Art and the Senses

by Bacci, Francesca; Melcher, David

• ISBN13: 9780199230600
• ISBN10: 0199230609
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-09-25
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In recent years, there has been a re-discovery of the importance of sensory experience in our daily lives. The senses play a vital role in our health, in our social interactions, and in enjoying food, music and the arts. This book provides an introduction to the study of the senses and the arts. It contains over thirty chapters written by artists/practitioners, including, musicians, visual artists, a "sculptor for the blind", a celebrity chef, a choreographer, designers, and architects. It also includes chapters by leading neuroscientists and psychologists who study the senses, as well as chapters from scholars from the humanities, including, art history, anthropology, and cultural studies. The book provides a unique interdisciplinary overview of the senses, ranging from the neuroscience of sensory processing in the body, to cultural influences on how the senses are used in society, to the role of the senses in the arts. The chapters are written by leading academics, artists and scientists, each of whom brings different perspectives and experiences to the book. Together, these chapters form a timely snapshot of research on the human senses which makes clear a number of common themes that run across the arts, humanities, and sciences. The first book of its kind, 'Art and the Senses' will be a valuable tool for anyone interested in how the senses interact with eachother to create meaningful human experience.

Author Biography

Francesca Bacci is the first art historian in residence at the Center for Mind and Brain Sciences (University of Trento), where she is involved in collaborative research on neural correlates of the experience of art. She was trained as an art historian and restorer in the University of Udine, where she received her laurea in Preservation of the Fine Arts. She completed her Ph.D. in History of Art, as well as a Curatorial Certificate, as a Fulbright Fellow at Rutgers University (USA). She has taught university courses for Oxford University, Oxford Brookes and Rutgers University. Her main research interests focus upon late nineteenth and early twentieth century European art, early photography, the psychology of art, curatorship and the public experience of art. Francesca Bacci has collaborated on research and exhibition projects with the Guggenheim Museum (Venice and NYC), the Brooklyn Museum of Art (NYC), the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Musee Rodin (Paris), and the MART Museum (Rovereto)

David Melcher is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Italy. He received his PhD in Psychology from Rutgers University in 2001, and since then has been a lecturer, research fellow and professor in Italy, Great Britain and France. His research interests lie at the intersection of cognition, perception and action. He has written numerous articles for scientific journals including Nature, Current Biology, Neuron and Nature Neuroscience. His interest in neuroscience and the arts has led him to organize and participate in interdisciplinary workshops and to publish papers on art and science. He has given many public lectures and has been interviewed for radio, television and newspaper stories about his research. His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the British Academy, the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Society and the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Making sense of art, making art of sense, Francesca Bacci
2. The Science and Art of the Sixth Sense, Nicholas J. Wade
3. The Art of Touch in Early Modern Italy, Geraldine A. Johnson
4. The multisensory perception of touch, Charles Spence
5. Aesthetic Touch, Rosalyn Driscoll
6. Art, aesthetics and the senses, Elio Franzini
7. Sculpture and touch?, Francesca Bacci
8. Touch and the Cinematic Experience, Jennifer M. Barker
9. Hearing Scents, Tasting Sights: Toward a Cross-Cultural Multi-Modal Theory of Aesthetics, David Howes
10. The science of taste and smell, Tim Jacob
11. The Influence of hearing on eating, drinking and perception, Charles Spence, Maya U. Shankar, and Heston Blumenthal
12. Thinking Multisensory Culture, Laura U. Marks
13. Sighting Sound: Listening with Eyes Open, Simon Shaw-Miller
14. The sight and sound of music: audio-visual interactions in science and the arts, David Melcher and Massimiliano Zampini
15. Improvisation in time: The art of jazz- An interview with Greg Osby and Skip Hadden, David Melcher
16. Musical Tension, Carol L. Krumhansl and Fred Lerdahl
17. Cause and affect. A functional perspective on music and emotion, Guy Madison
18. The Mystery of Representation: a Conversation with Vic Muniz, Vic Muniz and David Melcher
19. Pictorial cues in art and in visual perception, David Melcher and Patrick Cavanagh
20. The many dimensions of the third one, Ruggero Pierantoni
21. Film, Narrative, and Cognitive Neuroscience, Jeffrey M. Zacks & Joseph P. Magliano
22. Mirror neurons and art, Vittorio Gallese
23. Pictorial art beyond sight: revealing the mind of a blind painter, Amir Amedi, Lotfi B. Merabet, Noa Tal, Alvaro Pascual-Leone
24. Visual Music in Arts and Minds: Explorations with Synaesthesia, Dr Jamie Ward
25. Visual Music and Musical Paintings: The quest for synaesthesia in the arts, Cretien van Campen
26. Dance, Choreography and the Brain, Ivar Hagendoorn
27. Neuroaesthetic of performing arts, Beatriz Calvo-Merino & Patrick Haggard
28. Multi-Sensory Aesthetics in Product Design, Hendrik N.J. Schifferstein & Paul Hekkert
29. Architecture and the Body, Alberto Perez-Gomez
30. Architecture and the existensial sense, Juhani Pallasmaa
31. Multimodal, interactive media and the illusion of realit, Elena Pasquinelli