Art, Neuroscience, Place and Delusion:

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Art, Neuroscience, Place and Delusion
Walking Here and There
Dr Vaughan Bell
Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London
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Lou Reeds Walk on the Wild Side Jackie
refers to Jackie Curtis, a cross-dressing regular
of Andy Warhols studio The Factory.
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Jackie Curtis

• Heavy speed use led to probable amphetamine
  psychosis.
• Genuinely believed he was James Dean at times.

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What is a delusion?

• The DSM defines a delusion as a belief that is
• False, based on incorrect inference about
  external reality.
• Firmly sustained, despite what almost everybody
  else believes...
• and despite what constitutes incontrovertible
  and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary
• The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by
  other members of the persons culture or
  subculture.

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Criticisms

• Falsity Delusions may not be false (Jones, 1999)
  or even falsifiable (Young, 2000)
• Firmly sustained Conviction in delusional
  beliefs may vary day-to-day (Myin-Germeys et al,
  2001)
• Despite obvious evidence to the contrary Many
  normal beliefs show this pattern (Kuhn, 1962)
• Not held by culture or subculture People can
  form subcultures based around delusions (Bell et
  al., 2006).

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Delusions as altered realities

• Despite the difficulties of adequately defining
  delusions it is important we understand the
  psychology and neuroscience of altered states in
  psychosis.
• Why would someone believe they are
• James Dean
• Living in 1st Century Rome
• Emperor of Antarctica and the left foot of God
• Dead
• Being controlled by an air loom

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Illustrations of Madness
1st book-length case study used an artistic
interpretation
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The Air Loom
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Reduplicative Paramnesia

• Is the delusion that a place or location has been
  duplicated, existing in two or more places
  simultaneously
• or that it has been relocated to another site.

• First named by neurologist Arnold Pick in 1903.
• A patient insisted that she had been moved from
  Picks city clinic, to one she claimed looked
  identical but was in a familiar suburb.

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Reduplicative Paramnesia

• It was later described in soldiers who had
  suffered traumatic brain injury
• who believed the military hospital was located
  in their home town.
• It was not studied seriously, however, until
  1976.
• Case description from Benson et al. (1976)

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Neuropathology
Linked to coexisting frontal and right hemisphere
damage.
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Neuropathology

• Damage to the right hemisphere could leave
  patients unable to maintain orientation owing to
  impaired visuospatial perception and visual
  memory
• While frontal lobe damage made it difficult to
  inhibit the false impressions caused by
  disorientation.

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Relation to Simon Popes work

• Much of Simons work examines the relationship we
  have to the environment as we move through it
• Particularly by looking at the interaction of
  movement, location and memory.
• The idea that static artwork fails to capture
  crucial aspects of our mobile existence is key.
• However, very little art has attempted to move
  beyond its static confines.

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Relation to Simon Popes work

• Simon uses the experience of walking as a way of
  uncovering relationships to locations that are
  striking when noticed, but otherwise remain
  hidden.
• London Walking was as much a guide for ambulant
  sociologists as Sunday strollers.

From the dry descriptions of planning
applications you cant possibly imagine the
dramatic shifts in class structure and atmosphere
that will affect these streets. Keep an eye out
for the signs of real change shifts in
brand-loyalties, from sweet wrappers to parked
cars.
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Gallery Space Recall

• More recently, Simon has included stronger
  influences of memory in his work.
• Gallery Space Recall asks questions about whether
  art is something internal or external to us
• by breaking down the usual experience of
  visiting a gallery by having your experience
  dictated by a memory.
• Whose artwork are you experiencing?
• Yours, your friends, Simons, the artist from a
  previous gallery or all of them?

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Gallery Space Recall

• Gallery Space Recall also questions what extent
  our past memories influence our current
  experience of place by highlighting an anomalous
  experience.

So the person who has only visited Trafalgar
Square once in their life will have a memory of
the square that is tightly bound up with the
details specific to that event. The person who is
a regular visitor will have representations (a
template) of the square that are independent of
any one event, but may be common to many.
From Confabulation and the Control of
Recollection Burgess and Shallice (1996)
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Cognitive Neuropsychology

• Aims to understand the normal mind and brain work
  by researching how it breaks down.
• Reduplicative paramnesia and other delusions are
  where the influence of memory on current
  experience has gone awry.
• They are, therefore, of interest to both
• A scientist interested in uncovering brain
  function.
• An artist interested in highlighting hidden
  relationships to our environment.

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Walking Here and There

• A Wellcome SciArt funded RD project designed to
  explore how art and science can enrich each
  other.
• Various stages
• Gallery Space Recall
• Experimental study of recall on walking behaviour
• Guided tour of psychotic London

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Experimental Study

• Does memory affect movement as well as
  experience?
• Ask volunteers to walk around Ruskin Park in a
  clockwise direction and commit their walk to
  memory.

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Experimental Study

• Volunteers will be asked to walk blindfold down a
  corridor in the Maudsley Hospital, while either
• Recalling their walk around the park
• Describing their current walk.

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Experimental Study

• The number of times volunteers veer to one side
  will be measured.
• This has been used in psychosis research as a
  sensitive measure of cortical hemisphere
  activity.
• It should be sensitive enough to see if recall is
  having an effect on walking behaviour.

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Rationale

• Ruskin Park is the nearest park to the Maudsley
  psychiatric hospital, and patients often ask to
  go there for visits if theyre sectioned.
• It is a place that patients regularly think about
  when they are locked on a ward.
• It lives in the memory of patients and influences
  their experience of hospital.
• We want to test out a scientific theory while
  reflecting this experience in the experiment
  itself.

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Locating Psychosis

• In the experimental stage, we juxtapose memory
  and location to highlight the influence of one on
  the other.
• Delusions are the result of this juxtaposition
  crashing through into personal reality.
• Here, memory profoundly affects the experience of
  location.
• Delusions can also uncover hidden relationships
  to the environment.

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Locating Psychosis

• Yet the experience of people with delusions goes
  unnoticed all the time.
• We are asking people to describe their psychotic
  experiences that occurred in a specific location.
• And turning them into an audio tour of London.
• An experience that stems from memory and is
  thought to exist only in the mind will be
  located in a specific space.

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Aims

• By highlighting the universal influence of memory
  on our experience of the world, we hope to
• Better understand its normal function
• Emphasise the common experience of the mad and
  the sane
• Question whether art is static or exists in
  relation to the mind and the location in which it
  is experienced.
• Where is the line between delusion and reality
  when we only have our memories to rely on?