Many scientists embrace the artistic medium to infuse new ideas into their scientific works. With science-art collaborations, both artists and scientists challenge their ways of thinking as well as the process of artistic and scientific inquiry. Can art hold a mirror to science? Can it help frame and answer uncomfortable questions about science: its practice and its impact on society? Do artistic practices inform science? In short, does art aid evidence?

Nature India’s blog series ‘SciArt Scribbles’ will try to answer some of these questions through the works of some brilliant Indian scientists and artists working at this novel intersection that offers limitless possibilities. You can follow this online conversation with #SciArtscribbles .

Neuroscientist Leslee Lazar dabbles in collages. A visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Leslee’s research interests lie in neuroscience of design, science communication, cultural cognition and behavioural change. He combines his training as a neuroscientist with his passion as a collage artist to create what he calls a ‘hazy amalgam’ of creation and analysis.

Leslee Lazar{credit}Devarsh Barbhaya{/credit}

Collage needs just a few scraps of paper, some glue and not even a steady hand. But, this humble hobby has exalted origins, “invented” by great artists like Picasso and instrumental in the birth of modern art.

My own foray into collage was rather fortuitous – the only available slot in my high school cultural team was for the collage competition. Making the team meant skipping classes for two full days. So, I put my name in and made my first collage. To everybody’s surprise, I won a prize. I did not make more collages after that glorious start. Almost two decades later, I found myself falling back on collages to unwind from a stressful postdoc stint.

When I make or see collages, I switch to a ‘dual mode’, described beautifully by the polymath Vladimir Nabokov; “I cannot separate the aesthetic pleasure of seeing a butterfly and the scientific pleasure of knowing what it is”. As a cognitive neuroscientist, I study how we perceive visual artwork and how it gives us that special feeling when we look at it – the aesthetic emotion. However, my process of creating collages is not driven by scientific theories, its impulsive, urgent, chaotic and a meditative process.

For my collages, I extensively use images from internet photo archives. The power of collages is that I can manipulate an element of an image, like form, colour or perspective giving new meaning to the original image. Sometimes, just a juxtaposition of images from different eras or styles can create a powerful reinterpretation. In a series called Pro:Postures, I explored how body postures reflect subtle meanings. In vintage portrait photographs, I manipulated certain features to remove skin colour, expressions, markers of ethnicity, social background etc. — the attempt was to amplify meanings embedded in the posture of the person. Postures reflect many of our emotions and realities. Using these manipulated images, I was attempting to highlight how postures convey subtle aspects of history, gender, politics and power (Fig. 1)

Fig. 1: Two separate collages created out of vintage portrait photographs to show how postures convey subtle aspects of history, gender, politics and power.{credit}Leslee Lazar{/credit}

The technique of collage was invented by artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, when they were exploring ways to create spatial illusion in their art. They wanted to represent space from different perspectives. The painting could appear deep or shallow depending on where the viewer focused attention. To do this, they pasted textured wood and fabric on to their painting canvas, giving birth to collage. Soon, collage became an established method for western artists.  Of the many methods and means of collage, two kinds stand out – one that plays with our ability to group objects, detect patterns and relationships (called ‘gestalt’ perception) and the other that appeals to our inherent preference for human-like forms.

The first kind was made popular by artists like Hans Arp, who used shapes and arrangements to create forms and meanings. It exploits our visual system’s gestalt property. We give meanings to seemingly random stimuli, like the Dalmatian’s random white and dark patches in the famous collage where Arp is playing with composition. Many collages exploit this principle, much like other art, of deriving pleasure in “completing” a form.

The second kind of collages use the human form, especially the face. We can recognize faces effortlessly, read emotions, and communicate through expressions. In the brain, there is a special area to process visual information of faces. Any damage to this area and we lose the ability to recognize faces, made famous by Oliver Sack’s classic “Man who mistook his wife for a hat”. The way we process faces is different from other objects; it happens faster than objects and we read emotions before we register the identity of the face.

We also perceive faces holistically, which means we do not make mentally put the parts of the face, eyes, nose and ears together to recognise a face. Because the brain is set up to process face in such a way, it is prone to some illusions, like the Thatcher illusion, where inverted eyes and lips are perceived as normal when seen inverted. This special relationship with faces has been exploited in many artworks. In a collage I made in response to the treatment of Syrian war refugees in Europe, I used a stock image of European refugees from the past and manipulated their faces to represent the yearning for freedom and normal life (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2{credit}Leslee Lazar{/credit}

Although, art can evoke emotions purely by its visual features, there is also a strong cognitive, social and cultural element. Collage, with its borrowed imagery offers a ready-made way to contextualise art with pop and political reference. Some of the earliest collages were made in reaction to World War 1. Hannah Hoch used images of German Prime Minister and defence minister on an embroidered background as an anti-war statement.

Hannah Hoch’s anti-war collage {credit}Wikiart{/credit}

Collage also was influential in the pop art movement, an art movement with everyday objects, made famous by Andy Warhol’s painting of soup cans. However, the first pop art was a collage made with fashion magazines and sales catalogues.

