Week 9: Space + Art

This week’s topic is space and art, and it is the last topic for the class which combines everything we have learned in the previous weeks. I am really fascinated by the universe, and it is so massive. We just live in a very tiny part of the universe. People have studied the cosmic ocean for thousands of years. In the lecture, professor shows the history of astronomy under the Copernicus’s theory of

central model in solar system. Even though the Copernicus’s theory has been proven wrong, it really helps the development of astronomy.

People never stop studying and exploring the space. The space technology has been improved a lot, and the advanced space technology represents the power of a country. The Cold War’s race to space between United States and Soviet Union is a perfect example. In 1957, Spuntnik was sent to space by Soviet Union, and it is the first satellite in the world, and it starts the space rate. Besides, people utilize their imagination to combine the elements of visual arts and space exploration together. Movies like E.T, The Jetsons, and Star Wars are perfect examples.

In the course website, the Leonardo Space Art Project really attracts my eyes. It is created to "establish contact between artists, scientists and engineers interested in working on space art projects" and to "further the exploration and development of space by raising awareness of the benefits and necessity of efforts in scientific and artistic endeavor". 

Last but not least, since I am a stock trader, this week’s topic makes me think about William Delbert Gann. Gann is a technical analyst, and he is also a successful future trader. Gann’s Theory is known by every trader in the industry. Gann’s Theory uses a lot of knowledge of astronomy, and Gann tries to use the location relationship of eight planets to predict the trend of equity market. Gann thinks the attraction of planets will change when they have different location with each other, and human’s psychology will change due to the changing of attraction.

The universe is filled with unknown, and there are much more to be discovered. Space has become part of our pop culture, and it is really fantastic. I hope I can see a lot more development in this area. Since we just know a tiny part of the universe and space, it leads to one of the basic element of art—imagination. 

Work Cited:

B.E. Hill. "Sputnik." Nov 20. 2011. Web. 31 May. 2015. <http://bashapedia.pbworks.com/w/page/13961343/Sputnik>

Vesna Victoria. "Unit 9 Lecture-Space and Art." 29 July 2013. Web. 31 May. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZIqTR332l8>.

“Leonardo Space Art Project Visioneers.” Leonardo Space Art Project. MIT Press, 1996. Web. 31 May. 2015.

Mertes, Micah. "The 11 Best Space Movies." 7 Oct. 2013. Web. 31 May. 2015.  <http://www.omaha.com/article/20131007/GO/131009478#.UpamIsSsjg8>.

Gann, William D. The W.D. Gann Master Commodity Course: Original Commody Market Trading Course. Milton Keynes: BN Publ., 2009. Print.

Week 8: Nanotechnology + Art

This week’s topic really helps me to understand more about the nanotechnology, and I am extremely interested in this topic. Nanotechnology is a word I always hear, but I don’t really know what it is, and I think it is a modern technique that just scientists need to deal with. Professor James K. Gimzewski’s lecture shows me a new world of Nanotechnology, and he states that nanotechnology products are actually common in the daily life. We can even see nano particles in materials in pottery from the Renaissance period. By using nanotechnology, scientists use small balls to show chemical atoms.

Nanotechnology helps us to improve our lives, and we can use our artistic creativity in a new way. Nanotechnology helps to make tiny, abstract matter visible, and it helps us to study nano particles which are very small. Nano particles can be used in a lot of different industries such as electronic, biomedical and so on. Nano particles are more reactive than other molecules, and people use this characteristic to benefit our life. For example, people use nano particles of iron to clean up chemicals in the underground water. Besides, the lecture shows the lotus leaf effect which helps people create surfaces of treatment that can stay dry. 

Nanotechnology can also potentially hurt people if we over use it. Nanotechnology is applied in food and cosmetics. Nano particles can make food more delicious, and it can also color the food. However, if the manufacturer over use nano particles, it can hurt our health. Cosmetics is another example, some cosmetic products with nano particles will damage people’s skin and aquatic ecosystems. 

In this week’s lecture, I know that Nanotechnology is not that far away from my daily life. In my personal point of view, I do believe people can definitely benefit from the Nano technology. However, we need to avoid over use Nanotechnology which will hurt us.

Work Cited:

James K. Gimzewski. Unit 8 Lecture NanoTech and Art. Part 2. UCLA. Web. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEp6t0v-v9c>

James K. Gimezewski. Unit 8 Lecture NanoTech and Art. Part 6. UCLA. Web. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKlViSKkPd0&list=PL9DBF43664EAC8BC7>

"An Introduction to Nanotechnology." Understanding Nano. Web. May 24. 2013. http://www.understandingnano.com/introduction.html.

 “Exploring the Lotus Effect." Teach Engineering. Web. May 24. 2015. http://www.teachengineering.org/view_activity.php?url=collection/duk_/activities/duk_surfacetensionunit_activities/duk_surfacetensionunit_act4.xml.

