Kamen’s work uses a heavy degree of physical
layers. In a sculpture entitled Energy Landscape,
Kamen explores a web structure inspired by
neuronal networks as they relate to the folding
layers of a protein at a molecular scale. At the
same time, she observes that this structure “also
looks like what’s happening in a black hole…
there are so many similarities that happen between the micro and macro
level, but most
people don’t
get to see them.
Once you start
seeing these
relations and
connections, everything starts
making incredible sense.”
“I’m able to
use my work to
visually connect
these things,”
she says. Like
Dunn, she calls
them ‘fractal
systems’, which
reappear in different scientific
disciplines. In
that way, visualizing neuronal
structures can
illustrate the
clear relationships different
sciences share.
Some artists,
however, prefer
engaging directly
with the images
and data borne out of neuroscience research,
creating less space between the science and the
artist.
to her woven faces artwork, made from cloth
materials. “When they discovered it was tactile, that did something in the brain for them
to respond to it,” she says. Cook was moved to
start investigating the neuroscience behind the
viewer’s emotional responses and to map them
as they occurred.
In an artist
residency at the
University of
Pittsburgh School
of Medicine, Cook
began using Diffusion Spectrum
Imaging (DSI) and
TrackVis software
from Harvard to
trace the images
and fiber connections in the brain
as these emotions
flare up. She then
superimposed
this data onto
constructions of
woven faces themselves, creating
works where the
viewer wasn’t simply looking at the
original piece—
they were also
looking at what
was, presumably
the same neural
activity happening
within the fiber
connections happening in their
own head.
“As part of this
process,
I started
Images courtesy of artist Lia Cook.
discovering this
imaging of the
brain that I thought I would never do,” says
Cook. “I’m interested in both the scientific
answers and also creating my own artwork with
this experience.”
A few years ago, Berkeley-based artist Lia
Cook was most interested in what neuroscience
Cook’s work has drawn her closer to the
could say about reading faces. She kept finding
research realm than she anticipated she would
that people had such a stark emotional response ever get. By contrast, Noah Hutton uses the
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SciArt in America April 2015