http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03qz6q2
bruce maclean talking about conceptual art
http://www.wharf.co.uk/news/business/estate-agents-simon-cowell–13173646
“The look on people’s faces when they see what I have made – that captivated me straight away,” said the East London Chamber Of Commerce (inc DBC) member.
existential terror as root of art (me)
- existential terror in that I know I am going to die and to be as if I never was
- existential terror in that my children know I am gong to die and to be as if I never was
maybe make a visible art fends off these two terror
art is a two way thing
from savvy painter podcast Julyan davis
https://savvypainter.com/podcast/personal-art-julyan-davis/
antes asks Julyan Davis if he would paint if he knew that no one would every see his work
JD replies no – he cites the instance when s a child your work gets no tired and people begin to comment positively on it and thats when he decided he was going to paint (very like me)
this correlates with terror management – not specifically to do with art just with any human activity that you get positive response to.
To reduce arousal, you need to use just a few words to describe an emotion, and ideally use symbolic language, which means using indirect metaphors, metrics, and simplifications of your experience. This requires you to activate your prefrontal cortex, which reduces the arousal in the limbic system. Here’s the bottom line: describe an emotion in just a word or two, and it helps reduce the emotion.”
He-Who-Actually-Must-Be-Named
So, okay, you’re still down. Try and get more specific. What, exactly, is the bad feeling you have? Anger? Stress? Sadness? Loneliness? Neuroscience says that just giving your darkness a name defuses it.
Author David Rock’s book Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long explains:
“To reduce arousal, you need to use just a few words to describe an emotion, and ideally use symbolic language, which means using indirect metaphors, metrics, and simplifications of your experience. This requires you to activate your prefrontal cortex, which reduces the arousal in the limbic system. Here’s the bottom line: describe an emotion in just a word or two, and it helps reduce the emotion.”
Korb notes that fMRI studies support this idea, like one in which “participants viewed pictures of people with emotional facial expressions. Predictably, each participant’s amygdala activated to the emotions in the picture. But when they were asked to name the emotion, the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex activated and reduced the emotional amygdala reactivity. In other words, consciously recognizing the emotions reduced their impact.”
FBI negotiators use labeling to try and calm hostage negotiators, and it’s also an important tool in mindfulness.
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.
‘Pat:so why does so much art rely on disgust fear and moral revulsion?’
Have you ever witnessed something that made you sick to your stomach? Have you listened to a story so evil that you felt you might faint? Humans are different from other animals because we have a mind for symbolism. This knack for metaphor complicates our lives, and that is evident at a neurological level. Robert Sapolsky, professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University, explains that our insular cortex evolved to teach us to feel disgusted by things that would harm us: the taste of rotten fruit, the smell of infection—those triggers set off a visceral reaction (like nausea, gagging, vomiting).1 Gradually, our societies developed a concept of moral transgression but evolution didn’t keep pace. Rather than evolve a new brain region to process moral disgust, it was (and is) funneled through the insular cortex. Our bodies can’t tell the difference between moral and visceral disgust, which is why we very often mistake things that are strange to us as things that are bad or immoral. This explains why people are so judgmental about alternative lifestyles, and feel confident labelling other people’s decisions as “wrong” and theirs as “right”. Awareness of this misattributed impulse reaction can hopefully help us pause and think beyond our faulty wiring. Our moral instincts may be seriously flawed. Robert Sapolsky is the author of Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.
isitartdotco 