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DYUTIMAN MUKHOPADHYAY website
I am a cognitive scientist, biologist, writer, and artist. I work at the confluence of the arts and sciences and am a practitioner of fine arts—primarily fine art photography.
The Indian aesthetic 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 artworks and the literary texts corresponding to my art.
Currently, I am a teaching faculty in information arts and information design practices at Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Bangalore, India.
I was a former adjunct professor in the consciousness studies program 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 UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences (in Psychology and Language Sciences Division, Dept. of Experimental Psychology, School of Life Sciences) studying cultural and emotional models of’self’ using films. In the UK, I also served as the Creative Director at AcademiaOne, UK—a UCL Innovation & Enterprise-sponsored interactive academic engagement venture.
I use multiple facets of art theory/psychology, experimental/cognitive aesthetics, and social/emotion/neurosciences in my research and teaching curriculum.
I have a PhD in Biomedical Sciences, postdoctoral experience in Cognitive Sciences (experimental aesthetics), a 5-year Advanced Diploma in Fine Art (painting), and a widely transdisciplinary career with more than fifteen years of scientific research (biomedical, cognitive, and neurosciences) and creative experience (photography, film, and painting).
One of my focus areas is concerned with how the classification of emotional states in the Rasa theory of ancient Indian aesthetics can contribute to current cognitive neuroscience. My commentary on the neuropsychology of ‘aesthetic paradox’ where I proposed the ‘dual-phase-oscillation hypothesis’ (Mukhopadhyay, 2014 at Rev Gen Psychol.) has been highlighted in literary theory and emotion research by authorities in the field like G. Gabrielle Starr, Louise Sundararajan, Zachary Simpson, Kim Devereux, and Maria Korusiewicz.
My overarching goal is to study mind and matter, synthesising key concepts of Indian Vedanta and aesthetic philosophy and recent developments in cognitive and physical sciences. Parallel to my academic career, I am deeply involved in the fields of photography, film-making and other forms of visual art and pursue my passion for poetry. My photography received official selections and recognition at the Venice International Photo Contest in Italy, the International Photography Awards in the USA, the Prix de la Photographie in Paris, and 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.