DESMA 9 Week 7 | Neuroscience + Art

This week’s content was pretty interesting to learn about as it touched on what I feel is the most important part of any creative output: the mind. As a fan of hip hop music, the mind is something that very few hip hop artists touch upon, and this made hearing about the dealings with one’s mind and consciousness pretty rare. One of the most popular has to be Kanye West’s dealing with his mental health, and the album that he released in 2018, called ‘Ye’. This album touched upon his mental health struggles, how he feels about it, and also let the audience understand how it might fuel his creative process. On the song “Yikes” he claims that his experience with bipolar disorder is his “superpower”. He also touches upon the use of mind-altering substances, for instance “tweaking, tweaking off that 2CB”. This is something that was reflected in lecture, as Professor Vesna went over the role that cocaine might have played in Freud’s theories, and also the role that LSD played in society, as such mind-altering substances do assist people in experiencing life differently. 


The song "Yikes" by Kanye West


The role that religion plays in society is also something that touches upon the connection between our minds to the outside world, and the conflict between Jung and Freud that Professor Vesna mentioned in lecture is a conflict that has become more and more visible. This is especially as religion has started to play a polarizing role in several areas of the world, for instance, currently in India. In Carl Jung’s “The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man”, he states that “It cannot be helped; the ‘modern’ man is questionable and suspect, and has been so at all times, beginning with Socrates and Jesus”. This particularly stood out to me, as it shows that people will always have spiritually inclined questions, and that is something that will not go away with simply being “modern”. This is also reflected in a lot of art that questions societal norms, and such art often comes from one dealing with thoughts and ideas that they come up with that do not completely align with the norm. A great example of this is the song “Swimming Pools (Drank” by Kendrick Lamar that questions the role that alcohol plays in society. He talks about the stereotypical peer pressure around it (“Some people wanna fit in with the popular, that was my problem”), as well as deeper insights into what might be causing societal dependence on alcohol (“Makin' excuse that your relief

Is in the bottom of the bottle and the greenest indo leaf”).


Music video for the song "Swimming Pools (Drank)" by Kendrick Lamar


Lastly, the process of Brainbow was pretty interesting to learn about, as the visualizations produced not only contained visual artistic appeal, but also provided a simplified insight into the complex processes that go on in our brains.


A picture of the Brainbow of the Hippocampus region of the brain



Sources:

  1. West, Kanye. “Kanye West – Yikes.” Genius, https://genius.com/Kanye-west-yikes-lyrics. 

  2. Vesna, Victoria. “Neuroscience Part 3”. UCLA DESMA 9 Art Science and Technology Spring 2022, Week 7.

  3. Vesna, Victoria. “Neuroscience Part 2”. UCLA DESMA 9 Art Science and Technology Spring 2022, Week 7.

  4. Jung, C.G. "The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man". Volume 10 Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 10, edited by R. F.C. Hull, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014, pp. 74-94. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400850976.74 

  5. Lamar, Kendrick. “Kendrick Lamar – Swimming Pools (Drank).” Genius,  https://genius.com/Kendrick-lamar-swimming-pools-drank-lyrics.

  6. West, Kanye. “Kanye West - Yikes | 8D Immersive Audio 🎧 - YouTube.” YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdHzvzr6iPI (Source for Kanye West song) 

  7. Lamar, Kendrick. “Kendrick Lamar - Swimming Pools (Drank) - Youtube.” YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5YNiCfWC3. (source for Kendrick Lamar Song)

  8. Weissman, Tamily. “Brainbow: Hippocampus.” Cell, CellPress, www.cell.com/pictureshow/brainbow. (source for image of Brainbow)

Comments

  1. valeriiaskosyrevaDESMA9May 15, 2022 at 11:50 PM

    Hi. Interesting blog. I️ like how you brought your own examples from Kendrick and Kanye, shows that you have applied this material onto your everyday life to analyzed how you encounter these topics through music. I️ also liked your statement about the never-changing doubt when it comes to religion and spirituality. People define their spiritual-selves in different ways which is why people have struggled to put an end to religious wars and conflicts.

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