A long time ago, when I was a student studying psychology at Durham University in 1976, I was introduced to the work of scientists David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel, who studied visual plasticity and the organisation of the visual cortex. Inherent in their studies was the idea that the environment played an important role in the development of the visual analysis sections of the brain; that is, Hubel and Wiesel showed that there were critical periods for the development of certain features in the visual system.



Hubel and Wiesel received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Medicine/Physiology for their work on ocular dominance columns in kittens (which led to greater understanding and treatment of cataracts in children). By closing one eye of a kitten during development using sutures, they showed that in the primary visual cortex, changes took place such that the open eye used ocular columns reserved for the closed eye... thus proving the existence of cortical plasticity. Binocular vision was eliminated in the kittens, as input from both eyes was needed to develop both sets of ocular columns used in this type of seeing. By altering the period when one eye was effectively blinded, they showed there were critical periods for the development of a fully functioning visual system and that impairment at critical periods did irreparable damage.



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So I wanted to make work that echoed the fact that our visual morphology from eye to brain is finely suited to the world we live and operate in... that the neural system has been developed, constructed, within the construct of the external world... that developmental changes in the brain reflect the environment we live in... that the brain reflects our individual working world, our individual 'umwelt'... that our development requires interaction with the world... that the development of the brain is not passive... that deprivation of visual stimulus, or, in a sense, lack of movement, could produce a depleted or disrupted network of neurons in the optical system... that we don’t all see the exact same world... that there is both overlap and difference, as we have been formed in different ways by our individual processes of development.

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We are a product of our surroundings both natural and man made; we reflect our world.  Our environment affects the history of our ability to perceive.

Also of interest were more recent studies in science that suggested that the brain could be changed later in life. Is there any chance that we can develop a new, more sensitive, perception with a change of environment? What are the parameters and degrees of this change? So I was also interested in scientific research that looked at the potential of rewiring the circuits of the brain in the later stages of life. Research suggested this happens in the hippocampus and to small degrees in other brain areas. So what can exposure to new stimuli do later in life? The brain and nervous system can never be totally re-designed to suit a new set of circumstances in the world, but there are possibilities that it can be ‘patched’ by evolutionary processes; systems are only ever overdrawn, as the existing system always has a lingering presence. As in drawing or painting, there is always a presence of its history.

On a practical front I was able to move forward quickly as I already had a set of metaphors that pre-existed this new work, founded in my earlier studies for the pieces Magic Forest, 2002, and Complex Brain: Spreading Arbor, 2004. The tree-like nature of the neuron networks of the brain has been recognized from the early staining work of Santiago Ramon y Cajal, who talked of the arbor-like structures in his early studies. For me it seemed natural to work with these elements and develop the language of trees, for their form in the natural world very much suits their environment. European climes and rich soils spread large, strong oaks and beeches. Sparse soils with rocky grounds and cold environments spawn shallow-rooted pines and firs. In a reduced environment, the cultivated and curtailed bonsai tree springs up. Arboriculture, tree surgery, complex pruning, grafting, re rooting, guiding fruit trees on complex wire traces, transplanting trees could all be seen to mimic in some way changes to the environment that might stimulate new developmental growth in the brain.

Images and text courtesy of the artist and GV Art Gallery, London