Final Thoughts

So, a bit of time and processing does the mind good. This fall was such an intense and jam packed event, that it is only now that I feel a real clarity. So, in the spirit of the New Year, I will reflect upon what I learned from this class.
1. Perhaps it is my own philosophical nature or the nature of my dissertation research (studying the impact of drawing on the brain using EEG measures) but I did not feel there were direct applications to my research regarding sharing content or new media forums related to this class. I did find a great deal of literature related to my dissertation applicable to new media issues, (particularly in regards to what it means to connect with others, and the impact of visual stimuli on the brain). The brain is a constantly evolving organ, and I think we are in a transitional period that we have yet to fully understand or grasp. I find it similar to not noticing a person gaining weight because you see them everyday; we don't know how different we are yet, because the change is happening daily and organically before our very eyes. But, just think about how plugged in we are..sounds, words, and behaviors are part of our daily lives that did not exist five years ago. We live our lives as if this amazing revolution is not happening before our eyes, but it is! To not reflect on this, to not ask what it means to be human today, is to have lived one of the most radical shifts in human history and to not reflect or bat an eye. Amazing!
2. I have been very ambivalent about the hands on analysis of these new media technologies. On one hand I would not have created this blog or my website for this class, on the other I have felt that the time given to these analysis would have been more appropriate spent on the ethical issues, social issues, and psychological/spiritual impact that new media entails. These tools may be irrelevant any day now, but the underlying questions have only just begun. Upon review of my work, my focus and approach to this class clearly reflects this bias. Having said that, I have been able to incorporate new media into my materials and media class that I teach, and used these concepts to stimulate some much needed new discssions in regards to what constitutes an art material and the role of art therapy in response to technologies. I was clear in my message that art therapy will not benefit from a stance as a last gasp of hands on organic creative art approaches..a kind of antidote to a new media world...which leads to...
3. convergence culture is a creative culture. This is quite a fascinating discovery to me. I showed the Jenkins video to my students and discussed his ideas at a College workshop on the impact of internet and computers. This class not only led to exciting discussions, but it helped make me look very smart (thanks to you for that!)
4. Finally, this class laid the format for what I hope will be the eventual publication on the ethical implications for new media for therapists. I sent this document to Lisa, and I look forward to your feedback and comments.
So in summary, I feel this class has impacted me more as a clinician than a researcher, but these parts of my identity are intertwined. I expect that I will be stewing over and applying what I have learned for a long time. The expressive therapies need to be pulled on board to the new media realities, even if we hop on kicking and screaming and pulling our hair out!

my website

Of all the things this class has got me excited and jazzed about, creating a website is certainly high on the list. While its still a work in progress, here is the link:
http://thedaysyouwore.yolasite.com/
I hope to use this as a means to collect my interests as a researcher, musician, and visual artist. More to come!

Convergence Culture is Creative Culture

I am leaving inspired from a recent visit to a hard to describe outsider artists mecca in Wisconsin titled House on the Rock. I am uploading a video I made from the House on the Rock (I can not explain this place, but I can say that it has the worlds largest carousel (featured here). You just have to come visit.

