Science-Art: Neuronaturalism Beyond the Decentred Spectator

• Authors: Klee Steve
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Science-art collaborations are a growth area. An example is the Wellcome Collection exhibition “States of Mind”. I focus on one work yellowbluepink by Ann Veronica Janssens. As framed within the exhibition this piece is understood to present a model of spectatorship in which the art-encounter prompts an awareness of the p o s s i b i l i t y of neuroscientific self-understanding. I take it that science-art projects want to spread this celebration of “objective thought”; this is their realist agenda. The scientific framing of yellowbluepink fails in this regard because of a striking contradiction at its heart. The dominant art historical interpretation of this piece includes a spectator who is “decentred”, u n a b l e to know him or herself. This contradiction creates a methodological problem for the project, one that negatively impacts its ability to a m b i t i o u s l y promote its agenda. On the basis of this analysis I sketch out the conditions for an ambitious project. It would need to acknowledge the “artworld” and it would require the invention of a new model of spectatorship, one that promoted (self)-awareness of humankinds’ impressive epistemic capacity. This anti-phenomenological figure is formulated with reference to the nemocentric subject.

Keywords

EN

Art; Ann Veronica Janssens; Neuroscience; The Nemocentric Subject; Ray Brassier; Realism; The Decentred Spectator; Rosalind E Krauss; Maurice Merleau-Ponty; Phenomenology

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Warszawski
• Journal: Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 78–93

Dates

published

2017-12-15

Contributors

author

Klee Steve

• University of Lincoln

References

• Bishop, Claire. Installation Art. London: Tate Publishing, 2010.
• Brassier, Ray. “Against an Aesthetics of Noise. Interview by Bram Ieven for Transitzone”. Accessed July 20 2017. http://ny-web.be/transitzone/against-aesthetics-noise.html.
• Brassier, Ray. “Genre is Obsolete”. The Auricle Sonic Arts Gallery. Accessed July 20, 2017. http://auricle.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Ray-Brassier-Genre-is-Obsolete.pdf.
• Bryant, Levi, Nick Srnicek, and Graham Harman, eds. The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism. Melbourne: repress, 2011.
• Cox, Christopher, Jenny Jaskey, and Suhail Malik eds. Realism Materialism Art Berlin/New York: Sternberg Press & Bard College, 2015.
• Danto, Arthur C. “The Artworld.” The Journal of Philosophy 61, (1964): 571-84.
• Dickie, George. “The New Institutional Theory of Art”, Proceedings of the 8th Wittgenstein Symposium 10, (1983): 57-64.
• Gardner, Sebastian, and Mathew Grist eds. The Transcendental Turn, Oxford: OUP, 2015.
• Howarth, David, Aletta J. Norval, and Yannis Stavrakaki, eds. Discourse Theory and Political Analysis: Identities, Hegemonies and Social Change. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.
• Kitcher, Philip. The Advancement of Science: Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusions. New York: OUP, 1993.
• Krauss, Rosalind E. Passages in Modern Sculpture. London: Thames & Hudson, 1977.
• Meillassoux, Quentin. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. Translated by Ray Brassier. London: Continuum, 2008.
• Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Paul Kegan. Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk: Routledge, 1992.
• Metzinger, Thomas. Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2004.
• Metzinger, Thomas. “Ray Brassier in Conversation with Thomas Metzinger.” Senselogic. Accessed July 20, 2017, https://cengizerdem.wordpress.com/2015/07/20/ray-brassier-in-conversation-with-thomas-metzinger/.
• Miller, Arthur. Colliding Worlds: How Cutting-edge Science is Redefining Contemporary Art. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014.
• Rancière, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics. Translated by Gabriel Rockhill. London: Continuum, 2004.
• Sellars, Wilfrid. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997.
• Wilson, Stephen. Art + Science Now: How Scientific Research and Technological Innovation are Becoming Key to 21st-Century Aesthetics. London: Thames & Hudson, 2010.
• Wolfendale, Peter. “Rationalist Inhumanism (Dictionary Entry)”. Academia.edu. Accessed July 1, 2016. http://www.academia.edu/26697819/Rationalist_Inhumanism_Dictionary_Entry.
• Wolfendale, Peter. “The Reformatting of Homo Sapiens,” video of paper delivered at the ‘05 Inhuman Symposium’. YouTube. Accessed July 20, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IpDTUhQA5U.

Identifiers

DOI

10.26319/2917