40/40 Vision Lecture: Neurology and the Passion for Art

Why is it that great works of art seem to have a universal appeal, transcending cultural and geographic boundaries? V.S. Ramachandran, director of UCSD's Center for Brain and Cognition has studied how the brain perceives works of art and thinks he may know the answer to this intriguing question. Recorded on 10/18/2000. [11/2000] [Show ID: 5224]
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[@johnk.lindgren5940]

" There is Dada, which is not even art " V.S. Ramachandran

[@catabernathy10]

I had the wonderful opportunity of attending Dr. Ramachandran's "Logic of Perception" courses a number of years ago. He's a brilliant lecturer and just sort of commands the subject when he speaks. His ideas about grouping in artwork and the "rasa" opened up an entirely new perspective of life for me, and I continue to draw upon them today. He's awesome.

[@DjSlut]

Ramachandran's practical approach to neurology is always captivating!

[@schogini]

An hour worth spent watching this... nice to see a person with passion, it is infective and feels good

[@kevinfalcao8657]

The definition of a GREAT teacher . " THE ABILITY TO KNOW AND TO IMPART THEIR KNOWLEDGE ".

[@nivramstob]

I love his explicit honesty. He observes everything, but carefully considers proposed explanations and the reality. What he does educates us and challenges traditional understandings in favor of the truth.

[@hurdellift]

As a scientist, Mr. Ramachandran is deeply committed to understanding why he has no artistic sense. And, after much reaearch, he comes up with a brilliant answer: he is normal.

[@EpicArtAcademy]

Artistic sense is so subjective. What makes appeals to me may not appeal to you...and there in lies the beauty of art.

[@taranathrakesh]

wow! what a rectangle!!!

[@s09302008]

The rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrasa of Rrrrrrrrrrrrrramachandran! =D Terrific video. =)

[@EpicArtAcademy]

As an artist and art tutor I was particularly taken with this lecture. The description of what happens in the brain when viewing art is so informative and makes perfect sense to me as an artist and not a scientist. I particularly enjoyed the description of why high realism and/or photos, have a different effect than something more emotive (as an artist would describe it). Brilliant.

[@jimmyart007]

A breathtakingly lucid analysis.

[@KamoHaze]

V.S. Ramachandran IS THE MAN!!

[@RodFleming-World]

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

[@elsagrace3893]

Fantastic! Made my day. Improved my understanding of life.

[@byheavenlyhosts]

Thanks...I agree...it's just they can't do what I do...it's always been that way My grandfather was an inventor and we got along great! All the best, Susan

[@tedoymisojos]

Amazing! Thank you for uploading this, I enjoyed it SO much.

[@bodmondude]

From University psychology classes, I've learned that children go through a "sensitive" phase during their language aquisition. Therefore they pick up language a lot faster than adults (obvious). As a child, I learned both Hindi and English, therefore I became fluent at both. Where as Rama, he learned Hindi or Tamil, and then sometime after his sensitive period, he learned english. So you're right, It's just simple child hood language aquisition.

[@andeve3]

This is fascinating, love the rolling Rs as well.

[@ciphernemo]

Awesome presentation! V.S. Ramachandra delivers it with very real knowledge and passion. It is a powerful and moving presentation for dry topics that would otherwise be difficult to digest. Amazing job. Thank you for posting it.

[@Xalvathor]

Wow... Is this the hindu Neil Degrasse Tyson or what? I loved the video btw

[@teresamalathi1972]

Thank you. How great you are!

[@mmehdija]

excellent! amazing content, and well-delivered too

[@dcmhsotaeh]

Thanks Dr Ramachandran for all the "RASA" of knowledge. Dr M.Mahesh Mysore

[@schr4nz]

This is great. Ramachandran is always a good laugh and also very informative.

[@parthaghosh4321]

great lecture.....

[@EndureFocusEngageDie]

Love this, great knowledge.

[@imagineers0]

Love this topic. My mom saw auras all of her life. I don't know if she knew, but the specific colors she saw meant the same as what others see.

[@RodesLaw]

Neuroscience is so awesome. It is applicable to all human enterprises because ALL thought is produced by the brain and thoughts drive our every move.

[@mohammadzubairarain1021]

Just beautiful !

[@locoemutwo4872]

excellent....thank you.

[@VivaLaRevolucionViva]

Wow thanks for uploading; a lot of information to study from this lecture.

[@batfink64]

Amazing stuff, thank you :)

[@EndureFocusEngageDie]

Wow just fantastic.

