- Email: [email protected]
Expanding perception through the disordered brain
Perspectives
Exhibition Expanding perception through the disordered brain
www.thelancet.com Vol 381 March 23, 2013
obsessive need to systematise and calculate behind his unusual Time Capsule, a pen and ink representation of a decade’s calendar. The two video installations at the start of Affecting Perception are less well aligned with the exhibition’s overarching theme. One installation, a “philosophical experiment”, shows
“All of the works exhibited here show how the artist can exploit the paradoxical potential of pathology to liberate new powers of perception.” a patient undergoing awake tumour resection from the occipital lobe watching his visual cortex. It then illustrates signal variation in an EEG by transforming it into corn starch dancing on a speaker tympanum after being amplified as sound. The latter shared an attractive aesthetic with Harold Edgerton’s 1937 photograph Milk Coronet, but otherwise did not hold our attention. The value of these extended videos lies perhaps, like
much performance art, more in the concept than in the product that is shared with an audience. By contrast, Jason Padget’s nearby pen and ink drawings were riveting. They illustrate how, after a severe head injury, his visual perception of solid objects was fractionated into myriads of precise geometric figures, graphic representations of mathematical formulae. Padget is described as experiencing a form of “conceptual synaesthesia” and his beautifully intricate structures give an undeniable credibility to the artist’s extraordinary perception. His Quantum Hand depicts a two-dimensional, flat palm emerging from a precisely drawn set of lines radiating from a central focus, each ending on the surface as a numbered point. Although not directly commented on, this work may be one of the best examples of how art can illuminate mechanisms of the brain; it is directly related to David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel’s classic demonstrations of how visual perception is built up from simpler modular processing of contrast and angle.
Affecting Perception: Art and Neuroscience O3 Gallery, Oxford, UK, until March 31, 2013 http://www.o3gallery.co.uk/o3_ gallery_current_exhibitions.html For more on AXNS Collective see http://axnscollective.org
Nicholas Wade
Three recent experimental psychology graduates—calling themselves the AXNS Collective—have curated an unusual exhibition, Affecting Perception, that explicitly joins neuroscience and art. A quote from Albert Einstein prefaces the exhibition catalogue: “arts and sciences are branches of the same tree”. For us, the exhibition highlights something more intimate: the extraordinary potential of the human mind to communicate perception of the world through the abstractions of art or language. Nicholas Wade’s optical illusions at the entrance to the exhibition immediately remind the visitor that perception is a subjective experience: what we see is not necessarily what is. This is illustrated even more powerfully by work of other artists in the exhibition, most of whom have a brain disorder that leaves them with a unique perception of the world. To highlight the relation between brain and mind, the exhibition pairs each artist’s work with an informative description of their circumstances and of the medical context for each of the works. However, as shown by Wade’s optical illusions, the brain’s ability to alter perception is not unique to disease. Although each work is presented in a specific neuropsychiatric context, these details ultimately seem less important to understanding the art than the information that is displayed about the artists’ lives and inspirations. In doing so, the “artist/ patient” becomes a “person”, with the disease just part of the wider context. Ultimately, this direct link between art and artist becomes more persuasive than the relation of art to neuropathology. Nonetheless, in many cases, specific knowledge of the artist’s illness deepened an understanding of the work. Knowledge of George Widener’s Asperger’s syndrome, for example, helped to illuminate the
Nicholas Wade, Back Propagation, 2012, digital print
985
Patricia Utermohlen
Perspectives
Left: William Utermohlen, Self Portrait (with easel), 1998; right: Self Portrait (with saw), 1997
Jon Sarkin’s expressive work, one of which (“The House We Live In”) was selected for the exhibition poster, was among the most exciting works for us. After a massive left hemispheric stroke and subsequent partial hemisphere resection, Sarkin developed an overwhelming urge to draw. His use of coloured marker on paper suggests rapid, apparently frantic, execution, with crude, cartoon forms, bright colours, and sometimes obsessively packed shapes and words that form an eruption of visual sound in a stream of consciousness—“Diamonds and pearls tumble from my brain”, he exclaims in On and On. Sarkin’s works bring to mind Philip Sandblom’s Creativity and Disease: How Illness Affects Literature, Art, and Music and the notion that pathology can unlock creativity. Pathology allows the skilled artist to express a new kind of perception. Notable examples are the marvellous colour forms of Claude Monet’s late paintings, such as Water Lilies (1914–26), in which form emerges from colour to illustrate the artist’s world as it is perceived from behind the clouded lens of the cataract. In this exhibition, works by Cecil Riley, who suffers visual loss from macular degeneration, explore his experiences of hallucinations as his brain “fills in” his perception. In Mandala (2012), Riley captures these fleeting images by painting with his still preserved 986