A collage titled “Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?” by English artist Richard Hamilton is the first pop art.{credit}Wikiart{/credit}

The great art historian E. H Gombrich said “There really is no such thing as art, there are only artists”. And neuroscience claims that the artist is a neuroscientist. Will my training as a neuroscientist give me added insight into the artistic process? It’s too early to say, there is only a hazy amalgam of the two ways of thinking and interacting with the world. The forces that drive to create and to analyse are not necessarily opposite. I hope they merge into something greater than the sum of individuals. Till then, my collages will try to write visual poetry with other people’s words.

(Leslee Lazar can be contacted at leslee.lazar@gmail.com. He tweets from @leslee_lazar.)

Suggested reading:

SciArt scribbles: Technology to aid dance

SciArt scribbles: Music to tackle PhD blues

SciArt scribbles: Playing science out

Artists on science: scientists on art

Many scientists embrace the artistic medium to infuse new ideas into their scientific works. With science-art collaborations, both artists and scientists challenge their ways of thinking as well as the process of artistic and scientific inquiry. Can art hold a mirror to science? Can it help frame and answer uncomfortable questions about science: its practice and its impact on society? Do artistic practices inform science? In short, does art aid evidence?

Nature India’s blog series ‘SciArt Scribbles’ will try to answer some of these questions through the works of some brilliant Indian scientists and artists working at this novel intersection that offers limitless possibilities. You can follow this online conversation with #SciArtscribbles .

Today we learn the other side of the story from trained Baharatanatyam dancer and cognitive scientist Pranjali Kulkarni  — can science influence the arts? Pranjali, a research scholar at the Centre for Cognitive Science, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, uses technology to take her performing art lessons to another level – that of intelligent learning.

Pranjali Kulkarni

“Dance is like wine; it matures with every performance,” Alarmel Valli, the famous Indian classical dancer, once said. Even with great tutors, artists could take a lot of time and practice to become experts.

I have been learning the Indian classical dance form Bharatanatyam for 15 years now. I also taught it for almost 2 years, during which I realised that learning never ends.

Despite my best efforts to teach young students, my instructions were unable to convey to them what I had experienced while learning those very dance movements. Something was missing from my teaching. Why wasn’t I able to evoke the same experience in the learners?

This question was the basis of my quest to unravel the missing link.

As a student at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, I started looking at this challenge from a cognitive science perspective. Studying dance literature and experiential processing while dancing, I quickly learnt that dancers develop expertise through subconscious processes. These processes make performances by experts both mesmerising and very personal, something that can’t be easily transferred to another person – they can neither be shown nor taught.

But these subconscious processes can certainly be recorded through specific devices.

I wanted to unearth these subconscious techniques that an expert dancer puts to use in achieving finesse in dance movements. Technology came to my aid in integrating these two things — learning Bharatanatyam and tracking subconscious processes from bodily movements. I tried deconstructing these expert techniques in Bharatanatyam based on five bodily parameters – posture, balance, speed control, accuracy and synchronisation.

Technology helped me understand Bharatanatyam better

Bharatnatyam, like most other classical dance forms, is deeply rooted in religion, devotion and social practises. Intricate details of skilled Bharatanatyam movements have traditionally been passed on through family lineages. These hereditary traditions are preserved in ancient scripts, and in recent times, in audio-visual recordings.

A teacher, a video or a script could provide enough details to learn the basics of a dance form. But the subconscious skilled moves of expert dancers – the peculiar angles, postures, movement progressions or balance – don’t get conveyed in these forms of learning.

I used high precision cameras and algorithms to decode these micro movements through a technology called the motion capture system (Mocap). These unseen and unrecorded skilled moves have been defined as ‘dance primitives’, equivalent to notations in music, and considered the fundamental building blocks of a particular step. For instance, a fine movement such as a waist tremble can be recorded through a movement coordinate system on Mocap.

[Watch Pranjali use Mocap while teaching Bharatanatyam to students: https://youtu.be/ZUDB10b12DA]

To test my idea, I conducted Bharatanatyam workshops for students at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Ishikawa, Japan over two months. I taught them a few basic Bharatanatyam steps – Tatta Adavu and Natta Adavu – involving coordinated posture, hand and leg movements, in increasing order of difficulty.

I then used a virtual reality set up in Mocap that can read subtle movements and give feedback. I recorded both expert and novice dancers and used the virtual reality model of the expert dancer to give feedback to the novice dancers. The precision was unimaginable – I don’t think the feedback can be matched even by an expert human teacher. To my surprise I found that the novices quickly picked up some movements that I had taken many years to master.

To cite another example, the virtual reality model showed how experienced dancers use techniques of transition in steps at fast speeds. The balance between posture and movement maintained at peculiar angles is traditionally achieved through meticulous practice. But Mocap captured those angles at all speeds and helped learners correct their steps using real time feedback.

What’s more, novice dancers formulated some techniques on their own to learn better and faster. For example, they were using the torque of ankles to balance their body at fast speeds, a technique I had not taught them. Learners were innovating subconsciously and these innovations could be traced through Mocap. Such data can be very useful for self-reflection – to understanding a learner’s positives and negatives.

These two new insights from the Mocap data open doors for detailed research in various movement-based art forms.