[@Kindred1a1]

I wish all teachers were this enthusiastic when they teach

[@sadenb]

He is amazing

[@vfxforge]

brilliant talk

[@gabrielmartinez1169]

This dude low-key funny

[@billyg89]

yes! i love rama.

[@hooktenpushups]

thanks for all this : )

[@rijinlee5245]

nice art!!!!!!!

[@guitaro5000]

@iidontcareeee Thanks for checking out my page!

[@joel230182]

OPINION>abstraction from your knowledge(mind), evaluation, not the experience itself. FEELING>direct experience, perception, in present time(here and now)

[@Mizja1234]

let me get back to that: allthough some is outdated, very enriching and briliant. i like it a lot!

[@pin3appel]

this is awesome

[@TheGranti7a]

@doriankilledsibyl: Bravo for voicing your opinion!

[@Kaya2015]

I wish my college instructors were more like this guy.

[@toamaori]

thats my motto too 'turn the world on its head' its great for generating new ideas :)

[@dennisschatzle]

what a boss!

[@nandurimd]

Phenomenal insight in to understanding great artists.brilliant practical analysis.

[@rafaofobia]

Very good!

[@manasyoga]

Art of neorology is IN the NOW-wOM! Namaste !

[@etiennealive]

Very interesting !

[@melese1988]

I love the existence demonstration experiment for synesthesia.

[@zhutch91]

I really enjoyed this lecture. It seemed to me like the audience was trying to tear him apart in the Q and A though.

[@warlockboyburns]

1, 2, 3, 4 sided shapes suggest communication .. past 4 is an imperfect circle (circles suggest eternity/death)... until you get to about a 20 sided shape which is a seamless circle (eternity/painless death)

[@chiragshetty955]

My god, the way he rolls his R's

[@doriankilledsibyl]

I wrote that two years ago, had to look up even what you were referencing to remember. You don't need to attack me personally - it was a nasty thing to receive in my inbox. And I'm not boring, at all.

[@StephenDeagle]

@KeiSam7 Depends on how the teacher interprets what they're teaching.

[@Riversleigh1]

my kids better damn well sweat when they see me... I love these lectures...love...peace ..:-)

[@michealjohn7192]

@Ilavenya thanks

[@guitaro5000]

Is there a way to give someone Prosopagnosia, like especially if you just want to hit it and quit it and you don't want the girl to recognize and stalk you?

[@gouthamprasad3840]

From the sculputures which one would you give or select as a highly satisfying. TO THOSE WHO OWN IT NOW. AND WHATS THAT POSE.

[@user.0701]

22:48 F word and violence. Great analogy

[@avelizosorio]

Bravo

[@riffraff8020]

Remarkable

[@StephenDeagle]

I used to agree for the most part with his thesis, but having been introduced to the ideas of Freud and Lacan, I've found a big problem. Meaning for an animal is fixed, that much is true. The baby bird will peck at that stick, and, sure enough, slight variations on it. But a human's desire is a property of signification, of concepts pointing to things coming into being for the individual. Meaning for us is in flux, communal, and the object of that desire will only remain so if it is not held.

[@qwe07]

I took that seriously for a moment. I thought it was like a variation on British English in India. But then I remembered this was put together at UCSD! :P

[@HeathMc]

@omarivero Ok. What is the difference between an opinion and a feeling?

[@biologyfreak101]

@imagineers0 i don't understand what you mean, "they meant the same as what others see". do colors mean something?

[@qwe07]

Very informative and interesting! I would love to follow up on his theories. And not to nitpick, but "responses" is spelled incorrectly at 1:19:18. :P

[@Mizja1234]

neuroaesthetics is a very interesting thing though.

[@nulaptop]

He sounds like he knows what he is talking about.

[@TheGranti7a]

@WhatsTheMusicCalled: A detailed introduction on progressive research frames in accepted parameters, the credibility of information about to be presented. Suggestion: voluntary audience members learn how to be attentive recipients by observation; one way to accomplish this can be to listen first even to one's individual reactions. Observing new information content as well as ones reactions, one learns something new not only about the information, rather also about oneself in discovery of it!

[@tchapps1]

That cube on the bottom left is freaking me out.

[@sparkside217]

When was this speech?

[@kmica2008]

even your comment was weird :D where can we see your art? do you have a blog or something?

[@Kindred1a1]

@KeiSam7 But if a teacher is teaching his material, his field of study, he should have a passion for it. Its the teacher's job to insight curiosity within the students.