peripheral vision. He writes that he was fascinated by his hallucinations and how their expression in paint exorcised them. The most moving of the works on display—and worth a visit to see them alone—are two self-portraits by William Utermohlen (1933–2007). A well-known portraitist, he was encouraged to continue painting after the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease by his neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, Martin Rosser, and his nurse, Ron Isaacs. This inspired adjunct to his care leaves us with a remarkable legacy. It also provides an inspiring example of how “dis-ease” can be addressed by a therapeutic prescription that considers the patient as a person, rather than a diseased organ. Sadly, Utermohlen’s finely painted early work, reflecting a love for Andrea Mantegna and the Italian Renaissance, is not shown for comparison in this exhibition. His 1997 Self Portrait (with saw) uses broad swathes of colour around a wide-eyed, anxious face painted with few details on a canvas divided into blocks of black and white with an ornately handled woodsaw placed incongruously off to the right edge. Like a saw, the black and white blocks cut across the image, pushing his face off centre and suggesting the pitiless, progressive
fragmentation of perception and division of mind he was experiencing from Alzheimer’s disease. The effects of disease progression are graphically highlighted by the adjacent Self Portrait (with easel) from 1998. This shows the artist staring from the centre of the image, but caught between bright edges of the easel frame, and painted with thickly, seemingly angrily applied reds. The geometry is twisted with impossible canvas frame angles around the head, which becomes distorted and indistinct below the jaw. The colours of the face and background canvas merge, as if the perception could not be stabilised. Like the great Rembrandt self-portraits, this art shares the way in which the artist is struggling to preserve his self against age and, in this instance, inexorable neurodegeneration. The curators of Affecting Perception sought to “explore the role of each area of the brain in creating art”. We are not confident that they have succeeded in this, partly because the choice of artists with disorders include Asperger’s syndrome and migraine that are not readily localisable in any meaningful anatomical fashion. However, we believe that they have accomplished something much more important: the works offer us a rare opportunity to share in the perceptions of extraordinary minds. In An Anthropologist On Mars, Oliver Sacks writes that “Sickness implies a contraction of life, but such contractions do not have to occur”. All of the works exhibited here show how the artist can exploit the paradoxical potential of pathology to liberate new powers of perception.
*Paul M Matthews, Emily A Matthews Division of Brain Sciences, Department of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London, London W12 0NN, UK (PMM); and The University of Law, London, UK (EAM) [email protected]
www.thelancet.com Vol 381 March 23, 2013
Exhibition Expanding perception through the disordered brain
www.thelancet.com Vol 381 March 23, 2013
obsessive need to systematise and calculate behind his unusual Time Capsule, a pen and ink representation of a decade’s calendar. The two video installations at the start of Affecting Perception are less well aligned with the exhibition’s overarching theme. One installation, a “philosophical experiment”, shows
“All of the works exhibited here show how the artist can exploit the paradoxical potential of pathology to liberate new powers of perception.” a patient undergoing awake tumour resection from the occipital lobe watching his visual cortex. It then illustrates signal variation in an EEG by transforming it into corn starch dancing on a speaker tympanum after being amplified as sound. The latter shared an attractive aesthetic with Harold Edgerton’s 1937 photograph Milk Coronet, but otherwise did not hold our attention. The value of these extended videos lies perhaps, like
much performance art, more in the concept than in the product that is shared with an audience. By contrast, Jason Padget’s nearby pen and ink drawings were riveting. They illustrate how, after a severe head injury, his visual perception of solid objects was fractionated into myriads of precise geometric figures, graphic representations of mathematical formulae. Padget is described as experiencing a form of “conceptual synaesthesia” and his beautifully intricate structures give an undeniable credibility to the artist’s extraordinary perception. His Quantum Hand depicts a two-dimensional, flat palm emerging from a precisely drawn set of lines radiating from a central focus, each ending on the surface as a numbered point. Although not directly commented on, this work may be one of the best examples of how art can illuminate mechanisms of the brain; it is directly related to David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel’s classic demonstrations of how visual perception is built up from simpler modular processing of contrast and angle.
