Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen on the Science-Backed Pleasures of Neuroaesthetics
The Google VP and International Arts and Mind Lab director take a stroll through New York’s Rubin Museum while discussing their new book, “Your Brain on Art.”
April 8, 2023
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It’s a Friday in the late afternoon, and I’m standing with Ivy Ross, Google’s vice president of hardware design, and Susan Magsamen, the founder and executive director of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University, on a quiet second-floor landing of the Rubin Museum in New York. The two have just published their new book, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us (Random House), which takes a scientifically backed look into neuroaesthetics—or, in other words, how engaging with art impacts our bodies, hearts, and minds. I thought, why not walk around the museum’s galleries and talk about the subject while surrounded by these Nepalese, Tibetan, and Bhutanese artworks and sacred images?
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