infinitely malleable - contemporary sculpture and neural plasticity

7/28/2019 Infinitely Malleable - contemporary sculpture and neural plasticity

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DRAFT December 2012

Infinitely Malleable - contemporary sculpture and neural plasticity

Fleur Summers

Abstract

Contemporary sculpture and installation practices have a strong history of interaction with the body through

experimentation with human perception. Since the 1960s artists have made works that use experience toquestion and test embodiment. These works range from the labyrinths and corridors of Bruce Nauman, the

Gestalt experiments of Robert Morris to the more recent experiential works of Olafur Eliason and CarstenHller. These phenomenological works use large-scale installation, video feedback, light, mirrors, and other

devices to extend and negotiate spatial and temporal subjectivity.

This extension or testing of cognitive embodiment and the creativity and inventiveness involved in transforming

physical objects is demonstrated by the mirror box devised by V.S.Ramachandran. This box is used clinically totreat the pain and discomfort caused by phantom limbs. Phantom limbs are a well-known phenomenon in which

a part of the body that has been amputated continues to feel present and is often uncomfortable. This mirror boxuses mirrors to provide artificial visual feedback to the brain thus releasing the phantom from its disembodiment

and illustrating the notion of neural plasticity.

The conceptualization of space and the body and the interest in seeking experiences that have the potential to

affect or alter neural pathways is common both to art and neuroscience. This dialogue between practicesstrongly suggests the potential of an interdisciplinary approach. By analysing neuronal activity in response to

twentieth century painting, neurobiologist Semir Zeki has already suggested that artists have long exploredpotentials and capabilities of the brain in this case using colour, linearity and form. This paper will posit that it

is equally possible that much can be learnt from sculptural and installation practices that experiment with thebody, time and space, and this may have potential therapeutic applications as well as questioning broader

cultural perspectives.

Historically, sculpture has a long association with the body. This is evident throughout human history from

prehistoric Venus figurines and symbolic Egyptian relief figures to the full figure sculptures of the Greek andRomans, the classical revival of the Renaissance, realist portrait busts and monuments of historical figures.

However, as a result of modernity and with the rise of technology and the use of a wider range of materials andmethods, the emphasis on the representation of the figure in sculpture almost completely dissolved into

abstraction. In a similar nature, while the phenomena of the phantom limb has been observed since the MiddleAges1, it was not widely noted or studied until the twentieth century. Through industrialisation and world wars,

the body itself became fragmented. While amputees became more numerous and visible due to accidents and thetrauma of war, modernism simultaneously caused a spatial and temporal displacement within artist practice andultimately a cultural and neurological rewiring.

Neurology as a discipline also emerged out of modernity. If we define modernity as a temporal rupture,

accompanied by a consequent and self-conscious interest in new experiences, possibilities, technologies,dimensions, ways of sensing the world, and forms of representing it2, it is hardly surprising that the way

cognition was understood changed. Avant-garde art movements such as Cubism, Futurism and Constructivismresponded with fractured bodies and objects, embodied technology and abstracted dialogues on the spatial

experiences of modern life. Neurology underwent its own revolution as the body was subjected to increasinglycomplex sensations. Knowledge often emerges from trauma and this physical displacement brought artists and

neuroscience together in developing new ways of understanding the body. Initially it seemed the body was

almost completely lost through the early ideas of machine-based artificial intelligence and modernist non-

figuration. However, with the rise of Conceptualism post World War II the figure began to be recuperated. Thebody was reinstated as the subject of the work by privileging the experience of the viewer. Similarly, with the


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rise of embodied cognition, the mind moved from being theorised as an abstract information processor to beingdependent on embodiment as it became better understood that cognitive processes are deeply rooted in the

bodys interactions with the world.

The roots of contemporary sculpture consequently emerged in the 1960s out of what American art critic and

theorist Rosalind Krauss defined as the expanded field of sculpture.3 This definition took sculpture beyond the

confines of modernism and created a precedent for the breadth of practice we now see that constitutes sculptureas infinitely malleable.4 In the 1960s, this rupture occurred when Minimalist artists introduced notions of timeand space into their work in response to Merleau-Pontys 1945 workThe Phenomenology of Perception5.

