Vision and opticality: humanities and neuroscience
Public forum and continuing professional development seminar for teachers
Venue
The Oxford English Dictionary defines vision as: "the faculty or state of being able to see" and opticality as a "visual quality or effect, especially in relation to art". This cross-disciplinary public forum and continuing professional development seminar for teachers explores the concepts of "vision" and "opticality" to re-animate the conversation between the divided realms of the humanities and science.
Scientists, artists, and humanities scholars from across the disciplines of neurophysics, psychology, art history, and literary study will draw on examples from their current research to illustrate some of the different ways of representing and understanding the world, different approaches to vision and truth, and different patterns of animal vision, navigation and creativity to encourage a potential change in how we view the humanities and science.
The 20-minute presentations will address the following themes:
- new photographic approaches that illuminate the fragility of natural biological systems
- the relation between nineteenth-century Indian photography and British colonial science; the psychology of vision and how patients with mental health issues represent the world around them
- navigating space and the insect compound eye; poetry and insect vision
- and ocular experiences of humans and insects across different imaging technologies.
Continuing Professional Development certificates of participation will be available for teachers.
Speakers
- Dr Trish Adams (RMIT)
- Xanthe Ashburner (UQ)
- Sushma Griffin (UQ)
- Professor John McGrath (Queensland Brain Institute, UQ)
- Professor Anne Noble (Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University)
- Professor Srini Srinivasan (Queensland Brain Institute, UQ)
Program
Order of events
Registration and Coffee: 9:30am—10:00am.
Presentations: 10:00am—1:30pm.
Morning Tea: 11:30am—12:00pm
RSVP
Free. All welcome. Please rsvp online by 15 March
Image: Anne Noble, Dead Bee Portrait # 14, 2016, No Vertical Song and Reverie, Bundanon Trust Collection. Courtesy of the artist.