Live Event #2 - Paige Anastasi

For my second task, I revisited the North > South / South > North campus walk, the first assignment of the quarter. While this was not a guest lecture or display in and of itself, it was probably the most bodily, lived event I could consider. Especially in the scheme of what we’ve learned in DESMA 9 about Neuroculture, embodiment, and spatial awareness. 

I began at the top of campus near Perloff Hall, passing by the flagpole and familiar views: Royce Hall, Powell Library, and Jans Steps. But the walk this time was not just a route—it was a series of physical memories. As I went through each area, my brain remembered back to moments: worry before a midterm, random conversations with friends, quiet study sessions. It felt as though the campus itself had turned into a neutral landscape, each building or bench a connection bringing me back to a memory. 

We’ve spoken at length in class about how space is not neutral. Victoria Vesna’s “Octopus Brainstorming” installation, for example, visualized the invisible network between participants. I felt something similar here — no EEG headset required, my sense of place has shifted. The same walk that had previously felt endless and foreign now felt cozy and interconnected, like neurons firing in real-time. 

The most reminiscent was seeing the Inverted Fountain. I remember on orientation day we all gathered around the inverted foundation and performed this ritual, almost like we were getting “initiated” into the school. It reminded me of how I used to be then and how much growth I have made till now. I began this quarter uncertain, but now, I feel more anchored and centered. 

This walk also allowed me to consider redesigning my midterm project (“Genome Garden”). I am wondering how memory and movement would influence how we navigate digital or biological data. Likewise, as the campus is a learning landscape saturated in sentiment, how does an artistic representation of DNA or cell information reimagine this? Maybe my final project can draw from this—producing interactive or graphic design that elicits memory, touch, or repetition. 

Would I do this again? Yes. Walking is routinely dismissed as a function of creativity, but this exercise recalled to mind that our body is constantly thinking, constantly generating meaning out of movement. It’s the most universally available kind of increase to reality we possess—and it’s beneath us every day. 

This rewalk was a reminder, not just an assignment. It made me realize that art and science, and life aren’t different paths. They are all on the same walk. 

Here is a picture of the "road map" of UCLA. 
A picture of Jan Steps I took on my walk. 
The inverted fountain at UCLA.


Chatterjee, Anjan. The Aesthetic Brain: How We Evolved to Desire Beauty and Enjoy Art. Oxford University Press, 2014.

Frazzetto, Giovanni, and Suzanne Anker. “Neuroculture.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vol. 10, no. 11, 2009, pp. 815–821. Springer Nature, https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn2736.

Anker, Suzanne. The fMRI Butterfly. 2006. Suzanne Anker Studio, https://www.academia.edu/6200034/Neuroculture.

Zeki, Semir. “Art and the Brain.” Journal of Consciousness Studies, vol. 6, no. 6–7, 1999, pp. 76–96.

Chatterjee, Anjan, and Oshin Vartanian. “Neuroaesthetics.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 18, no. 7, 2014, pp. 370–375. https://neuroaesthetics.med.upenn.edu/assets/user-content/documents/publications/pearce-zaidel-vartanian-skov-leder-chatterjee-nadal-2015-01.pdf.

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