I was extremely fascinated that something like Mocap could become a reflective learning tool. During my initial days as a Bharatanatyam student, I split dance videos into small clips to learn from them. But a technology like Mocap is a leap ahead in not just recording dance but also as a powerful teaching tool.

Experts and traditional tutors are not available everywhere. Technological experiments with art can now deconstruct expert techniques and help anyone master his or her passion for the performing arts.

According to Indian art philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy, “The art remains in the artist and is the knowledge by which things are made.” I do agree that technology can never compete with the qualia of knowledge passed down through art traditions, learning and practice. But research such as Mocap can certainly aid learning and strengthen the appreciation and preservation of the art forms.

Many scientists embrace the artistic medium to infuse new ideas into their scientific works. With science-art collaborations, both artists and scientists challenge their ways of thinking as well as the process of artistic and scientific inquiry. Can art hold a mirror to science? Can it help frame and answer uncomfortable questions about science: its practice and its impact on society? Do artistic practices inform science? In short, does art aid evidence?

Nature India’s blog series ‘SciArt Scribbles’ will try to answer some of these questions through the works of some brilliant Indian scientists and artists working at this novel intersection that offers limitless possibilities. You can follow this online conversation with #SciArtscribbles .

Today Manasi Kulkarni- Khasnis, a biologist at the National Centre for Cell Science in Pune, India, underlines the importance of music, a passion that became an important tool to constructively shape her research career. Manasi, who investigates the structural underpinnings of molecular cross-talks in host-pathogen interactions, formed a musical band (called ‘Vadyankit’ or ‘ornamented with instruments’) with peers — all of whom ultimately became a life-long emotional support group to tackle career blues.

Manasi Kulkarni-Khasnis{credit}Akash Pawar{/credit}

When I joined a PhD programme at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Pune, I was triumphant. That was in August 2010, and it was another highlight in an already happy year: a few months earlier, I got engaged to my boyfriend of seven years. Everything felt like it was in place. I chose my favourite PhD project, had long discussions with my supervisor, plotted aims, objectives and experiments and started my journey towards a doctoral degree.

But as days and months of hard work in the lab went by, small failures in my experiments hijacked my mental health — something I think many others are familiar with. Despite my great year — we were married in May 2011 — I started to sink into depression.

I would get easily discouraged if something did not work. Unusual results started bothering me. Later, this became so pronounced that I started blaming myself for every tiny thing that went wrong. Did I prepare my buffers correctly? Did I forget to add primers to my polymerase chain reactions? I started forgetting my past achievements, and began to belittle myself. I wasn’t sleeping properly. I was losing weight. In a nutshell, I was depressed. I could see more negatives than positives. Nothing interested me. I would cry over small things and nothing could make me smile.

My husband noticed this change in my behaviour and wanted to help. One evening, he wrote some lyrics and handed them over, encouraging me to compose something. He said he’d booked a slot for us to go on stage in a couple of months and perform a song.

I’ve played the harmonium since I was seven, but over the course of my PhD I’d lost interest in music. I didn’t immediately accept his offer, but he persisted, and I eventually picked up my harmonium and composed something that worked with his lyrics. We had a song! It was the first time I had felt satisfied with an accomplishment for over a year. Almost immediately, I was feeling better.

I never imagined that a hobby could be powerful enough to breathe enthusiasm and enjoyment back into my life (and for many people, it might not be — if depression persists, please seek professional help). My harmonium was sitting idle, and the daily grind of work at the bench had taken over everything else. Before I could realize that I was missing something important, my mental health had begun to deteriorate.

The challenge of going on stage and performing my own compositions fuelled my day-to-day life. I woke up fresh with a new aim and enthusiasm. I started planning my work efficiently so that I could get home in time and devote time to music. Every composition I made came with a neurological boost. My experiments started working, or, more accurately, the failures weighed upon me less. I started to see each unexpected result as a new question to explore, rather than as a roadblock in my own work. Two months later, we went on stage in front of a full house. My PhD supervisor and other scientists from the institute came to support us, which was a huge boost to my confidence. We had a great night together.

Music became the secret to my happiness, and I shared this with my peers. We created a band (called ‘Vadyankit’; literally ‘ornamented with instruments’) and started playing together. We performed on stage 11 times in our entire PhD tenure.

We have now all graduated. I’m working as a scientist for the National Centre for Cell Science here in Pune, India; our keyboardist is a medical writer; our percussionist is at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru; our guitarist is in South Africa for his postdoc. Music is still our true companion. We’re scattered post-PhD, but we’re all careful to support others struggling in the research environment, and to encourage colleagues to take up hobbies outside of work.

If you are also struggling with your emotional health, make sure that you spend a good amount of time doing the thing that you like the most. Be it music, painting, writing, reading, hiking or anything else. Remember what you enjoyed that you’re now missing out on. In my experience, a hobby that might at first seem like an indulgence helps to beat stress and to set the mind free.

[This article originally appeared in Nature Careers].

Suggested reading:

SciArt scribbles: Coupling creation and analysis with collages

SciArt scribbles: Technology to aid dance

SciArt scribbles: Playing science out

Artists on science: scientists on art