In addition, I feel enlightened and inspired in regards to the debates around New Media. My students in the Graduate Art Therapy program were able to use videos and various new media outlets for their presentations in their Media and Materials class. New media and the internet were a huge part of our discussions this semester. My semester highlight was making in class animation videos in I-Movie, working with a visiting artist Lesley Gena. The students amazed me in their creative work (45 to 60 second animated movies that were unique and creatiev). I neglect not posting these events earlier, as I think it is not until now that I can see how to fully use this blog. It is only upon post semester high energy pace (welcomed stillness) that I have been able to fully appreciate how much I have applied this class to my role as an art therapy educator. It was an exciting semester. Art therapy's role in our current culture remains to be seen, but my students were wrestling with and embracing the shifts in technology. Art therapy has been uncertain as to how to fully use new media and how it fits as a creative means for expression. I also was able to give a brief lecture on participatory culture in response to a seminar at Mount Mary called dynamic discussions. The topic of the day was "Are you stupid?" and related to the impact of technology on the brain. I feel smarter in many ways and yes a bit stupid too. Such is life these days, such is the process of cracking open in the doctoral journey. But, at any rate, I was able to connect Jenkins with my interest in brain research (particularly mirror neurons). I am not sold entirely on participatory culture, but I do like the concept of its utopian ideals of user generated content. In my view a culture of convergence is a creative culture.
It will be fascinating to see where the cloud takes us. I for one have no intention of getting off the cloud and I am excited about the ability to connect with others in soo many ways. As a research tool, I do not feel new media impacts me greatly at this point, but I anticipate this will change and is largely a reflection of being locked in already with my process and methods. The ethical issues around email and new media are very rich and need to addressed more frequently. We are clearly in a time of transition where what it means to connect, to be close, and to be friends mean new and different things. Who better to address these fuzzy complexities than clinicians? I can also say that hours in front of computer screens and feeling plugged in has constantly has started to take a toll on me, even a times causing anxiety. It seems like there is just so much to keep track of from passwords to log ins, to multiple accounts and platforms. Convergence is still very hard for me to manage. Considering I didn't have an email in 2000, I feel I am doing well and quite amazed at how much time I spend in the cloud. Amazing. I think we look back at this time and say "That was the real shift". What stories will I tell my grandchildren?

blow away

Here is a video we made to a our song blow away..work in progress

End of the semester break

Happy Holidays! Another semester down! What a year. I do love teaching and can't believe how much I continually learn from my students and the process. What a gig!
I am looking forward to a winter break where I will be snowed in and "trapped" with many interesting articles. Lit review here I come!

art and the visual stystem

Continuing my summary of the literature in the field, the following outlines a hugely relevant article by Zeki and Lamb that proposes the idea that artists are in essence conducting research on the brain via their aesthetic choices.

Zeki, S. & Lamb, M. (1994). The neurology of kinetic art, Brain, 117, 607-636.
Zeki and Lamb postulated three “laws” supporting their credo that “All art must obey the laws of the visual system” (p. 607). The first law emphasizes the role of the cortex as opposed to the eye in processing certain elements of visual information. Where it was once believed that images were received in the brain fully formed, we now understand that our visual reality is in many was constructed in the cortex. The second law notes that the visual cortex is divided into “geographically separate parts” that are divided into functional specializations. Thus while our visual reality represents a “coherent picture’ (p. 607), this reality is assembled by different parts of the visual cortex each specialized for processing elements of a visual scene. The third law notes that these functional and geographic individuations reveal what tasks” have primacy” in vision” (p. 607). Thus, the structural and functional organization of “colour, form, motion and, possibly, depth” (p. 607) processing indicate their dominance in the visual system.

While Zeki and Lamb noted that “Aesthetics must involve a great deal more than the
stimulation of specific visual areas” (p. 607) they propose the idea that artists are have via their emphasis on different elements and qualities of their visual work, “almost certainly unknowingly, tried to obtain aesthetic effects by stimulating optimally only a limited number of visual areas in the cerebral cortex” (p. 607). Utilizing motion, for example, they propose the idea that art that explores motion and/or evokes the aesthetic response of perceived movement, undoubtedly achieves this effect via the emphasis and de-emphasis of the differentiated properties of the visual system.
“Implicit in our view is the more general supposition that, when executing a work ofart, the artist unknowingly undertakes an experiment to study the organization of the visual brain” (p. 608). Thus aesthetic responses of a work are linked to the ability of the artist to evoke responses from the brain. This is not to imply that these aesthetic responses are exclusively related to the different specialized areas of the visual system, but rather that the aesthetic hierarchy of a piece of art (in a sense what the image is about or evokes, particularly in the world of nonobjective art in which content may be communicated non-objectively) is likely reflected in the ability to target and therefore evoke the involvement of the functional specialization of the visual system.

interesting literature

I have been immersed in my literature review for my dissertation. Here is a summary of a fantastic article exploring the role of mirror neurons and embodied simulation in the empathic and bodily responses to visual art. In addition, the idea of mirror neurons have interesting implications for new media. What do we learn via our face to face interactions with others? If viewing another activates our brain as does viewing violent images, what does the excessive amount of visual stimuli in our convergence culture do to our brain?

