THE SCIENCE OF KINDNESS
An art science exploration into kindness from Kindness Is Free, Let’s Pass it On
Art meets science
Artist Bio Susan Brisco
Susan Brisco’s artistic process sits at the boundary between art and science, where her outcomes explore interplays between drawing, film and sound. The natural world serves as her inspiration, especially scientific notions of plant sentience and communication.
This project was a collaborative artscience exploration between two artists into kindness within our community and the astonishing science of kindness.
Images On Previous Page by Dee Patel
More recently, she has become interested in the unseen anatomical landscapes within our human bodies, connecting science and medical health. Susan searches for that special ‘hook’ which serves to inform and intrigue her audiences through the familiar and real.
Science of Kindness Artist Statement
Susan brisco
“The warm feeling of wellbeing that washes over you when you’ve just done something kind isn’t just in your head - it’s in your brain chemicals too!”
Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, non-profit Hospital, LA, USA
Susan Brisco’s artwork focuses on the science of kindness and the astonishing biology taking place inside our body when giving or receiving kindness. She aims to share and inform how kindness stimulates the release of chemical messengers in the brain giving us feelings of pleasure, known as the ‘helpers high’.
Science research highlights how kindness actually makes us healthier as cocktails of feel-good hormones (oxytocin, serotonin and dopamine) calm the parasympathetic nervous system which in turn, lowers our blood pressure, reduces anxiety and depression and helps improve our immune system function.
Susan’s contemporary anatomical-style works are inspired from drawings recorded by scientists of 19th century of micro-architectures of the brain juxtaposed with 21st century science and imagery. The delicate sepia ink drawings feature tendril-like threads of nerves fibres, dense forest networks of neurones and curvaceous features of the brain. The common factors unite narratives of chemical changes arising in the body from acts of kindness. The large-scale ink drawings, rendered on translucent vellum paper, hang as though suspended in mid-air to present an ethereal impression of inside our brain and body.
What colour is kindness? The artist considered them to be orange and blue, denoting the colours of the sky and orange glow of the sunshine. A contemporary film of animated smiles moves and interplays upon the drawing surface presenting narratives of how kindness affects us internally. She alludes to notions of how simple kind smiles can be contagious, rippling outwards like a pebble in a pond, noting that acts of kindness, given or received, can help to make us feel happier, calmer and healthier – a win-win situation that we could practice more often.
the Beautiful Brain
This drawing take inspiration from functional MRI imagery of the brain. Emotion is a critical part of our human lives and functional MRI scans are now able to identify distinct patterns within the brain for defined emotion and here we see the hotspot pattern typical for a participant in a happy state. It seems that 21st century cutting edge research is visualising the depths of human feelings.
Just think, when you encounter an act of kindness, we get a cocktail of feel-good hormones being released in the brain that creates a distinct pattern. A simple smile or act of kindness could make your brain happy.
‘The beautiful brain - happy!’, Medium: Ink on canvas,
Dimensions: 122 x 91 cm
Ripples of Smiles
This digital artwork is comprised of many smiles kindly donated by people. It serves to demonstrate how new research has shown that kindness has a reproductive value of five - which means if one person smiles then five others find themselves each smiling at five more, and each of these go on to smile at five more. Very soon we have ripples of smiles propagating outwards into society just like a pebble falling into a pond.
The artwork uses over 80 donated kind smiles from all types of people to suggest this notion of ripples.
Note: *The effect weakens after three degrees of social separation, so we need to start the ripples off again.
The artist urges us to “Keep practicing and repeating acts of kindness, to keep topping the wonderful effects of kindness to our body, which also make us happier.”
‘Ripples of Smiles, [Reproduction value=5]’, Medium: Digital photograph on Di-bond Dimensions: 80 x 80 cm
*Thank you to all those who donated their smiles
Ink & Watercolour
‘It all starts in the brain’
'Kindness is good for the heart’
‘Cocktail of happy hormones’
Medium: Ink and Watercolour on Hotpress watercolour paper
Dimensions: 27 x 21 cm
‘It all starts in the brain’, Medium: Ink and Watercolour on Hotpress watercolour paper, Dimensions: 27 x 21 cm
‘Kindness is good for the heart’, Medium: Ink and Watercolour on Hot-press watercolour paper, Dimensions: 27 x 21 cm
‘Cocktail of happy hormones’, Medium: Ink and Watercolour on Hot-press watercolour paper, Dimensions: 27 x 21 cm
Star Cell of The Brain
This delicate lace-like micro-architecture drawing depicts a Star cell (Astrocyte), which is a tiny workhorse cell that makes up half of the brain cells. Its processes extend outwards, reaching out and wrapping around, hugging, the synapse where endorphins or neurotransmitters help to pass on impulses of thoughts, and feelings. The star cell makes the passing of impulses more efficient, resetting the synapse for the next signal to come along. This busy little cell helps us to feel good and keeps us in heightened states of alertness when kindness comes our way.
‘Star Cell of the brain, the hugger’, Medium: Ink on translucent vellum paper, Dimensions: 220 x 90 cm
Forest of Neurones
This drawing gives an essence of the dense network of neurones likened to a forest, with tiny orange neurotransmitters in between synapses, resembling flowers. Here memories, thoughts and feelings are formed. When you are kind to someone, or someone is kind to you, your neurones are buzzing with increased levels of neurotransmitters (endorphins serotonin, dopamine) that helps give us a legal high. Our brains have 100 billion neurones (nerve cells) with dense networks and branches that connect at more than 100 trillion points. More kindness results in more buzzing neurones, more neurotransmitters and heightened feelings of happiness.
‘Forest of Neurones’, Medium: Ink on translucent vellum paper,
Dimensions: 220 x 90 cm
The Hippocampus
The drawing depicts a micro-structure deep within the brain called the hippocampus, (Latin, sea horse). This structure is vital to formation, organisation, and storage of new of memories and connecting sensations and emotions. For example, a particular scent might trigger a strong memory.
People don’t forget you and your act of kindness, and the hippocampus stores this beautiful memory for us. Santiago Ramon y Cajal, a neuroscientists and artist from 19th century compared the features within a hippocampus as “cells like plants in a garden like a series of hyacinths - lined up in hedges with graceful curves”
How memories are formed in such a structure as this, is a huge mystery of the brain.
‘The Hippocampus, formation of memories’, Medium: Ink on translucent vellum paper, Dimensions: 220 x 90 cm
Smiles and the Wanderer Nerve
The Vagus nerve (Latin- Wanderer) reaches all around the body and when triggered by oxytocin through an act of kindness, given or received, the vagus nerve calms us down, reduces blood pressure and heart rate, which is good for the heart and arteries and helps reduce stress levels.
The film narrative suggests how simple kind smiles create changes in the hypothalamus of the brain represented by the orange glow. One smile then induces more smiles and creates multiple positive effects all over the body suggestion a contagious nature of a kindness.
What does kindness sound like? A bespoke soundscape accompanying the film weaves together layers of manipulated sounds of birdsong and human voices in conversation, to create what the artist feels could be the sounds of kindness.
90 cm
Watch ‘The Smiles’ film here.
Film: ‘The Smiles’, Duration: 3.5min
Soundscape: Sounds of kindness: Artist’s own sound footage
