Grids
- Julia Ongchoco
- College of Arts & Sciences, Mindcore, Program in Cognitive Science
-
Student Creative Production Grant
Stills from documentary film in which a scientist at Yale and an artist at UPenn explore the gap between hallucinations and reality.
Grids is a documentary film in which a scientist at Yale and an artist at UPenn explore the gap between hallucinations and reality in a series of experiments that use the rudimentary form of a grid. Filmmaker Julia Ongchoco explores the possibility of two unlikely worlds – art and science – colliding, and the stories of two powerful creative minds who sit in the liminal space between these two worlds, grappling with the truths they seek. A post-doctoral fellow studying Cognitive Science at Yale from the Philippines, and an undergraduate student artist studying Fine Arts and Design at Penn from the Bay Area – what do these two have in common? Grids. Cognitive scientist Joan Ongchoco’s research explores “everyday hallucinations” via a phenomenon she is calling scaffolded attention – where one might stare at a grid and begin to see shapes and patterns that are not actually there. Separately, artist Cynthia Zhou is also fascinated by the use of grids in art to create new visual experiences and experiment with figure and ground. Both these women share a common admiration for the artist, Agnes Martin, who utilizes grids in her art to embody ‘innocence’, and to grapple with her own mental well-being.