Semir zeki biography

Semir Zeki is a neuroscientist whose early work on the visual cortex showed how the brain processes features such as colour and movement through distinct brain areas. His interest in art and vision has led him to explore the brain mechanisms underlying human responses to beauty, a field for which he coined the term ‘neuroesthetics’.

Semir used electrophysiology and brain imaging to show that there is no ‘final common path’ for visual experience: the brain processes different types of visual information separately in time and space. Through psychophysical studies, he discovered that we become aware of colour a fraction of a second before form or movement.

He has established the Institute of Neuroesthetics, with the aim of developing mutually fruitful interactions between artists and neuroscientists. Semir has delivered numerous public lectures on art and neuroscience, and his books include Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain (1999).

Subject groups

• Multicellular Organisms

  Animal (especially mammalian) and human physiolog

  •

  Semir Zeki

  Semir Zeki has been Professor of Neuroesthetics at University College London (UCL) since 2008, having previously held the Professorship of Neurobiology there. He has specialized in studying the visual brain, demonstrating in particular that it consists of many visual areas, each being specialized for the processing of different attributes of the visual world, in particular color, visual motion, and form. More recently, his area of research has widened to include studies of how a visual input triggers an affective, emotional state, as in the example of the experience of beauty, desire, and love. He has published many papers in specialized scientific journal, as well as four books: A Vision of the Brain (1993); Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain (1999); Splendors and Miseries of the Brain (2009), and La Quête de l’essentiel  (co-authored with the late French artist Balthus). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, London and a Foreign Member of the American Philosophical Society. 

  •

  Semir Zeki is Professor of Neuroesthetics at University College London, after having served there previously as Professor of Neurobiology. He pioneered the study of the higher visual areas of the brain, and discovered, among other things, that it consists of many visual areas and that different areas are specialized to process different attributes of the visual scene, such as colour, motion and form. Hence the strategy that the brain uses to build an image of the visual world is that of parallel processing of different attributes of the visual scene, a strategy that leads to functional specialization within the visual brain. He has expanded his work to enquire into the neural correlates of aesthetic and artistic experience. Apart from scientific papers, he is author of 'A Vision of the Brain', 'Inner Vision: an exploration of art and the brain', and 'Splendours and Miseries of the Brain', and co-author with the late French painter Balthus of 'La Quête de l'essentie'l and with Ludovica Lumer of 'La bella e la bestia: arte e neuroscienza'. His artistic work was exhibited in 2011 at