Event #3 Assignment

Event #3

     For Event #3, my friend Zach Sweeney and I went to the MFA Thesis Exhibition at the UCLA Broad Art Center. I have to say seeing these pieces of art was very strange for me. It was almost like there was no explanation as to what any of the pieces meant. I soon learned that these works of art are for you to figure out the meaning. 

     This next work of art features technology. It is a coat that has a tablet and other electronics on it. Like I said before, I have no  idea what the intended meaning of this piece is, so I left it up to my own interpretation. I imagined that the coat was a symbol for war and how it will always exist in our world. But the tablet and other electronics on the coat symbolize the advances that we are making towards more efficient and more powerful technology and weapons. 

     Another piece of art on display was a medical table and when I walked in and saw this I was really confused as to what art truly is. It is literally a seat that looks like it could be used for a dentists office or a hospital. At first I had no clue what to think about what I saw, but I decided that the piece meant, for me, that medicine is extremely important in our world. I think the lamp shining down on the table emphasizes the importance of the seat and how important the patient is to the medical company as a whole. I may be way off on my approaches to these works of art but I certainly gained a new appreciation for this kind of artwork. 

Week 9 Assignment

Week 9 Assignment

Space and Art

     When I saw that this weeks assignment was about Space and Art, I instantly thought of the stars in the sky. I am talking about the Big Dipper and other constellations that are shown in the sky every night. These constellations are completely natural and are major forms of art. I think that it is amazing that you can notice something so far away so vividly and clearly. The stars in space are truly amazing works of natural art. 

     I think that some of the topics talked about this week that were very interesting to me was the space race. The space race between the U.S.and the Soviet Union was a very cool concept to me. Now, we do not think the inventions made during that time are all that special, but back during the space race, these inventions were some of the most significant inventions of their time. The Space Race has evolved into big space companies and now NASA and even Elon Musk's SpaceX are formidable companies that study space. 

     Lastly, I think that extraterrestrial life is another interesting concept that I think has actually turned into a pretty cool artistic opportunity. We see shows like "South Park" depicting aliens as long stick like figures and we have the movie "E.T." which shows the alien as more of a shriveled human formed being. I think the mystery in the truth of extraterrestrial life is what is really interesting and I think that humans using their imaginations to create artistic renderings of what these aliens might look like is a very cool concept in the space/art world.

Works Cited

Vesna , Victoria, dir. Space Part 1. 2012. Film. 30 Nov 2012.

 Vesna , Victoria, dir. Space Part 3. 2012. Film. 30 Nov 2012. 

“Powers of Ten™ (1977).” YouTube, 26 Aug. 2010

“Space pt4.” YouTube, 30 May 2012,

“Space pt6.” YouTube, 30 May 2012

Week 8 Assignment

Week 8 Assignment

     When I saw the discussion for this weeks blog post was Nanotech and art, I immediately knew what I was going to talk about. There are tons of products out on the market that feature nanotech materials. The main products that comes to mind are types of clothing like socks and shoes even that have nano silver materials. These materials made of nano silver have anti bacterial properties that help the piece of clothing last longer. 

     Another cool example of nanotech being incorporated into art is the Lycurgus cup. This cup would be a greenish color, but when you illuminate the cup from the inside

it turns to a reddish color due to the nano sized materials that are present in the cup. This is not only a

cool work of science, but it also is a fine looking work of art.

     Another form of nanotech is a chameleon. When you think of nanotech, you usually imagine man-made works of art or objects that have nanotech materials placed into them, but the chameleon is an animal that actually has nanotech material and uses it actively in their lives. Due to these nano scale crystals, the chameleon can turn into multiple different colors at a moment's notice.

Works Cited

ACSpressroom. “Chameleons Are Masters of Nanotechnology (Video).” EurekAlert!, 

Curtin, John. "Art in the Age of Nanotechnology." Art.Base. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 May 2017.

“Nanotech Jim pt3.” YouTube, YouTube, 21 May 2012,

“Nanotech Jim pt5.” YouTube, 21 May 2012,

Vesna, Victoria . "Nanotechnology + Art ."  21 May. 2017. Lecture.

