Contact
DYUTIMAN MUKHOPADHYAY website
I am a cognitive scientist, biologist, writer, and artist interested in how humans respond to constructs of representations and reality. I work at the confluence of the arts and sciences and am a practitioner of fine-arts—primarily fine-art photography—and poetry.
The Indian philosophy of detached passion is my key artistic inspiration, along with world and Indian cinema, poetry, literature, and painting. Dream, desire, longing, separation, love, lust, death, illusion, obsession, delusion, faith, fate, and liberation—their inherent contradictions and commonalities—are the primary motifs in my art and literature.
My academic career transitioned from biological/biomedical sciences to experimental/cognitive aesthetics over the past twenty years. Currently, I focus more on exploring a-disciplinary questions that navigate the shared complexities of knowledge, bridging the realms of arts and sciences beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries.
I am a Professor (full) in Information Arts & Information Design Practices (IAIDP) at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (SMI), Bangalore, India. I was a former Adjunct Professor in the Consciousness Studies Programme (CSP) at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India. Before that, I worked as a British Academy Newton International Fellow and Honorary Research Associate (2018-2021) at University College London, UK (Experimental Psychology/Brain Sciences), studying emotion transfer across and within cultures using films.
My work on the neuropsychology of ‘aesthetic paradox’ where I proposed the ‘Dual-Phase-Oscillation hypothesis’ (Mukhopadhyay, 2014, Rev Gen Psychol.) has been featured in literary theory and emotion research, cited by experts like G. Gabrielle Starr, Louise Sundararajan, Zachary Simpson, Kim Devereux, and Maria Korusiewicz. My other major work deals with the characterisation of functional brain networks and emotion centres based on the Rasa theory of ancient Indian aesthetics (Mukhopadhyay et al., 2022; Tripathi, Mukhopadhyay et al., 2020). I also work on the cultural models of ‘Self’ and social appraisal using naturalistic stimuli like films through the lens of cross-cultural, social, and personality psychology (Mukhopadhyay, 2021, 2025).
I have a PhD in Biomedical Sciences, three postdoctoral tenures in Cognitive (experimental/neuro-aesthetics) and Biomedical Sciences (stress biology), a Master’s in Animal Biology, a postgraduate diploma in Bioinformatics, and an advanced diploma in Fine-Arts (painting). I received the T1 Exceptional Talent Work permit endorsed by the British Academy, UK (2019-2024). My photography received official selections and recognition at the Venice International Photo Contest, in Italy, at the International Photography Awards, in the USA, at the Prix de la Photographie, in Paris, and on the National Geographic website (Recognitions). I am also one of the founding artist contributors of the art subscription and sales company (Chadart, UK).
Research Tools:
Indian texts on Philosophy of Science, Religion, and Aesthetics (1500 BC–1000 AD), Poetry of the Ancient and Medieval East, Experimental Psychology, Eye-tracking, Electroencephalography (EEG), Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Digital Art, Painting, Cinema, and Photography.