Merleau-Ponty argued that it is through our bodies that we come to know ourselves and the world around us,and that the complex sense we have of our environment cannot be understood purely through the activity of a

disembodied eye.6Merleau-Ponty considered it essential that this encounter was fully integrated within thekinaesthetic and tactile dimensions of experience Our own body is in the world as the heart is in the

organism; it keeps the visible spectacle constantly alive, it breathes life into it...and with it forms a system.7

Similarly, Minimalist artists believed in the need to experience the physicality of art works in the everyday

world and stressed the psychological, spatial and temporal circumstances in which the work was viewed. Theyproduced works that demanded an active and participatory, even theatrical, mode of viewing and that actively

question the spatial conventions of the gallery. This meeting or encounter with the work interrogated the veryconditions of sculpture and created new experiences and ways of seeing and thinking about art.

As a result, artists made works that use experience to test embodiment and began to address the conditionsunder which art is displayed. Examples of these works include the labyrinths and corridors of Bruce Nauman

and the Gestalt experiments of Robert Morris, and extend to more recent experiential and sensational works ofthe 21st century. These phenomenological works use large-scale installation, video feedback, light, mirrors and

other devices to extend and negotiate spatial and temporal subjectivity. For example, Robert Morris constructeda series of large L shaped boxes out of plywood and later fibreglass, stainless steel and aluminium which were

shown from the mid 1960s onwards. He explored his interest in the idea of the Gestalt by showing three of thesein different positions. The way this work was understood was dependent on the conditions of perception and

display. As Krauss explained

[N]o matter how clearly we understand that the three Ls are identical, it is impossible to really perceive

them the one upended, the second lying on its sides, and the third poised on its two ends as thesame. The experiencedshape of the individual sections depends, obviously, upon the orientation of the

Ls to the space they share with our bodies.8

Bruce Nauman also questioned perception and explored bodily sensations by making hybrid architectural workswhich incorporated sound, light, and video. By asking audiences to move through these spaces in order to view

them, he attempted to heighten visual, psychological, and physical processes of perception and to collapse thedistinction between seeing with the eyes and experiencing with the body.9 For example,Four Corner Piece

(1971) involves four passageways forming a square which the viewer can walk around. In each corner, amonitor placed on the floor replays the viewers movement from a series of video cameras in real time.

However, rather than seeing ones body growing larger on the monitor as one proceeds, the viewer instead

experiences their own image from behind receding on the monitor. Movement is restricted and channeled by the

architecture and the visual feedback from the video monitors is confounding. This inability to control ones

image is confusing and results in feelings of dissociation and disembodiment.

The notion of embodiment is also crucial to cognitive psychology and neuroscience. It is only comparativelyrecently that embodiment of cognition has been seen as valuable within the scientific community and systematic

studies have taken place10. While much of this research now involves sophisticated technological imaging, basicneurological testing can still be done with minimal equipment in a doctors office and with simple objects. This

simplicity is evident in the mirror box devised by neurologist V.S.Ramachandran. This box is used clinically to

treat the pain and discomfort often experienced by people with phantom limbs. Phantom limbs are a well-knownphenomenon in which a part of the body that has been amputated continues to feel present and is often painful

or uncomfortable. It is more commonly seen in upper limb amputees than lower limb amputees11but phantom

sensations and pain have also been reported upon the removal of other body parts such as the eyes, teeth,tongue, breast, penis, bowel and bladder.12 The exact mechanism of phantom limb pain is still not agreed upon

and it is widely thought that multiple mechanisms are most likely to be responsible. In this research the interest

lies with central neural mechanisms involving neural plasticity resulting in changes to the body schema and thepresence of mirror neurons and how they relate to the function of the mirror box.


