We’ve spent generations designing work around productivity and efficiency. But what if, in doing so, we’ve overlooked some of the experiences that make us most capable as human beings?
We tend to think of creativity, beauty and sensory experience as additions to the serious business of work. Things to enjoy when there’s time, rather than essential parts of how we think, learn and perform.
Yet our environments are constantly affecting us, whether or not we’re consciously aware of it. And an emerging body of research is beginning to reveal how experiences involving art, music, movement, nature and making can influence attention, emotion, memory and connection.
In this episode, I talk with Ivy Ross, Google’s Chief Design Officer for Consumer Devices and co-author of Your Brain on Art, about how our surroundings and creative experiences influence the way we think, feel and behave.
We explore the science of neuroaesthetics, the role of creativity in Ivy’s extraordinary career, and what her work at Google reveals about designing for the whole human experience.
And with AI increasingly capable of producing what we once considered uniquely human work, we consider whether the experiences we’ve treated as peripheral might become more important than ever.
Prefer to skim?
Use these timestamps to explore the conversation.
- 00:11 — A meticulously engineered workplace, and what it felt like to be there
- 01:51 — Ivy Ross: learning to notice, make and follow curiosity
- 07:09 — Technology that amplifies our humanity
- 08:01 — How Your Brain on Art began
- 10:14 — Why we undervalue the arts, even as creativity becomes more important
- 14:32 — We’re sensory beings: understanding neuroaesthetics
- 16:03 — Google’s A Space for Being: when our bodies respond differently from our minds
- 18:39 — What happens when people sing together?
- 21:00 — Touch, relationships and how meaning changes our experience of the world
- 24:04 — Music, memory, movement and making
- 27:42 — Nature, attention restoration and focus
- 34:34 — Designing Google’s creative environments
- 39:59 onwards — Creativity, AI and the changing value of human capabilities
- 43:51 — Place, Participation and Practice: a broader understanding of performance
Key ideas
We’re not simply thinking beings who occasionally feel. Our senses are continually shaping our experience of the world. The environments we inhabit affect us in ways we may not consciously recognise.
Creative experiences have consequences beyond enjoyment. Research into music, art-making, movement and aesthetic experience is revealing relationships with attention, stress responses, memory and other aspects of human functioning. The evidence varies by activity and context, but it challenges the assumption that these experiences are merely decorative.
The same environment doesn’t produce the same experience for everyone. Our histories, associations and relationships influence how we respond to places and experiences. Designing for people means recognising that difference.
Attention needs conditions that support it. Research into nature and attention restoration suggests that stepping away from demanding environments can help replenish our capacity to concentrate. More effort isn’t always the answer.
Creativity is something we practise, not simply a quality we possess. Making, experimenting and improvising give us opportunities to explore possibilities without knowing the outcome in advance.
Performance is bigger than productivity. As technology changes what can be produced, we need to pay closer attention to the conditions that support imagination, connection, judgement and recovery, alongside efficient output.
About Ivy Ross
Ivy Ross is Chief Design Officer for Consumer Devices at Google, where her work has helped establish a distinctive approach to designing technology that connects with people on both functional and emotional levels.
Her career has moved across an unusually broad range of creative disciplines and businesses, including jewellery, fashion, product design, retail and technology. Her early jewellery designs entered museum collections while she was still in her twenties, and she has continued to bring an experimental, multidisciplinary approach to her work.
Ivy is co-author, with Susan Magsamen, of Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us, which brings together scientific research and human stories to explore how artistic and aesthetic experiences affect our brains, bodies and lives.
In our conversation, what particularly struck me was Ivy’s willingness to keep learning. She describes paying attention to what catches her attention, following curiosity across disciplines and approaching her career as a continuing process of discovery.
Research and further reading
The episode draws on research exploring neuroaesthetics, physiological responses to shared experiences, attention restoration and creative thinking.
The book
Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross (2023): Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us. The book that prompted much of this conversation, bringing neuroscience and lived experience together.
Find a copy: UK · USA · Germany · Australia
Creative projects
- Google, Suchi Reddy, Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen (2019): A Space for Being. An installation at Milan Design Week exploring how different aesthetic environments affect physiological responses.
- Mark Morris Dance Group: Dance for PD. A programme exploring the possibilities of dance and movement for people living with Parkinson’s.
Research discussed in the episode
- Ruiz-Blais, Orini and Chew (2020): Research into physiological coordination during paired singing, including heart-rate-variability coherence during sustained notes.
- Coan, Schaefer and Davidson (2006): Lending a Hand: Social Regulation of the Neural Response to Threat. An experiment exploring how holding a partner’s hand influenced neural responses to anticipated threat.
- Girija Kaimal and colleagues (2016): Reduction of Cortisol Levels and Participants’ Responses Following Art Making. A study examining cortisol changes after 45 minutes of art-making.
- Berman, Jonides and Kaplan (2008): The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting With Nature. Research investigating the relationship between nature experiences and directed attention.
- Limb and Braun (2008): Neural Substrates of Spontaneous Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation. An investigation of brain activity during musical improvisation.
Spatial Attraction is written, produced, and hosted by Kursty Groves.
Original music and sound production by Lee Golledge.
For episodes and updates, visit https://kurstygroves.com/podcast/ - and follow Spatial Attraction on LinkedIn and Instagram.
To suggest a theme or guest, email hello@spatial-attraction-podcast.com.
