How Art Regulates the Brain When the World Feels Overwhelming | Ivy Ross

🎧 The Future Is HOW with Ivy Ross

How Art Regulates the Brain When the World Feels Overwhelming | Ivy Ross

In this episode, Frederik Pferdt sits down with Ivy Ross, Vice President of Design for Hardware Products at Google and co-author of Your Brain on Art, for a quiet, deeply human conversation about art, design, neuroscience, and what it really takes to build a future that still feels alive.

While most conversations about the future focus on speed, technology, and efficiency, this one moves in the opposite direction. Together, Frederik and Ivy explore why art is not decoration, but infrastructure for our nervous system, our empathy, and our ability to imagine what comes next without hardening.

Drawing on their shared history from the early days of Google Glass, Ivy reflects on designing for feeling, not just function, and why everything matters in design: texture, color, sound, space, and intention.

This episode is an invitation to slow down, reconnect with your senses, and remember that the future is not something we plan. It’s something we feel our way into.

In this conversation, you’ll explore

• Why art changes us biologically, not just emotionally

• How neuroaesthetics shapes how we think, feel, and heal

• What designing “from the inside out” really means

• Why art can calm us enough to imagine again in uncertain times

• How leaders and organizations can design spaces that support humanity, not just productivity

• What remains uniquely human in the age of AI

• Why the future needs magic, not just impact or scale
  

Timestamps & key moments

00:00 Welcome

03:34 What Ivy wants to make people feel or remember

04:15 What Ivy doesn't want to be remembered for

05:21 The top 3 things that stood out in Ivy's life so far

09:43 The impact of arts and neuroscience on designing products

14:38 The first time the public experienced neuroaesthetics live

21:45 A mindstate moment with Ivy and YOU

23:45 Why arts in moments of uncertainty or trauma

27:22 We're designed to express ourselves not for outcome

30:29 What Frederik sent Ivy and why creativity has to be everything but not perfect

31:57 If leaders understood art, what would workplaces look like?

35:02 How painting helps you being successful in life

39:22 How art changes in the age of AI

41:17 "Lightning round" with Ivy

43:02 What Ivy had to unlearn about arts

45:12 How to practice your future with art this week