Dorothée Chabas
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Proust Questionnaire on Neuroesthetics

9/23/2014

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I created a Proust Questionnaire on Neuroesthetics (inspired by the original -and more romantic! Proust Questionnaire). It is a nice ice breaker and promotes interdisciplinarity. A few of us tried it already (click on the icons below).

What would you answer?  You are welcome to try it: it takes 3 minutes. 

Take the Proust Questionnaire on Neuroesthetics
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Proust Questionnaire of Phillip Prager
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Proust Questionnaire of Line Cecilie Engh
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My Proust Questionnaire


Proust Questionnaire on Neuroesthetics
  1. Who is your favorite painter, sculptor or visual artist? 
  2. Who is your favorite writer or poet? 
  3. Who is your favorite musician or composer?
  4. What is your favorite quality in an art piece?
  5. What is your primary background?
  6. Why are you interested in neuroesthetics?
  7. If you were not yourself, who would you be?
  8. Do you consider yourself an artist?
  9. What is your favorite color?
  10. What has been the most significant contribution to the field of neuroesthetics in the past 20 years?
  11. What has been the most significant contribution to the field of neuroesthetics in history?
  12. How will neuroesthetics look like in 50 years?
  13. What is your present state of mind?
  14. What is your favorite motto?

3 extra questions related to the International Conference on Neuroesthetics:
  1. What did you enjoy the most at the 11th International Conference on Neuroesthetics?
  2. What would be your dream overarching theme for the next international Conference on Neuroesthetics?
  3. What do you think of joint presentations (multidisciplinary) for the next international Conference on Neuroesthetics? 

This is part of a series of posts on the 11th International Conference on Neuroesthetics (September 2014).
Posts on the 11th Conference on Neuroesthetics
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"Seeing and knowing": Insights from the 11th International Conference on Neuroesthetics

9/16/2014

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I listed the 16 speakers of the conference. Click on my sketches to read my posts, some of them include interviews. Or scroll down my blog. 
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Johanna Drucker, Bibliographical Studies: Introduction
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Francis Steen, Communication: The construction of social reality through art
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Aude Oliva, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence: Zooming through the human brain in space and time: a look at perception and memory processes
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Derek Hodgson, Archaelogy: The visual brain, embodiment, and the first visual cultures: what can they tell us about "art"
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Harold Cohen, Computing and the Arts: Reflections on designing and building Aaron
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Deborah Aschheim, Arts: Thresholds of significance: some art and science collaborations
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Cristina Grasseni, Anthropology: Skilled visions: ecologies of belonging and sensorial apprenticeship
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Ellen Lupton, Contemporary Design: Design and framing
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Alan M. MacEachren, Information Sciences and Technology: Visually enabled geographical reasoning
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Marcos Nadal. Basic Psychological Research and Research methods: Cognitive neuroscience of aesthetics
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William Seeley, Philosophy: Seeking salience: a short story about engaging art
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Line Cecilie Engh, Philosophy: Seeing and knowing with the bride of Christ: how a metaphor shaped thought and action in the Middle Ages
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Aaron Marcus, Visualization and art design: Key principles of visual semiotics, visible language, user-interface and user-centered design
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Colin Ware, Computer science and data visualization: Perceiving, interacting and computing: the process of thinking visually
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Phillip Prager, Aesthetics: The modernist muse
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Peter Wells, Anthropology: Mysterious talk
Click here to read the interview of Tamia Marg, President of the Minerva Foundation
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Seeing and knowing: Johanna Drucker, the federator

9/16/2014

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Introduction

PictureJohanna Drucker
Johanna put together the agenda of the conference this year. I counted 13 areas of expertise for 15 speakers! Communication, neurosciences, computer sciences, archaeology, art, anthropology, design, information science and technology, psychology, philosophy, history of art, private sector, and aesthetics. I heard two opposite types of comments: an artist suggested there should be more artists talking about the visual essence of their work (not "rational art"), while a scientist was hoping for presentations with less words and more data to chew on. I am thinking: what about joint presentations for next year? This would be the ultimate ice breaker between disciplines. And that is what I am the most interested in.

