Art and the Senses

In recent years, there has been a re-discovery of the importance of sensory experience in our daily lives. The senses play a vital role in our health, in our social interactions, and in enjoying food, music and the arts. This book provides an introduction to the study of the senses and the arts. It contains over thirty chapters written by artists/practitioners, including, musicians, visual artists, a "sculptor for the blind", a celebrity chef, a choreographer, designers, and architects. It also includes chapters by leading neuroscientists and psychologists who study the senses, as well as chapters from scholars from the humanities, including, art history, anthropology, and cultural studies. The book provides a unique interdisciplinary overview of the senses, ranging from the neuroscience of sensory processing in the body, to cultural influences on how the senses are used in society, to the role of the senses in the arts. The chapters are written by leading academics, artists and scientists, each of whom brings different perspectives and experiences to the book. Together, these chapters form a timely snapshot of research on the human senses which makes clear a number of common themes that run across the arts, humanities, and sciences. The first book of its kind, 'Art and the Senses' will be a valuable tool for anyone interested in how the senses interact with eachother to create meaningful human experience. The most important characteristic of Art and the Senses is that it is a truly multidisciplinary work ... The book offers the reader a lot of variety and interesting insights. Maybe its greatest strength is that is really makes us aware of how strongly multisensual experiences of art are/can be. M Dorothee Augustin, Perception Vol. 41Introduction ; 1. Making sense of art, making art of sense ; 2. The Science and Art of the Sixth Sense ; 3. The Art of Touch in Early Modern Italy ; 4. The multisensory perception of touch ; 5. Aesthetic Touch ; 6. Art, aesthetics and the senses ; 7. Sculpture and touch? ; 8. Touch and the Cinematic Experience ; 9. Hearing Scents, Tasting Sights: Toward a Cross-Cultural Multi-Modal Theory of Aesthetics ; 10. The science of taste and smell ; 11. The Influence of hearing on eating, drinking and perception ; 12. Thinking Multisensory Culture ; 13. Sighting Sound: Listening with Eyes Open ; 14. The sight and sound of music: audio-visual interactions in science and the arts ; 15. Improvisation in time: The art of jazz- An interview with Greg Osby and Skip Hadden ; 16. Musical Tension ; 17. Cause and affect. A functional perspective on music and emotion ; 18. The Mystery of Representation: a Conversation with Vic Muniz ; 19. Pictorial cues in art and in visual perception ; 20. The many dimensions of the third one ; 21. Film, Narrative, and Cognitive Neuroscience ; 22. Mirror neurons and art ; 23. Pictorial art beyond sight: revealing the mind of a blind painter ; 24. Visual Music in Arts and Minds: Explorations with Synaesthesia ; 25. Visual Music and Musical Paintings: The quest for synaesthesia in the arts ; 26. Dance, Choreography and the Brain ; 27. Neuroaesthetic of performing arts ; 28. Multi-Sensory Aesthetics in Product Design ; 29. Architecture and the Body ; 30. Architecture and the existensial sense ; 31. Multimodal, interactive media and the illusion of realit