[@samisakhai]

I dont agree with him saying the purpose of art is to exaggerate to please the eye. Artist exaggeration is to hight light to bring viewers attention to that which we normally miss

[@vickkara7641]

I am kinda upset that I had never heard this guy till now. I have never felt like there's a field I should go into but this I could study forever and not consider it work!

[@screenflicker1]

@BoStevoD I don't get what you mean

[@hooktenpushups]

are there notes on this lecture?

[@ikziedit]

The start was like how a boxer gets anounced

[@kennegun]

He's rolling is R's just to mess with us.

[@SomethingSea1]

1:13:51 Have you tried doing that? It's terribly uncomfortable!

[@doriankilledsibyl]

@Xenophanes21 Yep, my fault, right? I'm taking Intro to Art. There's a way to be a male a teacher with humor that appeals to both genders.

[@elchafa337]

I'm no scientist but I'd say it's not necessarily an ethnicity thing but in fact more of a cultural thing: I'm pretty sure you learned to speak hindi, probably durng your childhood, and that is what allows you to be able to make both sounds. Am I correct?

[@guitaro5000]

@iidontcareeee Dude, I was just talking about a one night stand. Lighten up. It's the new millenium.

[@AA-lq5pu]

This explains why realistic art that is too realistic does not really do anything for me. I dont want this world, I want to be transported to another.

[@byheavenlyhosts]

I'm a professional fine artist..pet and composer...go to google and youtube.... my family often tells me I'm weird...I always thought everything I do was just normal...but they see it as weird.

[@Tucknrollgrampa]

He makes art less bullshit and more beautiful to me.

[@noestreet760]

RAZA and CHOLA are 2 words I didn't expect to hear.

[@doriankilledsibyl]

@michalchik you know, it 's not like I'm crying myself to sleep at night. I just posted my reaction to a youtube video.

[@vishakhakhanolkar7512]

V Ramachandran's KZbin Lecture Criticism: 1. He is only talking in consideration of specific art and art forms and only considering specific features of the selected art which support his arguments and his proposed laws. 2. Culture plays a big role in what we call art and how we respond to it. 3. Art as a term has been used very loosely and he had stuck to its traditional forms and meanings. "Dada, which is not even art"- strong objection, dadaism was a movement for the artistic depiction of confusion and meaninglessness which WWII mentally gave the citizens 4. His explanations for how one cognitively responds to art are very vague like 'some little part of your brain triggers a response', 'your brain finds this distortion amusing' (paraphrased) including the seagull metaphor. Such views come with hardly any scientific, empirical backing other than the far-fetched association with galvanic response. 5. Chompsky's universal grammar and a universal grammar for vision What essentially makes art different from science and enjoyable for most part, is the varied response it gets from its consumers. Attempting to codify all reactions in to some universal laws defies the very purpose of art. Art cannot be contained. 6. "The purpose of art is not realism." Okay, there are a lot of problems with this statement. 7. Contrast, grouping, isolation, etc are all basic techniques found in any artistic piece in order to elicit the so called aha response in the viewers. This is not a new discovery. he has clearly not gone through Elements of Art and Principles of Design. 8. He spends too much time in art appreciation and perspective taking than delving into how people cognitively appraise aesthetics of visual art.

[@bodmondude]

Yeah you're right. I'm of Indian decent and I can do the RR too. It's just that I was born in Canada, so I can do both, unlike Dr. Rama who just does the RR for all Rs ;).

[@MassiveJungle]

lol I think you missed the entire point of the lecture, which notwithstanding the scientific explanations, which is fairly intuitive: art is not merely a photorealistic 'picture' of something - there is a degree of subjective interpretation of the subject on the part of the artist

[@HeathMc]

He seems to reduce the value of art to the associations of reproduction and survival. This is a very reductionistic view of our experience of life. He made some good points, but he still needs to do more research. The question at 1:17:30 discredits a lot of what he says in this talk. Everyone should love the Picasso piece if he is correct. But many people do not.

[@doriankilledsibyl]

@doriankilledsibyl And also! If you recognize that "that there is a problem here," then at least my comment allowed us all to talk about it, right? I mean, there's nothing wrong with me putting it out there... And discussion is healthy!

[@gouthamprasad3840]

So the modern artist are scientist at level.

[@etiennealive]

I remember the venus-statues found, from prehistoric Europe. What Ramachandran says must go way back to the roots of our excistence.

[@ginsushark]

a scientist dude tries to use scientific theory to explain why he likes certain styles of art (abstracted figuratism esp from the sub continent). Its a bit too identity oriented/egocentric for my tastes but its not bad. spose this lecture is old - before data compression and recursive patterns became part of the standard explanaition of art appreciation.