Beauty and the Brain, February 22

When you hope to be a successful and high-impact professional in your field, it helps to understand deeply the process or product you seek to serve. If you run a retail store, you understand supply chains and consumer behavior. If you run a bank, you understand financial systems and the financial lives and needs of your clients. And if you’re an arts manager, you understand how the human brain constructs meaning from its sensory environment #

I mean, don’t you? If you’re in an arts organization, you’re in the meaning business. You promote focused and intentional human expressions, and encourage meaningful experiences with those expressions. All of that begins and ends and begins again in the human brain. #

Which is why I’m particularly excited to be facilitating a conversation on “Beauty and the Brain” at American University on Friday, February 22, in the Katzen Arts Center. On hand will be visual artist Shahin Shikhaliyev, who is inspired and intrigued by the visual systems in the brain. We’ll also have not one, but TWO behavioral neuroscientists to talk us through the science and study of neuroaesthetics — Arthur Shapiro, who specializes in visual perception and cognitive neuroscience, and Terry Davidson, director of American University’s new Center for Behavioral Neuroscience. #

The event is free and open to the public. So come on over to learn about the machinery that makes your business work. #

  #