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The body schema is the internal, dynamic representation of the spatial and biochemical properties of ones

body, and is derived from multiple sensory and motor inputs that interact with motor systems in the generation

of actions13These interactions occur without awareness or the need for perceptual monitoring. It was originallythought that the brain and therefore the body schema was relatively fixed by adulthood. However, while the

brain may not be as infinitely malleable as contemporary sculpture, it is now understood that that changes in

neural pathways occur throughout healthy adult life via learning and memory as well as in response to injury.Most importantly, specific functions may not be limited to particular areas of the brain and environmentalfactors can markedly affect neural plasticity in both positive and negative ways. Although phantom limb pain is

due to an injury and is viewed as negative or maladaptive, successful treatment for phantom limb pain showsthat the brain can compensate for loss and that it continues to alter and reprogram neural pathways throughout

life.

The mirror box itself presents very much as a sculptural object and illustrates the creativity and inventiveness

involved in developing and transforming physical objects to test perception. Although it can be constructed invarious ways, it generally appears as a box, open from the top, divided in two sections - one closed (for the

absent limb) and one open with a vertical mirror in middle. The mirror is used to provide artificial visualfeedback to the brain by viewing the reflection of the healthy limb in the visual plane of the missing limb and in

effect tricking the brain into believing the missing limb is moving. If the pain is induced by a conflict betweenvisual feedback and proprioceptive representations of the amputated limb then illusions or imagery of

movement of the amputated limb have the potential to reduce the pain.14This releases the phantom from itsdisembodiment by reinstating the motor-sensory feedback loop. By providing visual feedback of a limb that

isnt actually sending back any sensory information this actual neuronal activity may disrupt the negative paincycle.15Mirror box therapy may also demonstrate the function of mirror neurons. These neurons become

activated both when individuals carry out motor tasks and when they see similar activities undertaken by others.These neurons are implicated in the acquisition of new motor skills that we learn by watching others and then

practicing ourselves. The pain relief associated with phantom limbs and mirror box therapy may be due to theactivation of these neurons that occur while watching the limb move.16

The illusions necessary for the use of the mirror box are not necessarily easily conjured. Successful use requiresconcentration and the body and mirror box must be in the appropriate proprioceptive position to be convincing.

In a similar sense, an artwork may ask the viewer to suspend disbelief or to consider a particular visual or spatialdialogue in a particular way. For example, Olafur Eiliason, a contemporary artist who is interested in perceptual

experiments, produced a work in 2001 titled Seeing Yourself Seeing. The viewer experiences this work bylooking through a suspended piece of glass with thin mirrored vertical strips. Thus they see themselves reflected

back as well as simultaneously looking through the glass to the space beyond. This creates a fragmented doubleimage that fractures and re-aligns each time the viewer moves and provides a different experience for every

viewer17. In this situation the viewer cannot remain a passive observer as they are implicated in the work and infact embedded it. The mirror accentuates the subjectivity of the activity of spectatorship and forces the viewer to

reconsider their role. Similarly, the contradictory feedback from the mirror box causes a crisis in representationand forces active changes in neuronal activity in the brain.

These sensory experiments have also been used in playful ways by the scientific community. Ramachandrandeveloped a method in which neurologically normal subjects can feel disembodied by using a series of full

length mirrors by standing outside oneself.18 Ramachandran has also illustrated that phantoms can be inducedin otherwise healthy people using tactile and visual sensations. In particular, his laboratory discovered the

phantom nose illusion which can be developed by simultaneously stroking the subjects nose while the subjectstrokes another persons nose. The subject then experiences a dislocation of his or her nose in space.19 This can

also be done with a dummy rubber hand and it is also possible project tactile sensations on to inanimate objectsthat do not represent body parts such as tables and shoes.20 Tools can become an extension of the body. Studies

have shown that tools are involved in shaping body representations which are essential for efficient motor

control during development of skills and for ongoing tool-use in adult life.21When tools become integrated intothe existing body schema then they can be used in a more integral way with the physical body. These

experiments also suggest that body schema is flexible and adaptable even without prior injury or alteration to

neural pathways.

