A visitor wears headphones to reveal the effect of paintings on the brain (Sky News)
Saturday 4 November 2023 / 18:28
Visitors will be able to walk around with headphones demonstrating how art affects brain waves, at museums and galleries across the UK.
The headphones are connected to an electroencephalograph (EEG) machine, allowing people’s brain waves to be visualized in 3D and in real time on screens. These devices have already been used at the Courtauld Gallery in London, where visitors were able to see how their brains were affected by paintings by artists such as Vincent van Gogh. , Edouard Manet, and Paul Cézanne.
The scheme is the latest initiative by the Charitable Art Fund to encourage visitors to return to museums and galleries, which have struggled to return to pre-pandemic visitor numbers.
Jenny Waldman, director of the Art Fund, told the network Sky News: “This is a way to show exactly what’s going on in our brains, and how exciting it is to go back to the museum context, go back to the galleries, see real art, and have that experience… What we’re trying to do with this experience is to show how amazing the museum experience is and encourage people to “Back.”
The technology, created by special effects company The Mill in collaboration with interactive artist Sev Lee, is able to demonstrate the impact that art can have on the human brain.
According to Dr. Ahmed Bey, a neuroscientist and research fellow at Rutgers University, art can have a long-term positive effect on the brain, although he said more research is needed.