Talking about building bridges: during his presentation, Aaron Marcus suggested that design ethics should be mandatory in graphic design schools. Later, at the end of the conference, Jessica Ferris incisively questioned what differentiated her work as a performance art director, from shooting a marketing commercial, since in both cases the (visual) tools used to convey the message or please the audience, were universal and thus similar. I had the same question regarding painting: what makes it different from graphic design? I think meaning is what differentiates art from design, and ethics is needed in both. That could be a topic for the next conference: meaning / ethics of the visual language. I foresee endless controversies and animated joint presentations!

This is part of a series of posts on the 11th International Conference on Neuroesthetics (September 2014).

Posts on the11th Conference on Neuroesthetics
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Seeing and knowing: Marcos Nadal, by documenting how we appreciate beauty, makes me reflect on the influence of the cultural context on art production and taste

9/16/2014

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Cognitive Neuroscience of aesthetics

PictureMarcos Nadal
I learned from Marcos that the field of knowledge in neuroesthetics has been increasingly growing over the past few decades, especially since we agreed that there is no SEEING without KNOWING.  The notion of the viewer becoming an active perceiver (organizing agent, Gestalt psychology) rather than a pure visual recipient (empirical esthetics), and then the concept of Inner Vision by Semir Zeki grounded the way to modern neuroesthetics.
As he said, Marcos is mostly interested in aesthetics as a way to appreciate "beauty" (as opposed to a more global and formal definition of aesthetics). The data he presented suggest the influence of expertise, culural references, or context on the appreciation of beauty, documented by neuroimaging. For example, Marcos showed that the neurological pathways are diverted when viewers look at a picture of art they are told was authentic versus fake, or when a sponsor logo is copied next to the image (especially if the viewer was a non-expert). 
I put Marcos' observations in relation with two other ways to look at the influence of the contemporary and historical contexts on art production: art and sociology.  

Almost a century ago, Wassily Kandinsky stated, in The Doctrine of Internal necessity, that: "Inner necessity originates from three elements: (1) Every artist, as a creator, has something in him which demands expression (this is the element of personality). (2) Every artist, as the child of his time, is impelled to express the spirit of his age (this is the element of style)—dictated by the period and particular country to which the artist belongs (it is doubtful how long the latter distinction will continue). (3) Every artist, as a servant of art, has to help the cause of art (this is the quintessence of art, which is constant in all ages and among all nationalities)." Kandinsky here uses a very different language from Marcos to basically express the same overarching theme: the artist depends not only on himself, but also on the contemporary context he lives in and the history of painting. I find it fascinating to establish such a direct parallel between the neuroscientific and the artistic approaches.

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Composition VII, by Wassily Kandinsky

More recently, Pierre Bourdieu approached the interactions between culture and the production of art with a sociological eye (The Field of Cultural Production (1993) and The Rules of Art (1996)). For example, he categorized the legitimacy of various types of art production depending on who defines it, from academia to "non legitimate" authorities such as advertising (see picture below). These observations put another light on the influence of culture and context on art, again complementary to Marcos and Kandinsky.

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The three spheres of legitimacy in aesthetic practices according to Pierre Bourdieu ("Un art Moyen", 1965)

I could go on an on, and look at how to address the same question with an archaeologic or an anthropologic eye... The influence of culture (contemporary and historical) on vision could be a great theme in itself for a future International Conference on Neuroesthetics!
Read Phillip's Proust Questionnaire on Neuroesthetics here!


This is part of a series of posts on the 11th International Conference on Neuroesthetics (September 2014).
Posts on the 11th Conference on Neuroesthetics
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Seeing and knowing: Aaron Marcus, his visual machines and the ethics of design

9/15/2014

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Key principles of visual semiotics, visible language, user-interface and user-centered design

PictureAaron Marcus
I learned from Aaron that one can apply visual semiotics to as many fields as possible. His team "helps people make smarter visual decisions faster for any technology platform content". They invented the concept of the "machines" with an endless list of application domains - the green machine, the health machine, the story machine, the driving machine etc. The design is done, the coding needs to be done.
 
What I found the most interesting in Aaron's presentation is the discussion he initiated about the ethics of design. I actually wonder: the absence of intellectual property makes Aaron's design projects noble in a way, but does it make them ethical? Is the concept of any kind of "machines" ethical? I read George Orwell who anticipated that Big Brother would be watching us in his anticipation novel 1984; when the book was published in 1949, the idea of some entity monitoring our private life not only sounded un-ethical, but also politically scary.

