Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NNI (Neuroscience and Narratives of Intimacy)

Teaser

As human beings we are inclined to connect, and experiencing meaningful connection bears positive effects on health and well-being. Yet loneliness is a widespread condition with significant consequences on life-expectancy.Underlined by such societal and health relevance, this...

Summary

As human beings we are inclined to connect, and experiencing meaningful connection bears positive effects on health and well-being. Yet loneliness is a widespread condition with significant consequences on life-expectancy.
Underlined by such societal and health relevance, this research project aimed at delineating a novel intellectual framework for the study of intimacy and connection and at promoting reflection and awareness about their importance in life.
What is intimacy, what are its components, where is it to be found in our daily lives, and how can it be studied?
Contextualized within an interdisciplinary setting across an institute of neuroscience research and an art-science gallery, this research project aimed to innovatively explore and expand a definition of intimacy via the encounter between perceptions and narratives of intimacy and relevant available elements of scientific experimentation in the fields of biology, psychology and neuroscience.
Infused with a public engagement component, with the aim of exploring today’s perception of intimacy in popular culture, the project also aimed to trace specifically in the arena of visual arts references to intimacy and the science of it.

Work performed

By regarding it through the filter of science, the diverse experience of intimacy was fragmented into a set of identifiable interpersonal behavioural, cognitive and emotional phenomena.
This approach led to the identification of salient themes such as: embodied cognition; loneliness and health; closeness and mutual knowledge; the relationship between intimacy and time, synchronicity; empathy; the relationship between intimacy and loss; learning and memory; risk, trust, prediction and decision making, styles of attachment and epigenetics, etc.
Channelled into the realisation of a themed public art-science exhibition, this framework informed the identification of representations of intimacy in photography, installation, performance art, virtual reality etc. to explore how, and to what degree of overlap, science, the visual arts as well as emerging technologies and design address and conceptualise intimate connection by their own methods of inquiry, and whether they may mutually inspire one another.

Final results

Through its novel approach, the project has the potential of being impactful at an intellectual level across diverse fields of knowledge production. Given the public engagement component of the project, the work conducted and its dissemination have the potential to have resonance for today’s perception and understanding of intimacy, as well as build awareness and promote reflection around its relevance for the well-being of the individual and for society at large.
Broadly, this research project intended to make a contribution to an effective dialogue between the medical sciences, art and the humanities, as well as to bringing together science and society.