Art and the conscious mind/ Self-awarnesof the conscious mind 7th Feb

Rob Pepperall

Self-awareness of the conscious mind

I found this session with rob very difficult as I found I didn’t understand most of what was being said even though I didn’t understand what was being taught I still found it really interesting.

We looked at Lucas Cranach the elder Adam and eve 1526

Going back to biblical times where eve ate the forbidden fruit and then became self aware and forced Adam to also eat the forbidden fruit and so he become self-aware, they both then become aware of their nakedness so hid it with fig leaves.

I think this is the only part of the lecture that I really understood and found it really interesting to learn about the painting.

We started looking at locating the self-awareness mind?

 

We have a few self-awareness minds

 

Mind

Consciousness

Self-consciousness

Awareness

Self-awareness

Sentience

 

Meta-self-awareness.

 

We also looked at the mirror test and found that the older you are the more self aware you are.

Children from the age of 18 months are becoming self-aware and notice them selves in the mirror test; this test is also conducted on dogs, elephants, apes and dolphins.

 

We looked at the question such as can robots become self-aware?

What is the self that is aware of it?

 

I found these questions hard to comprehend and understand.

 

As the lecture went on I found it harder to take in the information as I found that there was a lot to take and the material was very heavy.

 

We don’t have access to other peoples mind and vice versa thus making our minds completely our own.

 

Were in an infinite loop of self-conscious as were constantly thinking and not thinking of our selves. But are we really aware of selves or are other people more aware of us then we actually are.

 

Painting becomes self aware, self-conscious.

 

We looked at some artists who tried to depict self-awareness such as Descartes optics: turning the eye in on itself

Thinking about this concept interested me and also bewildered me too.

 

We looked at Braque, still life with violin 1909

This isn’t a painting of a violin; it’s a painting of a painting of a violin. Showing the nail holding up the painting in the painting.

We looked at other artists such as Picasso. Joseph kosuth, Jeremy Holzer, Takahiko Iimura.

 

We then came across the question, what would a self-aware artwork look like?