More generally, I wonder whether ethics is to design as meaning is to art (see my similar reflection in this post)? Are designers or neuroscientists walking on slippery grounds when they play with ethical boundaries (see the end of my blogpost on the work of Aude Oliva)? Are artists welcome to cross the line if this is meaningful in their artistic process? The performing artist Robin Williams seemed to believe so: he considered himself performing "legalized insanity", meaning crossing the line deliberately and repeatedly; check his highly visual, convincing and hilarious description of the process in the first minute of this video. 
Ethics and meaning are obviously controversial topics, and I would hate to suggest that painters have no ethics and designers no meaning! But that could be a great overarching theme for a future International Conference on Neuroesthetics. 

This is part of a series of posts on the 11th International Conference on Neuroesthetics (September 2014).

Posts on the 11th Conference on Neuroesthetics
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Seeing and knowing: Peter Wells took us on a tour to the pre-literate (but already visual) human world

9/14/2014

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PicturePeter Wells
I learned from Peter that it is hard to keep what I learn secret. Indeed, Peter requested his presentation be not recorded or taped. As a matter of fact, I don't record or tape talks, but am good at taking notes and remembering. 
I can only tell you that his presentation was a great ending to the conference. We traveled back through pre-literate human societies, where there was less to see, especially less manufactured stuff. Peter showed us how visual design evolved on ornaments and potteries, to become increasingly linear. But I won't say more, Peter spoke of unfinished work and working hypotheses, and I respect that.

However I can't resist to include a link to the gorilla experience on attention blindness by Simons and Chabris (1999): click here to try out (it takes a few minutes max and is very fun if you don't know the trick in advance). Peter referred to it at some point in his presentation, and it is very relevant to the theme of SEEING and (not-)KNOWING. 

This is part of a series of posts on the 11th International Conference on Neuroesthetics (September 2014).

Posts on the 11th Conference on Neuroesthetics
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Seeing and knowing: Line Cecilie Engh's journey through the imagery of marriage in the Middle Ages lead us to today

9/14/2014

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Seeing and knowing with the bride of Christ: How a metaphor shaped thought and action in the Middle Ages

PictureLine Cecilie Engh
I learned from Line that metaphors car be used for "SEEING thoughts". Line read for us the story of the representation of marriage, between husband and wife, Christ and Church, or Christ and Soul, through the Middle Ages. She intended to explain how "bridal imagery produce cultural meaning" (and not vice versa) and, by extension, "how visual thinking can have political and social impact" -very relevant to the theme of SEING and KNOWING.

Line took us on a lively and erudite journey though the representation of marriage in the Middle Ages. At the end I had the impression to have listened to a brilliant essay about marriage in general, that is still relevant to the time we live in. Look at all the pink bubbles on the right hand side representation of the contemporary debate of same sex-marriage: if I am following Line, most of them must be a consequence of the metaphoric approach of marriage in the Middle Ages -not that I want to engage a political debate on this subject on this blog. 

That being said, I liked that reflecting on neuroesthetic considerations such as "visual thinking", which may seem narrow and specialized at first sight,  can actually be associated with such significant contemporary, political and social relevance.

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A metaphor of marriage as represented in the Middle Ages (sketched from Line's presentation)
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A contemporary representation of same-sex marriage debate (http://www.namingandtreating.com/?p=21061).
Read Line's Proust Questionnaire on Neuroesthetics here!
This is part of a series of posts on the 11th International Conference on Neuroesthetics (September 2014).
Posts on the 11th Conference on Neuroesthetics
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Seeing and knowing: Colin Ware looks for visual patterns in whales, could we try it in art?

9/14/2014

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Perceiving, interacting and computing: the process of thinking visually

PictureColin Ware
I learned from Colin that visual thinking design can be applied to all kinds of subjects. For example, Colin showed us his program called "Trackplot", that allows researchers to search for visual patterns of movements of tagged whales traveling in the ocean (picture 1). The system is much more efficient than the systematic and sequential visual analysis of each individual whale movement, and its comparison with each and all of the other whales. This is really about improving SEEING for better KNOWING, as in the presentation of Alan M. MacEachren. Design at the service of cognition is core in ACT-R, a cognitive architecture and theory for simulating and understating human cognition (picture 2).