Affecting Perception: Art and Neuroscience O3 Gallery, Oxford, UK, until March 31, 2013 http://www.o3gallery.co.uk/o3_ gallery_current_exhibitions.html For more on AXNS Collective see http://axnscollective.org
Nicholas Wade
Three recent experimental psychology graduates—calling themselves the AXNS Collective—have curated an unusual exhibition, Affecting Perception, that explicitly joins neuroscience and art. A quote from Albert Einstein prefaces the exhibition catalogue: “arts and sciences are branches of the same tree”. For us, the exhibition highlights something more intimate: the extraordinary potential of the human mind to communicate perception of the world through the abstractions of art or language. Nicholas Wade’s optical illusions at the entrance to the exhibition immediately remind the visitor that perception is a subjective experience: what we see is not necessarily what is. This is illustrated even more powerfully by work of other artists in the exhibition, most of whom have a brain disorder that leaves them with a unique perception of the world. To highlight the relation between brain and mind, the exhibition pairs each artist’s work with an informative description of their circumstances and of the medical context for each of the works. However, as shown by Wade’s optical illusions, the brain’s ability to alter perception is not unique to disease. Although each work is presented in a specific neuropsychiatric context, these details ultimately seem less important to understanding the art than the information that is displayed about the artists’ lives and inspirations. In doing so, the “artist/ patient” becomes a “person”, with the disease just part of the wider context. Ultimately, this direct link between art and artist becomes more persuasive than the relation of art to neuropathology. Nonetheless, in many cases, specific knowledge of the artist’s illness deepened an understanding of the work. Knowledge of George Widener’s Asperger’s syndrome, for example, helped to illuminate the
Nicholas Wade, Back Propagation, 2012, digital print
985
Patricia Utermohlen
Perspectives
Left: William Utermohlen, Self Portrait (with easel), 1998; right: Self Portrait (with saw), 1997
Jon Sarkin’s expressive work, one of which (“The House We Live In”) was selected for the exhibition poster, was among the most exciting works for us. After a massive left hemispheric stroke and subsequent partial hemisphere resection, Sarkin developed an overwhelming urge to draw. His use of coloured marker on paper suggests rapid, apparently frantic, execution, with crude, cartoon forms, bright colours, and sometimes obsessively packed shapes and words that form an eruption of visual sound in a stream of consciousness—“Diamonds and pearls tumble from my brain”, he exclaims in On and On. Sarkin’s works bring to mind Philip Sandblom’s Creativity and Disease: How Illness Affects Literature, Art, and Music and the notion that pathology can unlock creativity. Pathology allows the skilled artist to express a new kind of perception. Notable examples are the marvellous colour forms of Claude Monet’s late paintings, such as Water Lilies (1914–26), in which form emerges from colour to illustrate the artist’s world as it is perceived from behind the clouded lens of the cataract. In this exhibition, works by Cecil Riley, who suffers visual loss from macular degeneration, explore his experiences of hallucinations as his brain “fills in” his perception. In Mandala (2012), Riley captures these fleeting images by painting with his still preserved 986
peripheral vision. He writes that he was fascinated by his hallucinations and how their expression in paint exorcised them. The most moving of the works on display—and worth a visit to see them alone—are two self-portraits by William Utermohlen (1933–2007). A well-known portraitist, he was encouraged to continue painting after the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease by his neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, Martin Rosser, and his nurse, Ron Isaacs. This inspired adjunct to his care leaves us with a remarkable legacy. It also provides an inspiring example of how “dis-ease” can be addressed by a therapeutic prescription that considers the patient as a person, rather than a diseased organ. Sadly, Utermohlen’s finely painted early work, reflecting a love for Andrea Mantegna and the Italian Renaissance, is not shown for comparison in this exhibition. His 1997 Self Portrait (with saw) uses broad swathes of colour around a wide-eyed, anxious face painted with few details on a canvas divided into blocks of black and white with an ornately handled woodsaw placed incongruously off to the right edge. Like a saw, the black and white blocks cut across the image, pushing his face off centre and suggesting the pitiless, progressive
fragmentation of perception and division of mind he was experiencing from Alzheimer’s disease. The effects of disease progression are graphically highlighted by the adjacent Self Portrait (with easel) from 1998. This shows the artist staring from the centre of the image, but caught between bright edges of the easel frame, and painted with thickly, seemingly angrily applied reds. The geometry is twisted with impossible canvas frame angles around the head, which becomes distorted and indistinct below the jaw. The colours of the face and background canvas merge, as if the perception could not be stabilised. Like the great Rembrandt self-portraits, this art shares the way in which the artist is struggling to preserve his self against age and, in this instance, inexorable neurodegeneration. The curators of Affecting Perception sought to “explore the role of each area of the brain in creating art”. We are not confident that they have succeeded in this, partly because the choice of artists with disorders include Asperger’s syndrome and migraine that are not readily localisable in any meaningful anatomical fashion. However, we believe that they have accomplished something much more important: the works offer us a rare opportunity to share in the perceptions of extraordinary minds. In An Anthropologist On Mars, Oliver Sacks writes that “Sickness implies a contraction of life, but such contractions do not have to occur”. All of the works exhibited here show how the artist can exploit the paradoxical potential of pathology to liberate new powers of perception.
*Paul M Matthews, Emily A Matthews Division of Brain Sciences, Department of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London, London W12 0NN, UK (PMM); and The University of Law, London, UK (EAM) [email protected]
www.thelancet.com Vol 381 March 23, 2013