May 27, 1997 (a)

Column Index - Jun. 3, 1997

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Video "An Anthropologist on Mars" Publisher: Hayakawa Shobo Information: Hayakawa Shobo Tel.03-3252-3111 SALON Departments: Lit Chat: Oliver Sacks http://www.salon1999.com/ 10/departments/ litchat1.html Oliver Sacks http://public.logica.com/ ~stepneys/bib/nf/ sacks.htm Oliver Sacks Roundtable Biography http://www.irsociety.com/ sacks.html Mark/Spcae: Anachron City: Library: Biographs: Oliver Sacks http://euro.net/mark-space/ bioOliverSacks.html Sacks, Oliver http://mchip00.med.nyu.edu/ lit-med/lit-med-db/ webdocs/webauthors/ sacks208-au-.html Sacks Oliver: An Anthoropoligist on Mars http://mchip00.med.nyu.edu/ lit-med/lit-med-db/ webdocs/webdescrips/ sacks424-des-.html Book Reviews; "An Anthoropoligist on Mars" http://www.lewisham. gov.uk/volorgs/alas/ reviews.html#mars Awakenings (1990) http://us.imdb.com/M/ title-exact?Awakenings %20%281990%29 Mark/Space: Anachron Libarary: Books: Awakings http://euro.net/mark-space/ bkAwakenings.html The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat http://mchip00.med.nyu.edu/ lit-med/lit-med-db/ webdocs/webdescrips/ sacks461-des-.html Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, The (1987) http://us.imdb.com/M/ title-exact?Man%20Who%20 Mistook%20His%20Wife%20 for%20a%20Hat%2C%20 The%20%281987%29 Edwin Herbert Land http://www.invent.org/ book/book-text/65.html

How Is Color "Seen" By the Brain? - A New Book By Oliver Sacks Koji TAKI Since the art museums in Tokyo do not have exhibitions that I feel are worth seeing, I am introducing a newly published book which I recommend for artists, art historians, and art critics. The book is "An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sacks. Sacks is known for the movie, "Awakenings", but he is actually an excellent brain neurologist. For someone interested in theater, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" by him may be famous. Besides the above, he has many books based on a large number of case studies, and Sacks is now a world-renowned nonfiction writer. Just in case, I must also add that none of his books are written merely out of curiosity. A painter who has lost color The reason why I thought I could write about Oliver Sacks's book on NMP was because, starting with a story about a painter who has a disorder in his perception, the book portrays the issue of disorders of the brain that are somehow related to expression. The book is full of enjoyment (or intellectual search) for the reader to expand his thoughts about art, using those "disorder" as his mirror. Within a limited space, many cases cannot be taken up, thus the first case study will be used as an example for consideration. One day, a 65 year-old painter (It is written that he is a contemporary painter who has been relatively successful. I tried to specify his name, but it was cleverly hidden.) becomes involved in an accident, and due to brain injury, his total sense of color is damaged. It is not difficult to imagine what the agony of a painter who cannot perceive color is like. When he saw his past paintings for the first time after the accident, he received a terrible shock. What he had been painting in rich colors before had become a total confusion of black and white. The suffering of the painter from this point onwards is inexpressible. The painter then attempts various things...painting only in black and white, and so on and so on. He is constantly confused, but he tries despite his agony. At a certain point, he even thinks of suicide. Seeing the case of total color disorder for the first time, Sacks makes various discoveries about the human perception of color. According to the color theory of Sir Isaac Newton, color was merely a wavelength of light. On the contrary, Edwin Herbert Land, the inventor of the polaroid camera, advocated that color does not have such absolute natures. On this point, Land is correct. Sacks and his cooperators applied what was known from the studies in the past by many physiologists. Color is constructed within the brain. This was the only feasible solution to explain the different phenomena that change when color is perceived together with other colors. Due to the past studies, it was found that the brain can collect various visual information and receive them as color in a section called V4, and the section called V1 is the place which reacts only to wavelengths. This patient received a damage in V4 where color is created, and so he was seeing the raw image (wavelength) which normal human beings can never experience, in V1. Human beings construct themselves within a culture This painter gradually became used to the colorless world on his own effort. He came to oppose the suggestion by the doctor to have an operation which had a possibility of reviving his sense of color to a certain degree. He said that it was alright as it was. Why was that? In a colorless world, this painter reconstructed himself over a long time. There, he had created himself, who possessed a world of imagination and sensation that was possible only in that world. Once again, he had reconstructed himself into a person who lived on a higher level (a painter). We should take not of the fact that Sacks is able to realize such an observation and judgment. That is because Sacks had an idea that people constructed themselves within a history or culture. In Sacks's book, seven such case studies of disorders are described. Each case has a different disorder, and the results are different too. What is common among them is that any human being generates himself within his culture, and not that he experiences perception as it is, reacts to the world, or that the world is not created by himself and has a large framework of philosophical ideas. The reason why Sacks's book is read is not because strange people are depicted in it, but it is because the people who read his observations start to become aware of that thinking. [Koji TAKI/Critic]

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May 27, 1997 (a)