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1- Trackplot: vizualisation of how whales move in the water. The goal is to search for patterns (http://ccom.unh.edu/vislab/projects/trackplot.html)
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2- ACT-R: a cognitive architecture and theory for simulating and understanding human cognition (http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/)
I wonder: is Colin's work applicable to painting itself (and visual arts in general, my favorite topic)? If we consider art history as a way to look at individual art productions and situate them within the wide contemporary landscape and tradition of painting, wouldn't the attempt of defining "-isms" (art movements, as in picture 1) share similarities with "trackplot"? After all, both search for visual and cognitive patterns in a jungle of visual data and knowledge. As a matter of fact, defining "...isms" and creating historical timelines of art movements help us figuring out what artists are doing. This is thereby, in itself, a project of visual cognition. I hypothetise that, by analogy, Colin could develop an alternative ACT-R based way to search for visual patterns in art works, that would be more efficient than using our retina to compare thousands of art works.
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1- "...Isms, understanding art" describes art movements throughout history in a highly efficient, visual and almost playful way (http://store.metmuseum.org/art-history+reference/isms-understanding-art/invt/03017415#.VBnA-GR4p3o)
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2- "...Isms, understanding modern art", describes modern and contemporary art movements (http://www.amazon.com/Isms-Understanding-Modern-Sam-Phillips/dp/0789324687)
At the same time, I can already hear the voice of a lot of artists, who couldn't disagree more, and would oppose categorizing visual art in such a simplified and automatized way. Nicolas de Stael, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year, had he not died prematurely in 1955, would be their best advocate. I just finished reading his biography (picture 3), where he consistently refuses to be categorized as an abstract (or a figurative) painter. In the late postwar 1940s, he claimed that, "realism is a silly nonsense, and "abstraction" (...) is self-evident since The Virgin of Fouquet, Fra Angelico fresco and Van Eyck paintings". "He would almost imitate Delacroix, when answering critics who qualified him as a romantic painter: "Me, sir? I am a pure classic painter..."" (p240, my translation). 

It means De Stael would have considered picture 4 a classic painting and picture 5 the origin of abstraction. My artistic eye understands and agrees with him. However, I am not sure you do! I checked: unsurprisingly, De Stael is not listed under any of the "classic" art movements in the "...isms" book (picture 1). In fact he is not mentioned under any categories at all, here or in the modern version of the book (picture 2). I doubt that a hypothetical artistic version of Colin's "Trackplot" could help here: recognizing visual and conceptual patterns in De Stael's work remains too controversial at this point!
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3- Biography of Nicolas de Stael, in French: "Le prince foudroye," by Laurent Greilsamer, originally published in 1998 (could be translated as "the striked Prince"?)
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4- Composition, by Nicolas de Stael, 1949
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5- Virgin and child surrounded by angels, by Jean Fouquet, circa 1452 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melun_Diptych)
I won't start the debate around the definition of abstraction here, and I will comment on De Stael biography in an upcoming separate blogpost. However, this makes me reflect on the nature of art production as a personal experience, and on the challenging nature of transferring the artistic skilled vision, as Cristina Graseni would call it, into a software machine.
Developing intelligent enough tools to analyze art may sound like science fiction today. But it may just be a matter of time. In any case, I think it is never too late for artists resistant to technology to stretch their minds, look at how others are looking, fight "neurophobia" (as Semir Zeki describes it), and participate in the big neuroesthetic quest... maybe by starting with sharing their input for building a smart "artistic TrackPlot"!


This is part of a series of posts on the 11th International Conference on Neuroesthetics (September 2014).
Posts on the 11th Conference on Neuroesthetics
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An interview of Tamia Marg, President of the Minerva Foundation, about the 11th International Conference on Neuroesthetics

9/14/2014

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The Minerva Foundation house (Minerva website)
What is the mission statement of the Minerva Foundation and how does this relate to the International Conferences on Neuroesthetics?

The Minerva Foundation, founded by my parents Elwin & Helen Marg in 1983, supports activities that advance our understanding of how the brain functions with a particular focus on vision. The International Conferences on Neuroesthetics started in 2002 with the encouragement and support of Semir Zeki and his Institute of Neuroesthetics at University College London. The intent of the conference is to allow a cross-pollination of scientists, artists and humanists speaking on a theme central to our sensual experience. I'd like to strike the right balance between obtuse technical jargon and inarticulate art, and reach both the lay and professional public. The 2014 conference was a success in that respect, though I would like to see more neurologists and neuroscientists attending— I believe the design of their research could benefit from exposure to perspectives from other disciplines.

