science and art -- are they compatible

Scientists claim they discovered the “gate of consciousness”
published tuesday in Cell Reports, “The findings reveal a gateway in the cortex where sensory information has to pass through in order to reach its destination (conscious access).” Co-author Zirui Huang is a research investigator at the University of Michigan Medical School. 

In summary, “Conscious access to sensory information is likely gated at a site intermediate between primary sensory and transmodal association cortices but the structure responsible remains unknown. We report results from functional neuroimaging performed to determine the neural correlates of conscious access using a volitional mental imagery task, a report paradigm not confounded by motor behavior.” 

They’re trying to say that out of all the stuff going on in front of you all the time you're only paying attention to some of it because something elevates it to consciousness. By some mechanism it crosses a threshold and you notice a ball bouncing into the street or the smell of coffee in a morning cafe. These scientists used a big magnetic resonancing machine to find out where in the brain that happens. No real application of course, pure science, but it’s interesting because artists have been searching for that same spot since way before what we consider knowable history.

Their technique is slightly different and it begins with a blank surface, flat and smooth. On it they create a design using colors in contrasts and intervals, and their purpose is to find that button in your head and push it. From all the way back to the beginning, the important thing about a work of art is its gravitation pull on the attention and awareness of the viewer, and its price at auction doesn’t enter in and even subject matter is secondary. I feel fairly confident the vast majority of all artists of all times, everywhere, would back me up on this assertion, we family.  

“The artist is someone who knows how to touch the pressure points in the humanistic mind.” I overheard that in a diner before the long dark road east out of kansas city, and he must have been talking about that spot.