Week 7 Assignment

Week 7 Assignment

Neuroscience and Art

     This week I found the discussion topic very interesting and I thought that Suzanne Anker gave me the best idea about what to expect from a combination of Neuroscience and Art. One of the works of hers that I found to be very intriguing was her artwork depicting scans of the brain combined with inkblots and butterflies. I thought this was very cool because you do not often see art being made out of scans of the human body. I think about x-rays and MRIs and I begin to imagine all of the types of art you can create with those pictures. I think that Suzanne is a genius for combining the two elements and making it work as a piece of art.

     Another feature this week that interested me was Christopher deCharm's TED talk about the brain and how parts of our brain control parts of our body. The talk was in 2008, 10 years ago, and he said, "Soon we will be able to see our brain activating when we try to control certain areas of our body." He is saying that we can have an active scan of our brain going while we are moving about so that we can see what parts of our brain are being activated by specific movements. I think that this is really cool and the fact that this kind of technology has not been made popular yet just goes to show how much time and effort probably goes into something like this.

     I think that I have learned a lot about Neuroscience and how art can be applied in this week's discussion. I stop and think about how the two are different and it is incredibly obvious. Anyone can paint lines on a brain scan, or try to create a work of art based off a neurological depiction. But the amount of money, time, and effort it takes to make that brain scan or that x-ray is incredibly high and the difference between art and neuroscience is pretty noticeable. Still, that does not mean that the two cannot work well together. You can obviously see in Anker's artwork that art can be combined with almost anything and it will come out great. 

Anker, Suzanne. “Bio Art Lab.” Suzanne Anker, suzanneanker.com/bio-art-lab/.

Frazzetto, Giovanni, and Suzanne Anker. “Neuroculture.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vol. 10, no. 11, 2009, pp. 815–821., doi:10.1038/nrn2736.

deCharms, Christopher. “A Look inside the Brain in Real Time.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, 

Badhwar, Amanpreet, and Estrid Jakobsen. “The Interplay between Neuroscience and Art.”Organization for Human Brain Mapping, 3 June 2017

Vesna, Victoria. "Neuroscience" YouTube. Lecture. May 16, 2012. May 16, 2018. 

Week 6 Assignment

Biotech And Art

      In this week's topic, I found Eduardo Kac's GFP bunnies to be the most interesting feature. Just the fact alone that bunnies can be green is amazing to me. What Eduardo Kac does is put the GFP gene into a bunny named Alba which turned its color to green. Eduardo Kac is considered a bioartist and he specializes in genetically engineering organisms. Kac experienced some backlash some people concerned about the bunny's health, but Kac only had good intent in his experiments. I was a little surprised to see that he called the bunny a piece of art, but I think that anything living or dead can be considered a work of art.

 

          I think another feature of biotech and art that can be talked about is stem cell research. There are tons of different companies that are actively trying to use stem cells to help fix some problems that people are having in their lives. Some things that stem cell research can help with is restore muscle cells after a heart attack, patients suffering from Alzheimer's, and even people whom have had a stroke. There is a big controversy in the stem cell research world because it often involved using another life to save another, which a lot of people do not think is ethical. But societal views aside, Stem cell research is a big biotech industry and it is getting more and more advanced every day. 

Works Cited

cirm_2.0. “The Power of Stem Cells.” California's Stem Cell Agency, 29 Feb. 2016, 

Art|Sci Center. "GFP Bunny on Vimeo." Vimeo | The high-quality home for video hosting and watching. Art|Sci Center, 2010. 

“BioArt pt3.” YouTube, Uconlineprogram, 17 May 2012,

Vesna, Victoria. “Bioart Parts I-V.” YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2013. 

Kelty, Chris. “Meanings of Participation: Outlaw Biology?” Web. 5 Nov. 2012.

Event #2

LASER

     My friend Zach Sweeney and I decided we would go to view the LASER exhibit for our 2nd event. Unfortunately, the room filled up very quickly and we had to sit way in the back of the room. The speakers did not have the most clear English so it was actually very hard to hear or understand what the speakers were saying. I also took pictures of an exhibit that was on display on the first floor as I knew I would have a lack of info for this assignment if I just went off of what I heard during the presentation. I did not get the name of the first speaker, but I actually did get some good information that pertains to some of the discussions that we have in this class. 

