The Big Draw

A month of drawing-related events was launched last night at the Wellcome Collection with a lot of events. The biggest draw was Nathan 'Flutebox' Lee, wired up to an electrocardiogram, with the readout projected on the screen:and on another screen, cartoonist Steven Appleby drawing what might be going on in his head:



I gathered from the lectures (by professors Arthur Miller and Semir Zeki) that the world is merely a mathematical construct and a problem in physics has been finding ways to visualise these schema, and that ambiguity is the essence of art -- reality happens in the brain, not the world, and although perception is hard wired, colour is unambiguous: we know what colour we're seeing, never mind the lighting conditions. Yes that sounds garbled - I wasn't taking notes. Lots to think about.

I'm truly sorry to have to miss the talk on snails by geneticist Steve Jones - Snails in art, the joy of snails, and the art of camouflage.