@article {Wheelwell:2000:1355-8250:37,
title = "Against the reduction of art to galvanic skin response",
journal = "Journal of Consciousness Studies",
parent_itemid = "infobike://imp/jcs",
publishercode ="imp",
year = "2000",
volume = "7",
number = "8-9",
publication date ="2000-08-01T00:00:00",
pages = "37-42",
itemtype = "ARTICLE",
issn = "1355-8250",
url = "https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2000/00000007/f0020008/1040",
author = "Wheelwell, D.",
abstract = "This essay exposes several problems with reductionist approaches to art, placing some specific focus on The Science of Art by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and William Hirstein (1999). Their article seems to be representative of this genre in general, though particularly egregious in certain dimensions. My approach will differ greatly from that of a neuroscientist, philosopher, or psychologist, since I primarily take a critical feminist, social-literary perspective. I will argue that reductionist approaches to art are an intoxicating composite of arrogance, insight, confusion and precision, an amalgam that challenges the commentator to distinguish what is worth praising, what is worth attacking, and what is best left alone. In particular, I will demonstrate that Ramachandran and Hirstein confuse arousal (in a certain technical sense) with beauty, with the disastrous result of excluding most of what is usually taken to distinguish high art from its lower forms, such as advertising, industrial design, and pornography.",
}