Studies of neuronal responses to twentieth century painting by neurobiologist Semir Zeki have already

suggested that artists have long explored potentials and capabilities of the brain. In the past, scientists believedthat the brain processed visual stimuli as a single unified process but Zeki and his collaborators have shown that


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DOI 10.1007/s00221-012-3028-5

Chan, Brenda A., Richard Witt, Alexandra P. Charrow, Amanda Magee, Robin Howard, Paul F. Pasquina and

Kenneth M. Heilman, Mirror Therapy for Phantom Limb Pain,New England Journal of Medicine 357(November 22, 2007): 2206-2207, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc071927

Gallagher, Shaun,How the Body Shapes the Mind, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005.

Giummarraa, Melita J., Stephen J. Gibson, Nellie Georgiou-Karistianisa and John L. Bradshaw,

Central mechanisms in phantom limb perception: The past, present and future,Brain Research Reviews 54,Issue 1 (April 2007): 219232, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brainresrev.2007.01.009

Krauss, Rosalind.Passages in Modern Sculpture. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1977.

Krauss, Rosalind. Sense and Sensibility: Reflection on Post 60s Sculpture,Artforum (November, 1973): 49.

Kraynak, Janet.Please Pay Attention Please : Bruce Naumans Words.Cambridge, Mass & London: The MITPress, 2003.

Kelly Lamont, May Chin and Mikhail Kogan, Mirror Box Therapy - Seeing is BelievingExplore 7 (2011):370, 7:369-372,p.370, doi:1016/j.explore.2011.08.002

Landi, A (2010) Is Beauty in the Brain of the Beholder?,ARTnews, January 2010, accessed 10 Oct 2011,http://www.artnews.com/2010/01/01/is-beauty-in-the-brain-of-the-beholder/

Marsh, J. Looking Beyond Vision : On Phenomenology, Minimalism and the Sculptures of Robert Lazzarini,Robert Lazzarini: Seen/Unseen. Charlotte NC: Mint Museum of Art, 2006. Catalogue of an exhibition at the

Mint Museum of Art, 25 February through 16 July 2006,http://www.deitch.com/files/artists/lazzarini_lookingbeyondvision05.pdf

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Phenomenolgy of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith . London:Routledge,1962.

Penny, Simon. What is Artful Cognition? conference paper from Art as a way of knowing org by

Exploratorium, San Francisco, March 3 & 4, 2011, http://www.exploratorium.edu/knowing/pdfs/Penny.pdf

Ramachandran, VS. "Consciousness and body image: Lessons from phantom limbs, Capgras syndrome and painasymbolia".Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 353 (1998): 18511859.

doi:10.1098/rstb.1998.0337.

Ramachandran, VS. Last but not least : A simple method to stand outside oneself,Perception 36 (2007): 632

634, DOI:10.1068/p5730

VS Ramachandran and William Hirstein. The perception of phantom limbs - The D.O. Hebb lecture,Brain

121 (1998): 1603-1630

Subedi, Bishnu and George T. Grossberg. Phantom Limb Pain : Mechanisms and Treatment Approaches,Pain

Research and Treatment(July 2011): 1 - 8. doi:10.1155/2011/864605

Salisbury, Laura and Andrew Shail, eds.Neurology and Modernity - A Cultural History of Nervous Systems,

1800-1950. Hampshire, UK : Palgrave McMillan, 2010.

Swartzmann, Madeline. See Yourself Sensing - Redefining Human Perception, Black Dog Publishing 2011,

London UK

Weeks SR, Anderson-Barnes VC, Tsao JW, Phantom limb pain: theories and therapies. Neurologist 16, no. 5


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(Sep 2010): 277-86.


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1 Bishnu Subedi and George T. Grossberg, Phantom Limb Pain: Mechanisms and Treatment Approaches,Pain Research

and Treatment(July 2011): 1, doi:10.1155/2011/864605.

2 Laura Salisbury and Andrew Shail(eds),Neurology and Modernity - A Cultural History of Nervous Systems, 1800-1950

(Hampshire, UK : Palgrave McMillan, 2010), 6.