Freedberg, D & Gallese, (2007). Motion, emotion, and empathy in esthetic
experience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(5), 197-203.

Freedberg and Gallese emphasized the role of empathy as an essential component of esthetic response to works of art. According to the authors, viewing a work of art can trigger both physical and feeling responses related to the content of the image, as well as the “movement or implied movement within the representation” (p. 197). “The viewing of images of punctured or damaged body parts activates part of the same network of brain centers that are normally activated by our own sensations of pain, accounting for the feeling of physical sensation and corresponding shock” (p. 198). The authors note how even images that are non-emotionally laden and/or non-objective can evoke “bodily resonances…in which beholders might find themselves automatically simulating the emotional expression, the movement or even the implied movement within the representation” (p. 197).
Freedberg and Gallese explain these phenomena via research on mirror neurons and the concept of embodied simulation, which postulates mechanisms in the brain fire when observing an action as if one is actually performing the action. Freedberg and Gallese note how research has shown that viewing a stationary image (as would be entailed in piece of art) activates the mirror neuron system in much the same way as actually observing this action being performed in real time (thus viewing the static image of a hand grasping an object evokes the same response as actually watching a hang grasp an object). Moreover, the authors note how “The observation of a graspable object leads to the simulation of the motor act that object affords “(p. 200). The brain responds not only to the movement or task, but the objects associated with the task. Thus viewing a pair of scissors is likely to activate the areas of the brain that are activated and involved in the act of “scissoring”. In this view objects evoke various intentions that are reflected in the activation of the brain. In addition to the embodied simulation associated with direct depiction of content and imagery of people, places, and things as well as non-objective shapes, colors, and lines.

Such research is profoundly relevant for art therapy in that we see the potential for empathic emotional bodily-based responses afforded by the activation of circuitry and systems within the brain associated with viewing an image. Freedberg and Gallese (2007) noted that while the art theory in the 19th century noted the role of the physical responses in experiencing a work of art, art history in the 20th century has largely neglected the role of the “embodied empathic feeling in the observer” (p. 199), bracketing esthetic experience and art as “a matter of pure cognition” (p. 199).
It would not be a significant stretch to apply the “pure cognition” view to the field of Psychology treatment, which may have overly relied on thought and language as the cornerstones of treatment (Although the embodied simulation does much to support the power of counter transference and transference issues as well as object relations theory. If we have brain-based responses in relation to our history with objects, it seems likely that people would conjure parallel activation).
The ability of visual imagery such as art to evoke empathic responses may lead to the powerful interposal connections that art making affords in both individual and group therapy treatment. Witnessing a piece of art results in a shared embodied experience that would be occurring at a neurological and bodily based level that would not require language to either evoke or explain its power. A client that shares the image of a traumatic memory for example, would likely induce a shared emotional experience in the other group members, resulting in a communal emotional resonance. Thus we see the importance of witnessing the visual depiction of a person’s image, the often non-verbal reverence offered by the group leader and the group members for the image.
The powerful and uncomfortable somatic and bodily responses imagery can evoke may be uncomfortable. It is worth noting how therapist s may feel prone to solve the image, explain or fix it verbally. Perhaps such instincts are a response to the powerful phenomenological and bodily responses occurring in the therapist. In other words he or she may be inadvertently using language to explain away, control, or counter his or her own emotional responses as opposed to addressing the imagery. Thus, it is essential that the therapist travels alongside and stays with the client and their work. Such views are the cornerstone of art therapy treatment, but until recently have struggled for empirical foundations and evidence.
In addition, an empathic based view of image making, the embodied simulation of art making addresses the possibility for vicarious traumatization as well as therapeutic burn out. Witnessing such imagery and experiencing states of attunement afforded by these mechanisms may overwhelm therapists as the repetitive exposure to imagery may trigger multiple responses in the energy consuming empathic mirror neuron systems in the brain.

