time - our predicted world and our real world. 
  • Neural maps are created through lived experience.
  • Sometimes the reality of our world and our predicted world/neural maps don't match up. After a loss of a loved one our brain has to update its neural map/predictions based on the new reality. As the brain creates maps through lived experience, it can take a long time for theses neural maps to be redrawn, until we have experienced these new realities a number of times.
  • Basically, the brain has to rewire itself, and it can lag behind reality. It takes time for this to happen as it's a learning process as a result of the new lived experiences.


Further reading on Neuroplasticity and grief - 



Initial Ideas

Installation - 
  • urn/memorial structure at the center of a room
  • surrounded by a structure which represents the neurons - large structure which takes over all the space - as the grief process does
  • lighting to add atmosphere?
  • sound - uncomfortable sound, calming sound depending on the waves of grief?
  • video projections

The question is what is the structure made from and how can I show old and new connections?
  • Differant colour material for old and new
  • using performance to cut and re-tie parts of the structure
  • use of changin lighing on certain areas
  • Structure of fibre optics that flash on off/change colour
  • Frayed, disconnected parts of the structure.
Large connections verses small connections?

Research on what Neurons look like - 


 


Very Sciencey text books - 

 




Artists that explore neuroscience as a subject 

Greg Dunn

Greg Dunn (artist and neuroscientist) uses his knowledge of neuroscience to create artworks that celebrate the brain. They explore the brain's mystery, beauty and anatomy. Work is a mixture or reflective micro etchings, ink paintings and gold leaf. 


22K gilded microetching

 "Microetching is of the cellular structure of the rodent hippocampus, a region of the brain involved in learning, memory, and sensory integration. 
Themicroetching is also designed to illustrate a genetic technique called Brainbow developed by researchers as a way of visualizing the brain.  Scientists randomly expressed combinations of blue, red, and yellow fluorescent proteins in every neuron in a mouse’s brain, leading to a dazzling variety of colors that is completely different for each mouse.  Having the neurons a particular color makes them easier to trace amongst the many millions of neurons in the brain."



Synaptogenesis



Composition gold, metal powder, mica, and enamel

Chaotic Connectome


22K gilded microetching























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