SEET VAN HOUT’S RESIDENCE-PROJECT AT THE DONDERS INSTITUTE OF BRAIN, COGNITION AND BEHAVIOUR
The extended definition of art by Joseph Beuys can prove a common working area to art and science. Long before natural scientists such as British biologist Rupert Sheldrake had started researching a holistic approach in science, Beuys had already talked about the return of a „living and impressed nature“. In systhematic thinking, this „reincarnation in nature“ (R. Sheldrake, 1990) as well as in mind, is seen as exemplary „that connects“ (Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature; Eine notwendige Einheit,1982)
Pathbreaking in this domain is the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at the Radboud University in Nijmegen/Netherlands, which deals with brain activity and neuronal communication. The research center is especially famous for its activities in brain research and employes more than 600 staff members. For the first time, they collaborated with the Dutch artist Seet van Hout for an experimental project for more than 6 weeks.
The focus of van Hout’s art is especially drawn to memory. To sleuth memory means following a complex, far-reaching and fascinating, as well as exciting process to her. Although memories are exposed to perishability, they can later be revitalized in a different context. Since more than 20 years, Seet van Hout disputes with the topics memory and brain-function, creating strongly colorful paintings that she mostly combines with yarn and sewing cotton on colored linen. Different structures show a neuronal net that strongly resembles a nervous system. The artist gets her inspiration from latest research, as well as from demonstrative material, such as medieval handwritings, bible illustrations, anatomy demonstrations and botanical works. Her creations can be understood as an artistic memory and exemplarily reflect this complex topic.
Specifically for the Dutch artist, the Donders Institute had arranged a studio, where Seet van Hout stood in daily dialogue with the scientists participating not only in many lectures. Her studio was accessible for every member of the research team and brain researcher showed their latest researching to the artist. Impulses and results of scientific investigations were constantly communicated and enabled a direct transposition. Especially talking to the two scientists Christian Doeller and Boris Nikolai Konrad was ground-breaking for the artist. Doeller is the main initiator of the Donders Institute. His famous research series „memory and space“ received worldwide recognition. The neuroscientist Boris Nikolai Konrad mainly impresses as a memory athlete. He is a multiple distinguished winner and world record holder in different memory disciplines e.g. „remembering names and words.“
In the institute, there was no strict daily routine. For Seet van Hout, it was very important that no day was like the other. Often, she transformed her studio into a sewingroom and showed, that conclusions can be visualized with the sewing machine. Once, van Hout created a dark room, to present her „nightshadow-room.“ There her paintings, all made of black linen, were embroidered with red yarn and strongly foodlited. Like this, the red yarn reflected botanic figures, but on the same time also illustrations of cross sections of brains.
The unique experiment between Seet van Hout and the Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour was initialized by the GBK, Gelderse Beeldend Kunstenaars (Artists’ Association of the Netherlands). Seet van Hout hopes, that there will be more cooperations between artists and scientific institutes in the future. She points out, that it is not only about the simple continuing and improvement of her art. This experiment shall become an outrider for many more projects, having the goal to bring art in general closer to different groups of interest. This interdisciplinary dialogue between science, culture and society shall strengthen the field of art – and especially promote the enthusiasm – society brings towards it.
Further information about the artist
www.seetvanhout.com