Exciting Reserach

I found a terrifically helpful and useful article that provides an overview of the EEG, ERP, and neuroimaging data on creativity.

Dietrich, A. & Kanso, R. (2010). A review of EEG, ERP, and Neuroimaging studies of
creativity and insight. Psychological Bulletin, 136(5), 822-848.

What a great help such an overview can be. In addition to summarizing a great deal of the literature and studies I will need for my dissertation, the authors help lift me out of the hazy uncertainty of the role of alpha band and the increase in activity versus decrease in activity debate. How was this achieved? First of all, by concluding the pre existing data is inconclusive. The authors stress the many different types of creativity and individual differences of each person require that “Creativity research must…look at individual processes” (p. 845). In addition, they suggest "The more is better versus less-is-better conceptions underling brain research continue to be a puzzle on the basis of task parameters, sample definitions, and underlying conceptual models” (p, 846). In many ways this is very exciting, as more research still needs to be conducted. In addition, their findings do much to dismiss any misconceptions that art is regulated to one region of the brain suggesting that art likely involves multiple dynamic brain regions.

AATA conference was in a big aiprlane hanger type conference center

AATA and november update

There was a great feeling of energy at the conference this year. I am so thankful to those persons who greeted my presentation with such positive responses.

Where does art happen?

I have been thinking a great deal lately about where art occurs in the brain. It seems that more I study this topic, the more I am left with a sense of awe in regards to how complicated the brain and art really are. It is becoming increasingly clear that there is no singular art spot or creative location in the brain and art is not exclusive to the right hemisphere or any brain region for the matter. Which is not to imply that the right hemisphere is not involved or even dominant in some respects. Bur rather, research is suggesting that art making likely relies on multiple workings within the brain. In addition, the type of materials and media used, the artists intention of the work, the time allocated, and the mood of the creator, are but a few of the many different factors that can potentially influence how the brain responds to art.

AATA conference

Had a great time at the AATA conference. I presented on my research for my dissertation as well as on group based art therapy alongside Dr. Bruce Moon. Both presentations went very well and it was wonderful to receive so much positive energy and support. I also went to a very interesting presentation on digital media and art therapy; specifically, the use of video as a form of journaling and its ethical issues. How do you maintain client confidentiality in a video blog, for example? Should parents and adult clients sign release forms before creating such a blog? How do we address issues of ownership in the world of the cloud?

the what and where pathways in the brain

It is quite amazing to think about how specialized the brain is for processing visual information. Color and movement are processed in different parts of the visual system.

Thoughts on neuroesthetics: Portraits and the brain

Zeki, S. (1999). Inner vision: An exploration of art and the brain. New York: NY:
Oxford University Press.

Gallese, V. (2009). Mirror neurons, embodies simulation, and the neural basis of
social identification. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 19, 519-536.

Livingstone, M. (2002). Vision and art: The biology of seeing. New York, NY: Harry N.
Abrams.

Neuroesthetics proposes that structures in the brain correspond with the various visual, psychological, and emotional impacts evoked by works of art. For example, Zeki (1995), noted how “Portrait painting has acquired its dominance at least in part because the brain has devoted a whole cortical region to face recognition” (p. 167). The ability to recognize and respond to faces has been widely documented as central to our species survival and empathy. Gallese (2009), cited research that has found deficits in brain regions associated with face recognition and emotional appraisal of individuals with autism.
Thus portraits are important to the viewer because it is evolutionary beneficial for humans to be able to respond to facial cues and recognize family members, etc. The evolutionary importance of this task is reflected in the structural organization of the brain. As Zeki noted (1999), “We cannot ignore the fact that the brain has devoted an entire area to the recognition of faces whereas no one had uncovered a brain region that is specific to shoulders” (p. 169-170). Zeki noted how portraits achieve their impact because “the brain associates certain features with certain mental states and psychological traits” (p. 170-171). Lesion studies have found that damage to the fusiform gyrus (located in the temporal lobes) can result in a disorder called prosopagnosia, which is the inability to recognize faces. Losing the ability to process an element of a visual scene is not limited to face recognition. For example, additional damage to the temporal region results in the inability to process color, a disorder called achromatopsia (Zeki). Thus an individual with achromatopsia can experience loss of color vision despite having fully intact rods and cones. In addition, damage to the parietal lobes can result in the loss of the ability to process movement. In her excellent book, Vision and art: The biology of seeing, Livingstone (2002) described the following scenario:
"The neurologist Josef Zihl recently described a stroke victim who had bilateral damage in her parietal lobe that apparently selectively affected just her motion perception. She said it was as if the world were entirely static. She had trouble crossing streets because she could not judge the speed of approaching cars: 'When I’m looking at the car first, it seems far away. But then, when I want to cross the road,” she reported, “suddenly the car is very near'. She eventually learned to estimate the distance by their sound. She had trouble pouring a cup of tea, because the fluid appeared frozen, like a glacier. What’s more, she could not stop pouring at the right time since she was unable to perceive the rising level of the tea in the cup". ( p. 65)

