There is a fundamental difference between being an intelligent researcher, a skilled research writer, and a skilled presenter. The speaker who informed my understanding of the brain today was an intelligent researcher. There is no question today’s speaker was an intelligent man. I could see from his writing (which was displayed on the big screen as he read it) that he is skilled in research writing. At first, the presentation piece was not there.
The first sign of trouble was when the 4 projection screens each popped up the lecture he was reading. The slides tracked his reading from one pagr to the next, chasing his voice down the page. Once the speaker introduced images, he started to read less and freesyle more.
The speaker, Dr. Erik Kandel, took us on a historical tour of the idea of female sexuality and the relationships and influences of the psychology of such things on art. He talks about Frued (and his bottled up idea of sexuality) and he talked about Klimt and his open and oft agressive image of sexuality. Kandel spoke about art largely as an expression of ideas about sexuality. He supported his ideas thoroughly with story and with images. One set of images that stood out was the traditional female nudes, which Kandel pointed out are almost always representative of the female Gods, always facing the beholder (artist? viewer? who?) and covering their pubus with the left arm–leaving the reader to assume that this is either a reflection of modesty or a subtle suggestion of masturbation. Meanwhile, Klimt offered no such modesty. Klimt allowed his models to pose as they will. He suggested to them that they behave naturally and if they strike a pose or perform an action that catches his eye, he would paint them in that moment.
As a result, many of the models would perform sexual acts of self-pleasure or otherwise. Klimt captured this in his art and captured the reality that these women were neighbors, every day figures that by the nature of themselves and their activiities juuxtaposed the female imagery that came before.
Kandel suggests that this art leaves a certain amount of ambiguity that supports the need for a cognitive psychology of visual perception. In short, we rebuild the images we see inside our mind, which means the brain may alter or trick itself as to the nature of visual perception. He demonstrated this through illusory contours and similar visual tricks. He broke it down into 3 steps: The perception of the beholder, the psychological process, and the final phase which he called brain mechanisms.
Kandel improved over time, finally giving himself room to be a creative and useful presentor. He relied on notes for the meat of the work, but when discussing the science he freestyled and showed that he was a knowledgeable man. It started slow, but it was clearly worth the journey.