The show is at the Walters is in Baltimore, not the Walker in Minneapolis. Read Aesthete again. His remarks make it clear that the "public opinion" part of the exhibit may help to establish a base or normative template for aesthetic response, showing outliers. And I agree, what's your point? Based on your past posts, you should be supporting a populist approach to aesthetics but now you seem to prefer an 'educated' approach. wc
----- Original Message ---- From: Chris Miller <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wed, January 20, 2010 8:35:25 AM Subject: Re: Beauty and the Brain: A Neural Approach to Aesthetics A further explanation of this project can be found here: http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2008/03nov08/03threedee.html "In the study, Connor .. trained two rhesus monkeys to look at a computer monitor while 3-D pictures of objects were flashed on the screen. At the same time, the researchers recorded electrical responses of individual neurons in higher-level visual regions of the brain. A computer algorithm was used to guide the experiment gradually toward object shapes that evoked stronger response" And it appears that the project at the Walker Museum is attempting to do the same thing with humans: "The plan is to let museum patrons view a series of computer-generated 3-D shapes and rate them aesthetically. The same computer algorithm will be used to guide evolution of these shapes, based, in this case, on aesthetic preference." But unlike monkeys, people can cultivate their taste for things, apart from what Imago Asthetik calls "predominant cognitive tendencies" both as tasters and makers of them -- giving us one usage of the word "art". Connor shares that usage when he says "In a sense, artists are neuroscientists, experimenting with shape and color, trying to evoke unique, powerful responses from the visual brain," But artists do not consider their experiments failures if they fail to evoke a "unique, powerful response" from a significant majority of human brains. Do they? Which is why this experiment, and any beauty-brain project, is a non-starter -- and only serves as further evidence of the incompatibility of aesthetics with our techno-focused institutional culture. It may well be that "evolution determines what kinds of shapes and such our brains find pleasing," -- quite possibly, shapes that resemble a lactating breast. But the cross-cultural human interest in a variety of shapes that are done "just so" - would work better with Dutton's evolutionary theory of art as the "peacock's tail" - i.e. a display of extraordinary virtuosity, with a wide variety of formal attributes. ____________________________________________________________ Diet Help Cheap Diet Help Tips. Click here. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/c?cp=3O-wiWSQmsRZEylw6RGyPwAAJz6c l_zTaptgNR5c8Mer1v9kAAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYQAAAAAA=
