Truly great art has the strange effect of making us, the spectators, feel intelligent.- António Damasio, director of the department of neurology at the University of Iowa, during the conference Brain, Body & Emotion. The conference was part of the 40th Festival of Music and Dance in Sintra (Portugal). 1000 people came to see the professor talk about the brain and emotions. The place was absolutely packed, people crowded in the entrance and nearly fought over the (free) tickets. The presentation was interesting, not too savvy, not too light. Any specialist who has spoken to a non-specialized audience knows how difficult it is to maintain the balance. Here, he even dared to make some inspiring interpretations of the artistic experience ("Art manages to make us stop, and focus"). A beautiful discovery for me was that aesthetic emotions are triggered by what Damasio calls emotionally competent stimuli, which is an expression I truly adore.
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