Posted on behalf of Alison Abbott

Two linked exhibitions in Berlin – Mirror Images in Art and Medicine and Smoking Mirror – begin where Narcissus left off. The hero of Greek mythology wasted away gazing transfixed at his own beauty reflected on the surface of a dark pool. He left his name both to the narcissus (daffodil) that sprang up on the banks where he died, and to psychology.

The desire to see one’s own reflection – more conveniently than kneeling at the waters’ edge on a sunny day – appears universal. Most of the world’s major cultures invented their own types of portable mirror over the millennia. The earliest so far found, in Anatolia, were made from polished obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic glass, and date back 8,000 years. Later came mirrors made from polished metal, and around the first century AD, metal-coated glass.

Examples of mirror-based objects – like the extraordinary non-reversing mirror invented by US mathematician Andrew Hicks in 2010 – are on display in Mirror Images at the Museum of Medical History at the Charité. But at its most provoking, the exhibition explores the psychological and neuroscientific power of reflections. It departs from the relatively simplistic notion of narcissism – an unhealthy concern with one’s self – to examine deeper and altogether more fascinating concepts of ‘self’.  How do we perceive the boundary between the outer limits of our body and the environment in which our bodies move? Is our perception of our individual ‘self’ constant or manipulable?

These concepts have both medical and philosophical significance. In the past half-century, artists have been doing their own explorations of what self means, exploiting video technology to capture ‘reflections’ more permanently than mirrors can. Mirror Images shows, as few similar ventures have been able to do, how art and science really do sometimes converge on important questions in a meaningful way.

The exhibition showcases several mirror-containing instruments that transformed medicine in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among them is an exquisite 1851 ophthalmoscope in its original wood, velvet and silk case. Invented by pioneering physicist and physiologist Herrmann von Helmholtz, the instrument was the first to allow light to be shone directly into any part of the body that is sealed from the environment by a membrane, and it gave physicians their first view inside a functioning eye. This was long before photography became common, so physicians had to draw what they saw there. A sample watercolour alongside the ophthalmoscope shows how impressive their artistic skills could be.

The exhibition also showcases the healing potential of reflections. A series of photographs on display, taken of herself in different locations during paralysing panic attacks, helped artist Sabina Grasso to cure her psychological disorder. She says the cure resulted from being able to contemplate from a distance the images of her own captured body.

A version of neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran’s famous mirror box is available for visitors to test its illusory powers on their own bodies. Ramachandran  developed the deceptively simple device in the 1990s to help amputees who feel phantom pain from their missing limb. The pain may occur because the brain responds as if the limb were not missing, but in spasm. The patient places his or her remaining limb in front of a vertical mirror so that its reflection appears as if it could be the missing limb. The brain registers the spasm-free movements and, in some cases, stops sending the painful signals.

A different, even more startling, type of body illusion is presented by Croatian artist Dalibor Martinis in a video interview between two of his ‘selves’, separated by more than three decades. In 1978, at 31, he video-recorded a series of questions, in English, addressed to his future self. The mature Martinis responds in 2010 in a Croatian television show. He finds his younger self “a bit puffed up”, and comments “if we are at all the same person, it is neither you nor I”.

Across town, a darkened exhibition room at the Schering Foundation hosts the mesmerizing installation Smoking Mirror. It was created by two Brazilian artists: one, Otavio Schipper, has a degree in physics; the other, jazz musician Sergio Krakowski, a PhD in mathematics.

The artwork comprises three reflecting objects suspended from the ceiling, each inspired by the working tools of the astronomer-astrologer mathematician John Dee, advisor to the Tudor Queen Elizabeth I. One is a large obsidian mirror, another a glass sphere filled with water, and the third, a circular, concave surface coated with gold. (The originals are held in the British Museum.) Sound waves emitted from speakers on opposite walls during a 26-minute sound composition by Krakowski cause the objects to turn slowly, shifting their mutual reflections as ever-changing lighting plays on their surfaces.

And the mesmeric sounds? The brain-wave frequencies recorded during different states of consciousness (awake, sleeping, dreaming); frequencies of resonances in the Earth’s atmosphere; spoken sequences of numbers recorded from the mysterious shortwave numbers radio stations in the airways whose purposes may be espionage. The installation keeps just this side of mysticism, but its draw is like that of Narcissus to his pool. The sensory domination does, as intended, channel the minds of visitors, turning thoughts inwards.

