Perceiving Art: Physics Principles & Research Challenges

A workshop funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), as part of a wider programme on Exploring the Intersection of Science and Art.

The aim is to explore how viewers experience visual art by integrating a variety of different research approaches and techniques, such as EEG, fMRI, eye tracking, psychological and behavioral studies, and explainable neural networks. While a number of researchers work on these subjects individually, the workshop will hopefully help start a more cohesive community. The interest, from the scientific point of view, is to identify general principles of the perception of art and promising new approaches. We anticipate that a multidisciplinary character of the workshop, bringing together physicists, mathematicians, biologists, neuroscientists, computer scientists, cognitive scientists, and psychiatrists—as well as practicing artists—will prove conducive to a productive exchange of ideas, and will stimulate new research directions.

The workshop takes place in the recently refurbished Perrin building, labelled "Laboratoire de chimie physique - matière et rayonnement" on map below, opposite the historical building of IHP.