Artist Lecture: Professor Biederman at Phantasmagoria

This art lecture was associated with the Phantasmagoria showing at the Fisher gallery and was given by neuroscience Professor Irving Biederman. The lecture revolved around how art and visual stimuli give us “perceptual and cognitive pleasure” and it was very interesting. As someone who is both somewhat of a science geek and art-lover I was very happy to see the two collide so effectively. Biederman’s studies were examining what holds our attention on a level of pure interest--that is, not driven by hunger, sex or shelter. He was trying to address what holds our attention the longest. The answer was essentially the unknown. Abstract images and those that are not necessarily life-like photographs or replicas tend to hold our attention as our brain frantically tries to make sense of it and fit it into a familiar category. Some level of mystery can be achieved purely be taking things out of proportion-a- macro photograph of a zipper may not at first be entirely clear, but eventually our brains are likely to recognize it. Once we understand what the image is, and where we have seen it before, the brain’s interest is mostly satisfied, leaving the eyes free to roam. The purely abstract items, or even realistic images that are simply of something new to us hold even more interest, because our brains must do their best to store them for future use. If we are not familiar with them, then we do not yet understand them and they will thus hold our attention longer--this is why the vague shadowy pieces of Phantasmagoria hold such a threat in our minds; we cannot be sure what they are or what danger may lurk. The most important thing I learned from the lecture surprised me; it was that abstract art is a good thing--it peaks the brain’s interest. The more original and new a piece is to a person, the more likely they are to invest more time and energy into it.