Video Review

This week's blog assignment was to watch the videos "Aesthetics: Philosophy of the Arts" and "CARTA: Neurobiology Neurology and Art and Aesthetics," and to respond accordingly.  The key concept of the "Philosophy" video was to explore the evolution of theoretical aesthetics through philosophical history.  The video analyzed several philosophers'/groups' theories regarding what aesthetics is and where it comes from.  For me, the overall key concept of the video was that theology regarding aesthetics is ever changing, ever evolving, and unique to the individual.  The key concept of the "Neurobiology" video was that biology and neurology actually play a huge part in the perception of aesthetics.  The video discussed that there was a neural basis for aspects of aesthetics such as novelty, empathy, and the universal search for harmony.  The scientists stated that different parts of brain process different visual aspects of a work of art.  When an individual finds the answer to the visual problem presented by the work of art, they receive an internal reward.  The grand award comes after several mini "ah-ha" moments are found at every stage are combined together.  These moments form a pursuit of comprehension of the work and the pursuit is what gives us pleasure when viewing art. 
The "Philosophy" video presented various philosopher's theories regarding aesthetics.  Personally, I felt that Francis Hutcheson's theory of aesthetics was the most important addition to the concept of aesthetics.  Hutcheson lived around the late 18th century in Europe and believed that the human moral sense is innate, as is the human sense of beauty.  He believed that humans had an innate, spontaneous sense of beauty and harmony, that was mediated by external senses and transferred to internal senses in order to register/appreciate beauty.  Hutcheson stated, "the ideas brought about in our soul by beauty and harmony delight us necessarily and immediately, just like the other sensible ideas."  I believe that Hutcheson's theory that the sensory perception of the essence of beauty is innate and spontaneous and soulful is a key idea of aesthetics that remains today.  I also liked that where other philosophers believed that art was something nonsensical or foreign, Hutcheson referred to art as a sensible idea.
I found the "Neurobiology" video to be extremely interesting and informative.  I always enjoy learning about the interconnectedness of the brain and the world around it.  Science makes sense to me and is factual, where art makes me think and is very subjective.  The most interesting part of Changeux's speech was when he stated that, "aesthetic experience is the conscious access to the global workspace."  I found this statement to be very profound and thought provoking.  On the other hand however, I found Ramachandran's speech to be far more engaging and entertaining, and thought that everything he discussed was interesting.  If I had to pick a specific fact that was the most interesting in his speech, I'd  have to say that his statement that, "most biological things are symmetrical so symmetrical things spark your attention," was something that I'd never realized before.
These videos really connected with the readings we were assigned this week simply because they explored aesthetics, the philosophy and history and science behind aesthetics, and most of all, explored how we find the meaning in art through neurology and though processes.    
I enjoyed these videos as an extension of our textbooks because I believe that it is always essential to add extra substance to learning.  Learning from a textbook is not enough to grasp a particular concept in depth.  Adding outside videos allows us to get a more in-depth view of the concepts being learned.  These two videos added a historical and scientific understanding to our understanding of art.