Recently within the last 10 years or so there has emerged a new field of science called Neuroesthetics and Bioaesthetics--seeking to explain and understand art and music at a neurological or biological level. They want to find out the answer to a seemingly simple but vastly complicated question: Why do we like art? Why do we value it? Why is it a phenomenon found in every single culture known to man? These new sciences focus on the bodily response when an organism encounters an aesthetic phenonmenon. For many years anthropologists have believed that one main reason we developed art is that it was/is a form of sexual selection. The signs of this are more evident in the animal kingdom. Think peacocks or Bowerbirds who build elaborate nests to impress mates--both whose important aesthetic qualities, much like our artwork, take up an enormous amount of personal resource for a product thats hard to maintain and sometimes doesn't even serve its original purpose. So where do these aesthetic desires come from? After surfing around on the Institute of Neuroethetics' website, I found an artist who has attempted to unlock our sub conscience in order to produce artwork directly from our innermost workings of the brain.

Ugo Dossi, a German, has invented the Sens-O-Graph. The Sens-o-graph is a tool that allows almost anyone to create a psychic drawing that reflects activities from the subconscious. Essentially what this is is a crazy tool that allows the user to capture those subconscious moments when we draw while talking on the phone or listening to the teacher or otherwise not paying attention to your hand. It kinda looks like it would act not unlike a ouiji(sp?) board. The art work that is created reminds me of Matisse a little bit. Its a really interesting idea. A good point he makes that never had occurred to me and which makes those moments of doodling so different from drawing is that, when we are moving our hands this way, we are also computing language or some other outside source that's distracting us. Because of this the images are usually directly tied to our analytical thinking. It is almost as if they are a sub conscience reflection of how our brain is processing the information visually. This phenomenon, he has found, is common to nearly every human.

To check out this wacky German visit his translated page by typing his name in google and then choosing to translate his site (the html tag is too long for the post)or go to http://www.neuroesthetics.org/ for an intro into this fascinating new science. Give it 5 more years and this is gonna explode! Imagine how valuable and dangerous it will be if we can figure out, neurologically, why we visually like something.

--Claire