Houston Chronicle // Amber Elliott // 02.23.21: On a blustery Tuesday morning earlier this month, nine University of Houston students and their professor, Jose L. Contreras-Vidal, ventured out onto “Color Field,” a sprawling on-campus maze of large-scale sculptures by seven contemporary artists. The exhibition winds from Wilhelmina’s Grove in the Arts District to areas surrounding the Ezekiel W. Cullen Building, Butler Plaza and Lynn Eusan Park.
Everyone in tow wore two unique accessories: a black, mobile brain-body imaging headset and a face mask. The latter is for health and safety reasons in accordance with current COVID-19 guidelines; one student dropped out from the excursion after coming in contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus. The former helped the remaining nine participants record their brain waves as they contemplated and interacted with “Color Field.” And hand-held smart tablets illustrated and interpreted their brain activity in real-time.
“This is a new course. It’s interesting to how the two fields, engineering and art, are combined,” said Akshay Ravindran, an electrical computer engineering student who is currently enrolled in UH’s PhD program. “My research is related interpretable artificial intelligence, the idea behind all of this.”
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By studying how the human brain responds to and processes art, Ravindran and his peers hope to obtain data that will decode the intent behind movement. The end goal is developing technology that would allow people who have had a stroke or spinal cord injury to regain use of their limb — with brain power.
‘Color Field’
What: The project was organized in partnership with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas for the Public Art University of Houston System and runs through May 2021. It is the inaugural, curated exhibition of outdoor sculpture presented at UH, and Public Art UHS’ sophmore project as part of the Temporary Public Art Program.
Where: University of Houston
Details: Admission is free; uhsystem.edu/public-art/color-field/.
COLLAPSE
“I’ve been working with their professor, Contreras-Vidal, on how our brain responds to art,” explains Maria C. Gaztambide, director and chief curator of Public Art of the University of Houston System. “They use technology to measure cognition and perception, then go back to the lab and analyze the results.”
Contreras-Vidal says that his lab, which focuses on non-invasive brain-machine interface systems and neuroprosthetics, has created an algorithm that uses brain signals as input to generate commands from robots, computers and virtual avatars.
“We want to restore movement in people with disabilities by focusing on detecting movement intent,” he said. “When we move, we’re communicating. This technology allows us to anticipate. If you think about walking, a (prosthetic) skeleton will help you walk again.”
It’s rare to see two different areas of the brain talking to each other like this, Contreras-Vidal added. “We hope that in the future, we can personalize the mode and form of art — music, dance and creative movement — to the specific, physical needs of a person. We can use art to gain access to those parts of the brain.”
Against the weather’s cloudy and gray-washed backdrop, the saturated pastels and primary hues of “Color Field” popped in high definition. There were nearly two dozen outdoor artworks from the university’s permanent collection on display, too.
As a whole, the experience was intended as a self-guided tour, but the NeroHumanities scholars and their instructor are outside on official business, so Public Art UHS curator Michael Guidry had been appointed to lead the way.
Artists featured in the temporary exhibition — Sarah Braman, Jeffie Brewer, Odili Donald Odita, Sam Falls, Spencer Finch, and TYPOE — drew inspiration from the term “color field painting,” a form of abstraction that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s characterized by the heavy application of color on flat surfaces. Their works extended beyond the Modernist, one-dimensional canvas into real space. Amos Cochran’s auditory soundscape enhanced the sensory experience.
Brewer, who hails from Nacogdoches, played with recognizable shapes influenced by pop culture and his own irreverent sense of humor. He has six sculptures on display in total including the bubble gum pink “Big Sexy” and cerulean “Kitty.”
A number of students lingered under Finch’s “Back to Kansas,” a grid comprised of 70 color blocks drawn for the artist’s repeated viewing of “The Wizard of Oz.” When seen at sunset (for at least 30 minutes), the squares shift from vibrant to grayscale, notes for the piece explain that the change is not an illusion, but an effect of the eye’s response to color and light over time.
“It was a fun experience to go outside and actually study the different art elements,” said Ravindran.
He has worked on similar studies in the past, though those measured the brain activity of people walking around museums. Now he and fellow students are in the elements, which in Houston means accounting for how weather and humidity affect mood and other emotion-related responses.
“We’ve collected data and saved it,” he says. “Now the next puzzle is taking a look and trying to find out if anything happened.”
amber.elliott@chron.com