 Alison Abbott is Nature’s senior European correspondent.

Mirror Images runs at the Museum of Medical History at the Charité, Berlin, Germany, until 3 April 2016. Smoking Mirror runs at the Schering Foundation, Berlin, Germany, until 23 January 2016.

 

For Nature’s full coverage of science in culture, visit www.nature.com/news/booksandarts.

Posted on behalf of Kerri Smith

Moving emotional journeys are the stock-in-trade of animation studio Pixar. In their Toy Story trilogy, released in 1995, 1999 and 2010, little Andy’s toys compete for his affections as his family move, threatening to leave them behind. In the 2009 Up, even the opening sequence — a poignant recap of the elderly protagonist’s life story – had audiences blubbing.

In Inside Out, now on general release, it is the emotions – personified – that themselves go on a journey. The feelings of 11-year-old Riley are characters (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear) lodged in a neuroscientifically improbable ‘Headquarters’ reminiscent of Rene Descartes’ pineal gland — the brain area where he imagined mind governed body. This volatile crew rev into action when Riley’s parents move the family from Minnesota to San Francisco, where she faces the first big challenges of an easy life: finding new friends, getting used to a new home and school.

As Riley navigates these changes, the narrative is driven by the interplay between her emotions – particularly Joy and Sadness — and their adventures in the wild kingdom of Riley’s psyche. Joy had had the upper hand in Riley’s life to date; the central message is of the crucial role of Sadness in forming Riley’s character as she makes the bitter-sweet transition from child to teen and beyond. The adventures of Joy and Sadness form a counterpoint to Riley’s as each navigates a thrilling narrative of lost and found.

The colours of emotions drench this film: golden for Joy and green for Disgust, for instance. They tint Riley’s experiences, which are delivered to HQ like bowling balls, and thence dispatched to be enshrined in memory or forever forgotten. Many travel along tubes to long-term storage, a maze of high shelves resembling the folds of cortex when seen from above. “Let’s get those memories down to long-term!” trumpets Joy, as Riley falls asleep at the end of a happy day. I found this a compelling portrayal of memory processing: neuroscientists know that memories spend a little time in the hippocampus, where they are made, before some are shuttled to the cortex for long-term storage.

Memory in the mind’s eye

Likewise, when Riley recalls one positive memory and it is projected onto a ‘mind’s eye’ screen for her emotions in HQ to see, Sadness reaches up to re-colour it. It is well-established that memories can be rendered malleable by being recalled, and then altered by new experience before being stored again.

A handful of experiences become core memories, each powering a different aspect of Riley’s personality. Others tumble to a dark chasm where they dissolve in wisps of dust. Forgetting isn’t always this passive – remembering competing facts can cause other related information to be forgotten, for instance, and forgetting can be beneficial, freeing up processing power for new memories.

Five emotions are quite enough for Inside Out’s writers to be getting on with, but there is some debate in psychology over how many we really have. American psychologist Paul Ekman, one of the film’s scientific consultants, would have liked to see upwards of 20; others argue that there can be no more than 4. I would have been interested in seeing Surprise and Embarrassment, but perhaps the latter will play a greater part in Inside Out 2: The Teenage Years.

The physical appearance of the emotions was unsurprising: Anger is a bright-red cube, Sadness a blue blob with a frumpy jumper, and Joy an elfin figure who left little particles of yellow glitter floating in her wake. But each had their own emotional range. Joy was sometimes sad, and often worried about Riley. Was this Pixar giving us a lesson on how our own emotions can blend, or could they not make the narrative work with relentlessly one-note characters? 

There are some witty asides aimed at adults. While travelling on the Train of Thought, for instance, Joy knocks over two boxes and spills their contents. “All these Facts and Opinions look the same!” she cries, trying to shovel them back in.

The brain’s fleshy chasms and labyrinthine neuronal libraries are an inspired choice for a filmic landscape. In Pixar’s treatment, brain are transformed into psychedelic fairgrounds (‘Imaginationland’) and dark, terrifying gulfs (the ‘Unconscious’). But even with this stiff competition, our three-pound lumps of squidgy pinkness are still more exotic, surprising and mysterious. As we learn more about how we processes and react to the complexities of our world, there will surely be plenty more to inspire Pixar.  

 Kerri Smith is Nature’s podcast editor. She tweets @minikerri.

 

For Nature’s full coverage of science in culture, visit www.nature.com/news/booksandarts.