3 Rosalind Krauss,Passages in Modern Sculpture (Cambridge Mass: The MIT Press, 1977), 31.

4 Ibid., 31.

5 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenolgy of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (London: Routledge, 1962), 235.

6 J Marsh, Looking Beyond Vision : On Phenomenology, Minimalism and the Sculptures of Robert Lazzarini,Robert

Lazzarini: Seen/Unseen (Charlotte NC, Mint Museum of Art) catalogue of an exhibition at the Mint Museum of Art, 25

February through 16 July 2006, 3.

7 Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, 235.

8 Rosalind Krauss, Sense and Sensibility: Reflection on Post 60s Sculpture,Artforum (November, 1973): 49.

9 Janet Kraynak,Please Pay Attention Please : Bruce Naumans Words, (Cambridge Mass & London: MIT Press, 2003), 1.

10 V.S. Ramachandran, Consciousness and body image: Lessons from phantom limbs, Capgras syndrome and pain

asymbolia,Philosophical Translations of the Royal Society of London, (1998, 353): 1852, doi:10.1098/rstb.1998.0337

11 Subedi and Grossberg, Phantom Limb Pain: Mechanisms and Treatment Approaches, 1.

12 SR Weeks, VC Anderson-Barnes and JW Tsao, Phantom limb pain: theories and therapies,Neurologist(Sep

2010,16(5)): 277.

13Melita J. Giummarraa, Stephen J. Gibson, Nellie Georgiou-Karistianisa and John L. Bradshaw, Central mechanisms in

phantom limb perception: The past, present and future,Brain Research Reviews, Volume 54, Issue 1 (April 2007): 223,http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brainresrev.2007.01.009.

14 Brenda L Chan et al, Mirror Therapy for Phantom Limb Pain,N Engl J Med 357 (2007):2206, doi:

10.1056/NEJMc071927.

15 Kelly Lamont, May Chin and Mikhail Kogan, Mirror Box Therapy - Seeing is BelievingExplore 7 (2011): 370,

doi:1016/j.explore.2011.08.002.

16Brenda L Chan et al, Mirror Therapy for Phantom Limb Pain, 2206.

17 Liam Otten, Window | Interface at Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Aug. 31 to Nov. 5,Newsroom - Washington

University in St.Louis (July 23, 2007), http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/9729.aspx.

18 VS Ramachandran, Last but not least : A simple method to stand outside oneself,Perception 36 (2007): 633,

doi:10.1068/p5730.

19 V.S. Ramachandran, Consciousness and body image: Lessons from phantom limbs, Capgras syndrome and pain

asymbolia, 1855.

20 ibid, 1855.


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21 Lucilla Cardinali et al, Grab an object with a tool and change your body: tool-use-dependent changes of body

representation for action,Experimental Brain Research (April 2012, Volume 218, Issue 2): 259, doi10.1007/s00221-012-

3028-5

22A Landi, Is Beauty in the Brain of the Beholder?, ARTnews (January 2010) accessed 10 Oct 2011,

http://www.artnews.com/2010/01/01/is-beauty-in-the-brain-of-the-beholder/

23 Zeki, Semir. "Statement on Neuroesthetics. (http://www.neuroesthetics.org/statement-on-neuroesthetics.php)"Neuroesthetics. Web. 24 Oct 2011

24A Landi, Is Beauty in the Brain of the Beholder?

25Anjan Chatterjee, Art, A Window Into the Brain?,Journal of Neuro-Aesthetic Theory #1 (1997-99),

www.artbrain.org/art-a-window-into-the-brain-2/ accessed 23/10/12

26 Madeline Swartzmann, See Yourself Sensing - Redefining Human Perception, (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2011),

32.

27 Simon Penny,What is Artful Cognition?, (paper presented atArt as a way of knowingconference of Exploratorium,

San Francisco, March 3 & 4, 2011)

28 VS Ramachandran and William Hirstein, The perception of phantom limbs - The D.O. Hebb lecture,Brain 121

(1998): 1626

infinitely malleable - contemporary sculpture and neural plasticity

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