I am a professor for philosophy of mind and aesthetics at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain/Department of Philosophy, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU). Here I am also the scientific director for the Research Platform Neurourbanism (RPN) and a principal investigator for the EU project Art and Research on Transformations of Individuals and Societies (ART*IS). I combine these scientific projects in the ARTS AND MINDS Lab.
My research focus is on the impact of techno-cultural developments on perception, emotions and knowledge. I employ theories from the cognitive sciences to understand how architecture impacts well-being, how images and film provide us with novel ways to perceive and understand ourselves, and how social media and AI alter what we desire. Art relates to those different arts by providing extraordinary models, yet should be studied in relation to those different media. I work theoretically and experimentally on those topics (X-Phi, citizen science, experimental studies and cognitive neuroscience).
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The Aesthetic Self Effect
Experimental Philosophy| Emotions| Preferences| Moral Values| Personal Identity| Paper
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Art and Embodied Aesthetic Emotion
Kara Walker| Philosophy of Psychology| Exploration| Evaluation| Draft Paper
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Report on a 4EA Theory of Art
Transformative Aesthetics| Neuroaesthetics| Enactivism| ART*IS| Project| Fingerhut
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Report on Art in Urban Settings
Public Art| Urban Design| Neurourbanism| Aesthetics| ART*IS| Project| Fingerhut
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Aesthetic Affordances in Neurourbanism
Beauty| Interest| Awe| Social Cohesion| Exploration| Evaluation| Draft Paper
News
June 3-5, I will present research on architecture and neurourbanism on a panel on “Emotion and Place” that I put together with John Sutton at the “Cognitive Futures in the Arts and Humanities” conference in Catania; see Workshops and Talks for more info soon (03/2024). Giovanna Colombetti kindly agreed to comment on our papers and we will have a great line-up of speakers (incl. Lynn Tribble, Sanne Lehtinnen, etc.; more soon).
June 10, I will give a lecture as part if the Healing Arts lecture series at the UdK Berlin.
June 14, I will give a lecture on “Wonder as an Aesthetic Emotion” in Antwerp Belgium as part of a Symposium on Wonder.
June 17, I will give a German lecture on Your Emotional City! in Mainz, Germany with the title “Deine Emotionale Stadt! Auf dem Weg zu einer Philosophie der Neurourbanistik”.
Research
My work is concerned with the intersection of embodied cognitive science and AI with theories of film, media, urbanism and architecture, as well as art. I believe that questions of media-technological developments, aesthetics, and art should be addressed from a philosophy of mind and experimental cognitive science perspective, while such a perspective would be significantly incomplete without capturing our affective-aesthetic relationship to the world and cultural artifacts. I have explored this by working on a New Cognitive Media Theory, initially with particular attention to images and film. Currently, my focus is on the philosophy of the city and the built environment, which I pursue as a theory of neurourbanism, exploring architecture as a central medium of the mind and capturing its impact on mental health and well-being. I also focus on art and transformation, particularly how works of art offer models for the future. This website showcases my work in these interrelated fields.
2024 is also dedicated to finishing a book that introduces Theories of Seeing (in German: “Theorien des Sehens zur Einführung,” w/ Eva Schürmann) and to working on papers and presentations on beauty and wonder in urban environments, building on research we did as part of experiments on interior urbanism and the “Your Emotional City!” citizen science project.
Arts and Minds Lab
At Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin I have a research group on transformative aesthetics, the Arts and Minds Lab. This is where most of my research happens. We focus mainly on one question — addressed both theoretically and experimentally — How do the arts (architecture, images, new media) transform us over time? How does art directly address our relationship to the world and aims at a remediation of those relationships.
To understand how our current technology, cultural artifacts and urban living impact the mind, we span different disciplines (data science, psychology, cognitive neuroscience) by being part of the Research Platform Neurourbanism, which cooperates with citizen scientists and practitioners. The same holds for our art research with the European consortium ART*IS that encompasses art schools as well as well as institutes for neuroscience and psychology of art, for which we also coordinate joint activities with artists, museums, galleries, etc.
Talks and Teaching
I have been a Visiting Professor for Philosophy of Mind at the LMU Munich and also regularly teach a block course on “Art, Aesthetics, and Media” at a Goldsmiths Master Program. I will either commence teaching as Guest Professor at the Department of Philosophy at HU Berlin or at LMU Munich starting this fall semester. Learn more about my teaching here.
I give most of my talks at conferences and academic workshops. But I will also list some more internal presentations in our projects as well as more public panel discussions and talks at museums and citizen projects.