Aesthetic Science

Old intentions have created a new field: Neuroaesthetics.

Professor Semir Zeki at the University College London is the inventor of this new subject. At first glance, in his writings and research there is an inovative balance between art and science: art is not a simple object there. The primarily importance given to the aesthetic experience makes the difference, compared to Gestalt School, for example. Based in neuroscience, the constant references to artist's ideas, writings and complete works of art are inspiring in this proposal.

The main difference with any artistic research is that all the experiments of Neuroaesthetics pretend to learn more about the brain, whereas in art research always pursues to produce works that challenge the definition of art itself. Anyway, I find this trend stimulating.

Less plausible are some derivations of Neuroaesthetics. Specially those that struggle to invent a machine capable of creating a work of art: what is called esthetic prosthestic. That's plane and simply old Science Fiction.

Professor Zeki has an interesting blog in which, curiously enough, there are no images at all. Just words.

Architecture and popularity

Centro de Formación Profesional Building, Costa Rica 30, Madrid (1970)

Popularity in the realm of art and architecture is a curious thing . Ortega y Gasset used to say that modern art was not unpopular, as if it would be finally accepted when people got to understand it. In his opinion it was anti-popular, because it had to break conventions in order to innovate.

A few days ago Iñaki Ábalos was saying that internet forums were a good way of promoting urban critique in article in Babelia. Well, I have to say that this is a quite risky mean to promote criticism in art and architecture as the following case reveals. For a long time I have admired a wonderful building in the number 30 of the Calle Costa Rica (with Victor de la Serna) in Madrid; looking for information on internet I found this forum in which it is nominated as the ugliest building in Madrid.

I hope this is a sign of its modernity (in the Orteguian way). The building is now the INEM Offices (Empleo Estatal) and the author is the great Valencian architect Fernando Moreno Barberá. Anyway, it is encouraging that nobody has voted the building in the pool.

Ultra High Definition Prado Museum

The possibility of watching masterpieces by Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, Tiziano, Rembrandt, Rubens... like if we where in the studio of those artists and as close to the work as they have been is something really interesting.

The only way of understanding art is to put ourselves in the place of the artist that has create the work, to be in his shoes. Well, digital technology has just done it possible. The only thing is that the news made it impossible today to reach the museum site. Yes, digital queueing. Even technology cannot avoid the fact that there are millions of people interested in the same things at the same time.

This article in The Guardian speculates on whether it is even better than the real thing.

Sunset in the Alhambra

The autonomy of architecture is based in the exclusive possibilities it has to introduce beauty in everyday life.

Sometimes, however, certain coincidences improve those possibilities: like the couple of gypsies that were singing flamenco at San Nicolas Square in the Albaicin (Granada) with the Alhambra in front of us (watch the video below). The landscape, history, architecture, music...reality conspiring to impact our sensibility.

What is not a coincidence is the panoramic view of the Alhambra from the squares and gardens in the Albaicín: it is a tradition that all the open spaces in Granada, specially the "carmenes", face that marvellous building.

Total Enlightenment and Art at War

Marsden Hartley, The Iron Cross, 1915 (the link takes to a video on the painting by Washington University in St. Louis)

Korman & Melamid, Double Self-portrait, 1984

Until tomorrow (sorry for the delay) there are two wonderful exhibitions in Madrid: Total Enlightenment. Conceptual Art in Moscow 1960-1990, at the Fundación Juan March , and ¡1914! Avant-garde and the Great War, at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Both are one of those luxuries that are going to disappear if the economic crisis gets really bad. If you cannot go, the catalogues are excellent pieces of literature on their respective subject, maybe the best one in both cases: Russian conceptual art and the relationship between war and the historical avant-garde.

Boris Groys, the curator of Total Enlightenment, has just published in Spanish an excellent book on current mediatic era: Bajo sospecha. Soon, in Revista de Occidente it will appear my review of the book.

Temporary and permanent architecture

French Communist Party Headquaters, Paris, 1972. Oscar Niemeyer

Deconstruction is unbeatable in terms of spectacle.

The video below is on the ZHA 2007 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London, and it shows the construction process of such a clever devise. The result could not be more appealing. Koolhaas , Ghery and Liebeskind have done theirs with similar striking results.

For permanent wrap surface buildings, I mean real (not virtual) architecture, Oscar Niemeyer is still the unbeatable one, as his Paris building demonstrates. The picture was taken few weeks ago thanks to Monsieur Benoit kindness.