research updates

So it is official! I am analyzing my data and working toward a larger N.
Back to the lab in the Spring I hope for more participants!

are social media materials?

Seiden (2001) described an artistic medium as “the environment within which expression occurs” (p. 19). Using this definition, one could argue that social media are the medium for which an expression of identity occurs. If art therapists view digital media devices and social media cultures as tools of creative expression akin to the crayon, the brush, etc. art therapists are more firmly positioned to both further understand and help clients maintain a place of safety as they operate these environments. In this view, digital and web based media are like a pair of scissors (and any other material for that matter) in that they have the potential to be both beneficial and dangerous.




Seiden, D. (2001). Mind over matter: The use of materials in art, education,and
therapy.Chicago, IL: Magnolia Street.

social media quotes from Mark Twain(?)

Its hard to believe, but the issues around social media are in some ways far from new. Note the following quotes from Mark Twain that feel profoundly relevant today. It seems that the era of change Twain lived through (notably the rise and the fall of the steamboat engine as a primary means of travel and distribution) parallels our own uncertain era of transition.

“Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation. “ Mark Twain

“Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities”.
Mark Twain

“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know. “
Mark Twain

amazing link about ethics andsocial media for therapists

This is a wonderful article from the Washington Post on the ethical issues of social media for therapists. Among other valuable issues the article raises is the simple question of whether therapists should have a Facebook page. The article notes how the impact of seeing pictures of their therapist could impact the client. A notable and powerful issue it raises cites an example where the therapist is forwarded a suicidal email and blog posting from a concerned friend of the clients. Should the therapist read the blog?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032902942_2.html

august

"August is a month of Sundays", a quote from my wife. Indeed. Change is in the air, the pause of summer is past. Here's to Autum's blaze and all that it brings.

ethics

The next issue of Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association will be focusing on ethics. As we enter the era of social networking, how to manage ethics and boundaries as a clinician is very relevant and important issue. I am particularly interested in the traditional view that the therapist should be a "blank slate" to the client. I find this concept a profound contrast to the increasing resources and media knowledge that social media often entail. Googling ones name may be more than a fun somewhat self-indulgent way to track one's status, but rather a form of quality control to see what your are "attached to" and just what is "out there" related to your name, affiliation, etc.

More thoughts on twitter

I am rethinking my earlier stance of "How can you love language and twitter", seeing more clearly the value in playing and editing words down to their core and their essence. Yet, I still can't shake the adolescent connotations that twittering and even texting bring up in my mind. Perhaps I have official encountered the first of no doubt many yet to come generational divides as I approach 40.

would this man tweet?

End of residencey

It is the end of our residency at Lesley. Cambridge again was an amazing experience, but as always a vortex of time.
What is there to say about community that won't be understated?

Performance at Lesley University

Drift #1 by Chris Belkofer

Overview

Welcome to The Days You Wore, an exploration of art and science. This blog will be a reflection of my process, interests, and experiences as a researcher and a student in the Expressive Therapies Program at Lesley University.