Reflections on Another Serendipitous Discovery of Connectedness of Art and Science and Diversity of Thought.
Keywords:
Art and Science
Creative process
Personal reflection
Virginia Woolf
Flow state
Neurodiversity
Human experience
Curiosity
Amongst other things, I am still exploring the connections between Art and Science, which keeps bringing me back to Virginia Woolf. There is also a link to neurodiversity here, as that’s how I first discovered the book; 'Proust was a Neuroscientist' by J. Lehrer. Who writes about the exact relationship I have been wondering about. The connection is significant because I’m curious about the unique ways in which we come to discover and understand things.
This particular book was discovered while serendipitously wandering about, in a car boot sale shop, offering 3 for 2 on books. The other 2 books were on Shakespeare but that's another story.
I watched another film on Virginia Woolf, this time the 2018 film; 'Vita and Virginia' by Chanya Button and Eileen Watkins. Set in Bloomsbury, Monks House and Knole house; the experience of watching it was, essentially, lovely. The music, the scenery, the conversations, the characters, the situations, I fully appreciated the portrayal of Virginia Woolf's life, particularly in understanding her experiences and how it affected her creative practice.
Her practice of isolating herself in a room, marked by an "X" on the door to prevent interruptions, reminds me of the concept of flow state, (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) commonly linked to neurodiversity, creativity and the creative process. It involves being drawn to specific activities that enable total concentration, deep immersion, intrinsic rewards, and a loss of self-consciousness. Importantly, it's not limited to specific types of people; I believe everyone has the potential to experience flow state. It is a fundamental human ability that we either nurture or overlook, depending on the individual. This concept is relevant to my work, as I focus on creativity as a practice, a process, and a way of thinking.
...Right and back to the book, here is how it describes itself;
'In the sparkling and provocative book Jonah Lehrer, author of the decisive moment explains that when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first' Taking a group of celebrated writers, painters and composers, Lehrer shows us how artists have discovered truths about the human mind, real tangible truths that science is only now discovering. We learned for example how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory, how George Elliott understood the brain’s malleable nature, how the French chef Escoffier intuited umami (the fifth taste) How Cezanne worked out the subtleties of vision and how Virginia Woolf pierced the mysteries of consciousness. It’s a riveting tale of art trumping science again and again"
what’s not to love....
He also talks about Walt Whitman in the chapter 'the substance of feeling', Igor Stravinsky in 'the source of music', and Gertrude Stein in 'the structure of language.'
I might just read some quotes from the book which naturally I underlined as I read it, because that has become my methodology...
‘The novelist (Proust) had predicted my experiments; Proust and neuroscience shared a vision of how our memory works. If you listen closely they were actually saying the same thing’ (Lehrer 2011)
“Artists weave us pretty tales while scientists objectively describe the universe”
“Each of these artists had a particular method. Marcel Proust spent all day in bed ruminating on his past, Paul Cézanne would stare at an apple for hours, Auguste Escoffier was trying to please his customers. Igor Stravinsky was trying not to please his customers. Gertrude Stein liked to play with words. But despite their technical differences all of these artists shared an abiding interest in human experience. Their creations were acts of exploration, ways of grappling with the mysteries they couldn’t understand “
I found a note written in the book, by me, alongside my underlining, so I'm quoting myself here:
“I read this book because I value curiosity and serendipity which more often than not leads me to an interesting discovery which connects to questions I have or other projects I’m doing. It also brings me a kind of joy of discovery and sense of validation which is powerful and addictive... is this flow state”?
I’ve highlighted another paragraph so let’s read it and see why I’ve also written the note 'bloody brill' next to it
“the moral of this book is that we are made of art and science. We are such stuff as dreams are made on but we also are also just stuff. We now know enough about the brain to realise that its mystery will always remain. Like a work of art, we exceed our materials. Science needs art to frame the mystery but art needs science so that not everything is a mystery. Neither the truth alone is our solution, for our reality exists in plural. I hope that stories of artistic discovery demonstrate that any description of the brain requires both cultures, art and science. The reductionist methods of science must be allied with an artistic investigation of our experience....Science is seen through the optic of art and art interpreted in the light of science the experiment and the poem complete each other the mind is made whole“
Let us turn to the section on Virginia Woolf which is titled 'The Emergent Self'. Lehrer describes Woolf in various ways;
“Her thoughts flowed in a turbulent current and every moment ushered in a new wave of sensation. Woolf's art searched for whatever held us together. What she found was the self, "the essential thing". Why do we feel like more than just a collection of disconnected thoughts? Woolf‘s revelation was that we emerge from our own fleeting interpretations of the world. Whenever we sense something, we naturally invent a subject for our sensation, a perceive for our perception. The self is simply this subject; it is the story we tell ourselves about our experiences“.
He also writes that VM was mentally ill and suffered from periodic nervous breakdowns where she felt she was 'suffocating'. "She lived in fear of her own mind." and "Introspection was a medicine for her".
He quoted her as saying “my own psychology interests me. I intend to keep full notes of my ups and downs for my private information“.
From my ongoing deep dive into neurodiversity, exploring various non-pathologising perspectives, I think she would be described today as an autistic person and I'm not alone in this.
(more on this later...)
Back to Lehrer, he wrote how her illness gave her writing a 'kind of purpose' which I can certainly relate to as a creative practitioner, there is nothing like a bit of necessary frustration to fuel the creative process. (currently stuck indoors recovering from a back spasm)
He goes on to say “but her illness gave her experimental fictions a purpose, a way of depositing experience in a shape that fitted it. After each depressive episode she typically experienced a burst of creativity as she filled her journal with fresh insights into the workings of her own difficult nervous system."
Neuroscience would define this is an example of human reflective capabilities, allowing individuals to internalise, interpret, and express what is happening in their own unique way.
More underlined quotes, towards the end of the book:
“what the artists in this book reveal, is that there are many different ways of describing reality, each of which is capable of generating truth. Physics is useful for describing quarks and galaxies, neuroscience is useful for describing the brain and artist is useful for describing our actual experience. While these levels are obviously interconnected. They are also autonomous; art is not reducible to physics”
Okay last one....
“we now know enough to know that we will never know everything, this is why we need art. It teaches us how to live with mystery. Only the artist can explore the ineffable without offering us an answer, for sometimes there is no answer"
Ok one more, promise...
"It is imperative that we give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge and admit that all knowledge is human, that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices our dreams and our hopes, that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it is beyond our reach. There is no authority beyond the reach of criticism “
I am glad that I found that book, watched the film, discovered Virginia Woolf and wrote this essay because it emphasises the unique ways in which we come to know things and re-enforces the message that diversity of thought and creativity enrich our lives and practices.
Notes
All quotes in itallics, I know there are alot.
Vita & Virginia film: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5859882/mediaviewer/rm568562177/?ref_=tt_ov_i
Lehrer, J. 2011, Proust was a Neuroscientist. Canongate Books, London
Comments