     

     Although I did not get the speaker's name, I wrote down some of the interesting points that I heard her talk about. The most intriguing thing that she said was that, "90% of our cells are not human cells but microbial cells." In our class, we talk about DNA and even things that can change our bodies like plastic surgery. I found it very interesting that these cells that we are changing are more often than not microbial cells and not even human cells. Another thing I found interesting that she said was that nature is cultural. "How we interact with nature and what we do with it is entirely up to us." I thought this was a great way to talk about how art and nature collide. Almost every painting you see is a depiction of nature, and a good amount of photographs are featuring nature as well. It is our job to protect nature, or if we want to, destroy it. The world is in our hands and we have the ability to do whatever we want with it. I am very glad that we are taking pictures of nature and drawing landscapes as opposed to tearing it down!

     Since this was about all the info I got from the LASER event, the display on the ground floor was also very pertinent to our class material. This exhibit below shows how math is necessary for science and medicine. I do not have any idea what some of the phrases and mathematical terms mean in some of the pictures that I saw at the exhibit, which just shows how advanced medicine is and how reliant it is on extremely experienced professionals in the mathematics and medicinal fields.

Midterm PDF Link

file:///C:/Users/MAlves/Downloads/Michael_Alves_DESMA9_Midterm.PDF

Week 4 Assignment

Week 4 Assignment

     When I saw this weeks blog assignment, the first thing that I noticed throughout the pictures and artwork was the impression of body modification. This can range from small modifications like earrings or rings attached to the body, all the way to more extreme cases like breast augmentation or full body tattoos. This combination of medicine, technology, and art is a prime example of how all three different skills can come together. 

     Another feature that is more prominent in my life is a Virtual Reality headset. This piece of technology allows people to feel as if they are actually experiencing in real life what is going on in their headset. By using artistic graphic design and the use of brand new technology, this new style of gaming is going to be extremely popular in the near future. 

     A type of medical procedure that is mentioned in lecture that I have taken part in is an MRI. I have had about 2 MRIs on my back and 1 on my shoulder. This process seemed very simple as I lied down in the MRI tube, but after I was finished the doctor showed me all of the scans that were taken of my body. I did not realize how intricate each part of the machine was and how much of an impact it had on the rendering of the MRI images.

 

Works Cited

“Art.” Virgil Wong,

“The Future of Medical Technology.” YouTube, 15 Oct. 2017,

Greenwald, Will. “The Best VR (Virtual Reality) Headsets of 2018.” PCMAG, 5 Dec. 2017, 

Radiological Society of North America, et al. “Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) - Body.”

Howard, Jacqueline. “WATCH: Blind Men See Again After Getting Experimental Implant.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 7 Dec. 2017,  

Week 3 Assignment

Week 3 Assignment

     When we think of the word robot we immediately think of a human like figure made of metal that is capable of doing human like activities. But the first time that robots came into place was technically during the Industrial Revolution. Although they do not seem like the robots we think about today, machines like the printing press or the sewing machine were the first of its kind and could have been classified as "robots". 

     In Rodney Brooks' TED Talk, he says that "In the next 50 years or so, we will have to accept the fact that robots can have their own emotions." This seems like a very scary concept to have to think about, thinking that a piece of metal can have it own emotions is something that no one would have ever believe even a decade ago. An example of this concept is shown in the TV series Westworld, where robots are able to create their own emotions. Although this is entirely fictional, it could be an example of something that Brooks might be trying to explain. 

       More on the technical side of robotics, Dennis Hong shows off his latest robotic creations in his TED Talk. He talks about how difficult it is to create a fully functioning robot past the level of hobbyist robotics. He says that studying and researching robotics is the only way to get good with robots and be able to make the highly technical ones like he can. From rock climbing robots made by Dennis Hong to room cleaning robots by Rodney Brooks, these robots all have a place in our world but in the next coming years it is up to us to decide where and how we can get these robots into our world without "taking over".

Works Cited

Hong, Dennis. “My Seven Species of Robot -- and How We Created Them.” TED: Ideas 

Brooks, Rodney. “Robots Will Invade Our Lives.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, 

Hanson, David. "Robots that "show emotion"." David Hanson: Robots that "show emotion" | TED Talk | TED.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2017

Lipson, Hod. "Building "self-aware" robots." Hod Lipson: Building "self-aware" robots | TED Talk | TED.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2017. 

Vesna, V. (2012, April 15). Robotics pt1.

