Neuroaesthetics

Kinda Studios is a neuroaesthetics studio and lab exploring how art, design and environments shape the nervous system. Working across brands, cultural institutions and live experiences, the studio translates neuroscience into sensory design – decoding how we feel, respond and behave in the spaces we move through.

Inspired by its SXSW London talk at Protein STUDIOS (it is also a member upstairs) titled WTF Is Neuroaesthetics?, we speak to co-founder Robyn Landau about the science of experience, and why the future of design starts in the body.

Protein: Tell us about how and why you started thinking about neuroaesthetics as something worth focusing on, and something that became important to you.

Robyn Landau: Kinda was founded six years ago. We’re a neuroaesthetics studio and lab, and we founded the company in response to this idea that neuroaesthetics as a field of research was really exploding in academic circles, but nobody was applying it to real-world creative and cultural experiences.

Neuroaesthetics looks at the neuroscience of aesthetics, which doesn’t really mean much when you say it like that, but basically it’s about how our brain and body respond to art, culture, design, spaces and environments – all of the sensory ingredients that make up an experience. So the sounds, smells, colours, textures, shapes, densities, movements, performances – all of those things.

What has the research uncovered?

That these experiences, whether we’re conscious of it or not, affect how we feel, act and behave on an unconscious level. They’re kind of hardwired into our DNA. Our brains and bodies are constantly responding to them, which shapes how we feel.