Newsflashes and Alchemical Transformations in South East London!

Okay, so once again Old Ken has lapsed into tar-pit-like lethargy, producing blog entries with all the frequency of appearances of Halley's comet. Well, maybe not that bad. But, as Steve Groppi would say, situations develop and sometimes opportunities exist for blogging; at other times, they don't.

With that auspicious preamble out of the way, let's turn to our news flashes. First up is the strange declaration visible above. What does "Copyright is a cock" mean? Well, I'm not sure. But, while you ponder that, let me tell you a little story which will segue into our next image.

Not so long ago, Old Ken was at a conference on the curious topic of "neuroaesthetics" (http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/cultural-studies/neuroaesthetics.php). What exactly is neuroaesthetics? Well, from what I could tell from this conference, there are as many answers as there are experts in the field.

One such expert at this conference was professor of art history John Onians, who has become interested in using the findings of neuroscience to write the history of "world art." Basically, the idea seems to be that as the environment gives form to the neural networks in the brain, so do works of art produced by those brains try to "match" existing synaptic linkages. Because there will always be a gap between what the existing brain wants and what the hands/brain produce, the resulting, hybrid artistic creation is slightly different from expectation and it, in turn, comes to inform neural networks. Thus, a feedback loop is created between brain and built environment, supposedly accounting for changes in artistic style and so on.

What is more, because of this feedback loop, Onians is (supposedly) endowed with predictive powers. For example, because (he claims) the experience of seeing coarse stone masonry "trains" the neural networks of the brain to see in perspective, it follows that any time archaeologists uncover evidence of such masonry, it is likely that that culture also had something like Renaissance perspective image-making.

Now I should note that, despite their neuroscience window dressing, these ideas about the relation of art to processes of evolution are actually very old. Indeed, they are close to the kinds of things that the "founding fathers" of art history (i.e. Heinrich Wölfflin, Alois Riegl, etc.) rejected, arguing instead that art had its own internal, autonomous volition, which was not contingent on such instrumental or evolutionary concerns.

But, be all this as it may, I want to share with you the wonderful story Mr. Onians told to explain his theory. Our setting is an outdoor aquarium with large, plate-glass windows, which allow visitors to observe creatures. Our protagonists? Before the glass, a man who likes a refreshing smoke and, behind the glass a baby dolphin. (I'm not kidding!) Anyway, man is watching the dolphin playing with its mother. "All of this is hard work," man thinks; "I sure could do with a refreshing smoke." So he lights up a Camel and blows a cloud of smoke in the direction of the dolphin tank.

Clever animal as it is, the baby dolphin observes this behavior. So it returns to the mother-dolphin's teat, takes a swig of milk, approaches toward the man, and blows out an equivalent, white cloud. Ergo? Animals can imtate human behavior? I'm not totally sure what the point of this was. But, the obvious question was this: if the baby dolphin's tank had been made of coarse stone masonry, would it have blown the cloud of milk in perspective?



I hope the graffito above will help Prof. Onians' "world art" research.



So much for our newsflashes. But what of this promised alchemical transformation? Well, do you remember the neighborhood horse described in the last blog? A large, lusty creature who loves apples almost as he loves companionship, this horse.



Well, on a recent visit to his pen, Old Ken found that said horse had been transformed into a small pony. When I say small, I mean it; think large dog. What is more, this pony is extremely grumpy—phlegmatic even. I could hardly persuade it to come and eat the apples and pears I'd brought. Dear horse, please reverse this unnatural transformation and return to us!