Event #1

Event #1

     For Event #1 I visited the Hammer Museum in Westwood with my friend Zach Sweeney. We met a wonderful guide named Gabrielle that helped us to understand every bit of artwork that was on display. After looking at the artwork that the museum had to offer, it helped me to realize how much the concepts we have been discussing in lecture apply to these works of modern art. The amount of mathematics that goes into these works of art is truly stunning. 

     The art shown below is a piece by Darren Bader. He took a piece of art from Louise Lawler and drained it of color and any figures to leave a black and white sketch looking work of art. The work of art looks like it has been carefully measure out and drawn perfectly to scale to the brick wall and other drawings inside.


   
     As we were leaving the museum, we saw this chair that was on display and thought that it was just amazing. To get this chair to work properly I am sure that it took a lot of measuring and testing to get this chair to work. It is my favorite work of art from the museum and I think it is great for showing how math needs to be used when trying to make a work of art.

     In my 2nd blog post I talked about how mathematics and art work together and how no artist can avoid using math in their artistic career. These works of art and many of the other ones that I saw on exhibition are examples of that.

 When I saw the prompt for the week 2 response, I had so many ideas about how math and art related to each other. Professor Vesna said, " The influence of mathematics on art was quite obvious when considering the use of computers to create digital art, animation, and 3D renderings, among others." This is something that heavily relates to my life, seeing as I use a computer heavily every day of my life. As many people might know, video games are becoming increasingly popular in the world, but many people do not realize how hard it is to make a game. Just the amount of math and algorithms and coding that goes into making a simple 3D structure is overwhelming. 












     In the lecture video, "Fibonacci, Fractals, and Financial Markets," it talks about how Leonardo Da Vinci used the
"golden ratio" when drawing the picture of the Vitruvian Man. This ratio is used on a larger scale
and can be seen in other works of art like buildings and monuments.





















Another example of the connection between math and art is Robert Lang's origami. Lang
mentions that he believes that a simple piece of art such as origami can be important for engineers
when working on larger pieces of art like sculptures. This makes a lot of sense to me because when
you are making a sculpture, it really is just a large origami art.All you need to do is just scale the numbers
up so that the piece of art is larger than a normal piece of origami.

I think that no great artist has been able to avoid using math in their artwork throughout their careers.

Whether it is computer graphic design, or sculpting a banzai garden, there are always going to be

numbers involved. Professor Vesna's lecture was very eye opening as to how math and art work together to make something totally new and unique.

Works Cited:

Leonardo Da Vinci,Vitruvian Man

Robert Lang, Origami

Witcher 3 Artwork

Vesna, Victoria. “Mathematics-pt1-ZeroPerspectiveGoldenMean.mov.” Cole UC online. Youtube, 9 April 2012. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. 

Lang, Robert J. “Origami Mathematics.” Origami Mathematics. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2012.

 
Week 1 Assignment



   I knew after reading "The Two Cultures and The Scientific Revolution" by C.P. Snow, I  knew that there were plenty of concepts that I could relate to personally. The relationship between art and science is something that I take note of every time I walk into the Wasserman Football Facility. The athletic training tables, which are scientifically designed to be perfect for doing any kind of treatment on, also looks very luxurious with high quality leather and top of the line maple legs.

      This perspective of art being featured in objects influenced by science made me realize that art can give gloomy things an brighter side as if they light up the room. In terms of technology, you see computers in almost every workplace and home and most of the time they all are the same computers and look fairly simple. I think that a prime example of art being influenced in scientific innovation is in personal computers. The customization options that a computer owner has is incredible and can add a whole new positive view to the idea of having to spend time on your computer to get work done.













     In Professor Vesna's article, "Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between", she mentions that literary individuals and scientists still have a, "very fragile bridge" between them. I do not think that any college student will have a good idea what a scientist is talking about if they use their own scientific terms, which is what I think is what Vesna is alluding to, but I do believe that it is important to keep trying to build that bridge so that both parties can understand what is being said. An example of this would be a medical checkup, or maybe a contractor to work on your home.

Sources:

Fox, Alex. “25 Amazing PC Gaming Battlestations.” ForeverGeek, 18 May 2017, 
Esposito, Lisa. “Here's Why Your Doctor Seems Pressured.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report,
UCLA Club, 2015, Physical Training Table
Snow, C. P., and Stefan Collini. The Two Cultures. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Vesna, Victoria. "Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between"