What is the mission of the Minerva Foundation, besides organizing the International Conferences on Neuroesthetics?

The Minerva Foundation is involved in two other projects, besides the conference. Since 1985, the Foundation has awarded the Golden Brain each year to a promising or unsung investigator with promising research yielding significant findings in vision and the brain. And this year, we have developed an incubator program devoted to projects at the intersection of art, technology and science, challenging the separateness of those fields, under the leadership of Vero Bollow, Director of the Foundation.    

How come you have maintained free access to the conference? Do you plan to have it CME (Continued Medical Education) accredited, to attract more physicians?

Keeping the conference free, allowing students, artists, as well as professionals to make up a diverse audience has its merits, there is no doubt. At the same time, offering a free conference paradoxically may make it appear less worthwhile. Plus, keeping it free limits the amount of resources that we could devote to other projects, including publicizing the conference. We have not thought about CME accreditation but that could be a good idea to pursue. 

Could you tell me how many people participated in the conference this year? Also, I was pleased to see a fairly balanced gender distribution in the audience, maybe due to the multidisciplinary approach, promoting diversity. Would you happen to know the percentage of women versus men, and the distribution of their expertise?

It is hard to say what qualifications or proficiencies were represented among the audience or gender since we did not collect that information. In the future, we would like to get the word out more widely in advance so that the conference hall is filled to capacity.   

Do you think the 2014 conference went well? Did you enjoy it?

Yes! it was very successful in my eyes. The panel was even more multidisciplinary than it has been in the past. And this is a direction I would like to see continue. Although the topic has not been chosen yet, I anticipate the next conference will not disappoint.

This interview was reviewed and approved but Tamia Marg.


This is part of a series of posts on the 11th International Conference on Neuroesthetics (September 2014).
Posts on the 11th Conference on Neuroesthetics
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Seeing and knowing: Could Alan M. MacEachren conceive a visually enabled mapping of the artistic brain?

9/13/2014

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Visually enabled geographical reasoning

PictureAlan M. MacEachren
What I learned from Alan is that there is such a thing as geovisual analytics: it means creating maps, that not only show you where places are, but help you think and integrate other types of information (where, when, what) in a visual interface. This is about facilitating KNOWING from SEEING. 
As Alan showed it, this can be very useful when dealing with acute war or humanitarian crisis, where lots of information of diverse nature, format and source need to be rapidly and smartly processed  in order to be presented in a visually integrated and useful way. A visually accessible summary can come in handy in specific situations (see this short video presentation of SensePlace2 a as an example).

This is about applying design, geography, and computer science to efficient understanding of complex situations, using a visual interface. Could we apply the same method to the headache of neuroesthetics? Could we have a visualization of the brain functional anatomy (topographic map of the brain), built on our current knowledge, integrating the inputs from all the other cross disciplines that relate more or less to the topic (anthropology, design, art etc...)? We could call that "the visual map", or "the artistic map", or the "seeing and knowing map". 

When I learned Neurology in the early 1990s, we used the term "boxology" to pejoratively qualify a visual way to understand and explain how the central nervous system works. Below are three "boxologic attempts" to represent the complexity of brain functioning (pictures 1-3). Which one do you find the most efficient? Likely the first one, which is simplified and where there is a map (of the brain) to support your understanding. At the same time it lacks the biological or cellular levels (picture 2) and other levels of details (picture 3). Boxology was considered reductive, rightly so, at it was impossible to render visually the whole complexity of the nervous system in one figure, easy to read. Reducing it to one interactive interface may be more efficient but still reductive (as in here). How can you integrate such parallel topics as archaelogy, philosophy, art and functional imaging data in the same interface? If Alan was able to solve the representation of complex humanitarian disasters  with his program, it may just be a matter of time for neuroesthetics.

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1- Brain functional anatomy according to the reference anatomy textbook book, by Netter (http://www.netterimages.com/product/9780914168249/8-195.htm)
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2- The vertebrate brain as nine structural units, each containing a three-cell metabolic unit, a four-cell physiological operating system, and comprising many binary functional brain units (http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnbeh.2011.00005/full)
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3- Human brain map 1.0 west coast brain works (http://westillknowsquataboutthebrain.com/human-brain-map-1-0/v)

This is part of a series of posts on the 11th International Conference on Neuroesthetics (September 2014).
Posts on the 11th Conference on Neuroesthetics
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