Art, science and the frontiers of the unknown | Mariano Sardon | TEDxRiodelPlata

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Where do art, science and technology converge? The quest in the eyes of an artist can lead to a neuroscientific investigation that reveals our way of perceiving the world. In his works, Mariano Sardón takes advantage of the scientific tools and questions to travel to uncharted lands. Mariano Sardón was born in Bahía Blanca in 1968, studied physics at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and currently directs the postgraduate degree in Electronic Arts at the National University of Tres de Febrero (Untref). From there, he promotes an international residence that unites both disciplines together with Ars Electronica, the largest festival on the planet dedicated to this theme.

I was born in a city next to the sea.

Its immensity and sound
were main characters of my childhood.

In front of the sea
I would have a sense of mystery

and no words to define it.

There was also a port in that city.

And there could be people from all over
speaking strange languages,

which obviously made me wonder
where they came from.

But also what was on that horizon.

What was after that line
that separates the sky from the sea?

Obviously that line gave me no answer.

So in my house I would draw
imaginary maps of all places.

I would think up hypotheses,
possible trajectories,

sometimes guided by some flag
from some ship.

I drew alphabets,

I tried to pronounce very difficult
yet very pleasant words.

I made a whole imaginary
in intricate shapes,

irregular strokes, colors,
strange symbols,

to build what I didn't know.

Many years later I came across
a story about Africa.

They told me that the Zambian Ndembu

leave marks on the trees
when they go hunting.

This is called chijikijilu
which literally means lighthouse.

But it also means "leading the way".

From the center of the village
there is a circle

that delimits what they know
and it's ordered,

from what's far beyond,

which is chaotic and unordered;

the unknown.

For the Ndembu that limit is the present.

So when they plunge into the jungle,

they always walk the paths
within the known places.

It's a way of going through the past.

On that edge, in that present,
is where they set the lighthouse

that illuminates
what they still don't know;

A way to get a glimpse of the future.

When I heard this story,

it immediately brought me
back to my childhood

and to all that imaginary

full of ignorance facing the sea,

where causally there was a lighthouse, too.

But it also made me think
in many of my projects

where art and science converge.

Because art and science

also explore the limits of the unknown.

That's where we may find words

and also questions arise

that others may have also made.

That's why many of my projects

I do them in company of scientists
like Mariano Sigman,

a neuroscientist I've been working with
for more than 10 years.

Many of our recurring subjects

have to do with portraits, faces.

We all express ourselves through
words, our body language,

but facial gestures

play a central role in our expression

and the way we relate with others.

Art knows a long history

of portraiture, of gestures,

even with the different sides
within the same universe,

like sculpture, painting, photography

and, closer in time, video.

In many cases, after the many topics
we have addressed,

we realized that in neuroscience as well

it's a matter of research
since many years

expression recognition
and facial evaluation.

How a gesture can give us clues

of the emotional and mental state
of a person?

There is even evidence
that in a very short time

--around 250 milliseconds--

a gesture is capable of producing
enough information

to detect its emotion very clearly
and concretely.

We took some of the gestures

considered as basic and universal:

joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise.

A gesture could be constituted
of multiple microgestures

of very short duration,

capable of communicating
emotional states.

So we decided to go find them,

shoot them with ultra slow motion,

we elaborated a series of video portraits
of those gestures,

that are the history of that gesture
slowed to almost zero.

What I am going to show you
now in a minute

is what in a gesture lasts no longer
than a fraction of a second.

In art when we work and create images,

--those of us who do that--

the look in the eyes is fundamental.

It's almost all the substance
it's made of.

But how do we look?

What do we see
when we are in front of an image?

Look at this picture for a moment.

Can you guess which part of this image
captures your eyes?

Suppose we have access
to something very intimate,

like the eyes of a person.

It's as if we could see through them.

We can do this with a device
called eye positioner,

which is used in laboratories

to record and study the movement
of the eyes in front of an image.

We can understand where in the image
the eyes stop for a moment

to get information,
how they go through it.

And something very important
and interesting:

What we don't see from an image

although we believe
we've seen it entirely.

So if we saw through someone's eyes,
we would see this.

This is a very, very slow video,

of what in fact happens very quickly,

which is how a person sees the image
I just showed you.

If we had 40 people
looking at this image, for example,

we would see this other thing.

Something we realized right away

is that we spy on the world
through the eyes

as if it were through a lock.

The rest is built by the brain.

Other very important things are

that the image is built in time.

It's something that
we really have no conscience of.

And that the eyes move
in a very particular, very personal way.

It's like the mark that identifies us,

our signature,

our way of speaking, of making gestures.

What I'm going to show you now
is the reconstruction of that image

from the gestures of 450 people
looking at it simultaneously.

What emerges is
the collective construction of that image

It's almost like revealing the image
through the eyes.

With these methods and this technology
we create videos,

billboard photographs that we exhibit
in museums, art galleries.

In any case, what we have here are
science experiments turned into art.

Our practice travels across
many different disciplines.

It's like embarking on a journey
through different territories,

with their own languages,
with their own stories,

worldviews and prejudices.

I imagine that creativity in the future
will have to do

with this kind of transdisciplinary
and cross-cultural processes.

And unlike what happened in another time,

where art and science incarnated

in the single figure of someone's genius,

today we say that these practices
more established and developed,

between different groups
who share what they don't know,

like the Ndembu of Zambia,

--we go through the past
through what we know--.

We can only reach to the limit
of what we perceive

and what we know in the present.

There, probably others
who are also seeking will appear,

and for whom we possibly are
part of their chaos.

But knowing also

that with those others,

lies our future.

Thank you.

(Applause)