 "Nanoparticles in food, vitamins could harm human health." Mar 22. 2013. Web. May 24. 2015. http://csglobe.com/nanoparticles-in-food-vitamins-could-harm-human-health/

Leah Zerbe. "Your Makeup Could Have an Ugly Effect on Your Health." May 17. 2010. Web. May 24. 2015. <http://www.rodalenews.com/nanoparticles-and-cosmetics>

Extra Credit 1: Marc Foxx Gallery

front door of Marc Foxx

Legend (Pearl Surface)

 I went to Marc Foxx last Saturday. Marc Foxx exhibits a lot of artworks from different artists. I talked to the curator when I was there, and I got to know some basic information about the artists such as Kasper Bosmans and Antonio Vega Macotela.

 

I looked around the entire exhibition, and I feel all the artworks are quite abstract. Even though I cannot fully understand the artworks, I can still find many elements which relates closely to our class topics. “Legend (Pearl Surface)” is from Kasper Bosmans, and we can see a mixture of five countries’ flags on the upper left corner. I use a very similar graph in the very first blog post to show the concept of “two cultures” and “the third culture”. Besides, “Black Pearl Surface” is another artwork from Kasper Bosmans. Kasper Bosmans utilizes some math application in his drawings. We can see the drawing contains a large number of concentric circles to illustrate a pearl, and it can be seen as a real life application of the relationship between math and art. What’s more, Annette Kelm’s artwork “Espadrilles, U R MY BFF, LOL!, HOW R U?,” is another example of using mathematical concept in art. In “Espadrilles, U R MY BFF, LOL!, HOW R U?,”, we can see a pair of shoes stand against the wall, and the background is filled with several words such as “LOL!” and “how r u?”. Annette Kelm tries to show a 3-D picture in a 2-D paper, and he achieves this goal by drawing some lines by specific angles. It is an example of using mathematical concept to achieve some art goals.

Black Pearl Surface

Espadrilles, U R MY BFF, LOL!, HOW R U?,

I spent about one hour in Marc Foxx enjoying the beautiful time with all the art pieces. Even though I am a layman of art field, I feel truly enjoyable appreciating the entire exhibition. I feel that I fall in love with art. Besides, I feel so happy that I can apply something that I learnt in Desma 9 class in real life. I think I cannot come up with my superficial understandings of all the artworks if I do not take Desma 9 class. Finally, I think all my classmates should go this exhibition. It is just amazing!

Me and an art piece

Week 7: Neuroscience + Art

Carl Jung

Sigmund Freud

This week’s topic is Neuroscience and Art. Personally, I am not familiar with Neuroscience, and I have never thought that Neuroscience can have any relationship with art. However, I am extremely interested in this week’s topic. As we know, art can be created by our mind and brain. On the other side of the coin, art can also affect our mind. In the lecture, Professor introduces two outstanding psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, and their studying of psychology really does help us learn the close interrelationship between our brain and art.

Poster of movie "INCEPTION"

 Carl Jung has his own theory of collective unconscious, and it suggests that psychic innate dispositions are to represent basic human behavior and situations. The unconscious is universal, so people all experience the understanding of images. Carl Jung explained 5 archetypes, and they were linked to human psyches through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, symbols, religions, and mythology. This recalls a movie which is called “Inception”. In the movie, the main character is trapped by some dreams, and he tries to separate between the dreams and real world. If our dream can really show our unconscious, we need to use our dream to illustrate and understand more of our brain.

fMRI

In the article by Frazzetto and Anker, the fMRI shows us human brain’s images, and they are converted into visual art. It connects the Neuroscience and Art together. Neuroscience is very important for us to understand how our mind works. Neuroscience and art affect each other. Our minds create art while art changes our brain by stimulating its different regions.

In our daily life, every one may have different opinion and understanding of art. Our brain can interpret the images or drawings by what we have perceived in our daily life, such as people, animals, plants or foods. The brain automatically gives meaning to arbitrary images. One person’s standard of beauty may not fit other person's beauty standard. This skill was important for our survival in evolution.

Work Cited:

Vesna Victoria. "Neuroscience+Art Lecture " May 17. 2012. Web.      May 17. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFv4owX4MZo>

Frazzetto, Giovanni, and Suzanne Anker. "Neuroculture." Science and Society 10 (2009): 815-821. Print.

Elizabeth Landau. "What the brain draws from: Art and Neuroscience." Sep 15. 2012. Web. May 17. 2015 http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/15/health/art-brain-mind/

Alva Noe. " Arts and the limit of Neuroscience" Dec 4. 2011. Web. May 17. 2015. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/art-and-the-limits-of-neuroscience/?_r=0

"Carl Jung's Biography." Web. May 17. 2015. http://www.crystalinks.com/jung.html

"Concept of Collective Conscious Jung." Web. May 17. 2015. http://www.carl-jung.net/collective_unconscious.html

Event 3: Griffith Observatory

 I went to the Griffith Observatory yesterday, and I was extremely attracted by the beautiful view of Los Angeles city lights. After entering the observatory, the painting on the ceiling is amazing. It recalls the concepts of “two cultures” and “the third culture” I learnt at the beginning of the quarter. Even though the Griffith Observatory is a public astronomic exhibition hall, we can still see the artistic painting on the ceiling. It is a perfect example which art has a close relationship with science, and we are not able to totally separate them in our daily life.

Painting on the ceiling

Pendulum

The next thing I saw was a pendulum, and it also gave me intuition about the relationship between art and science. If we ignore the friction of air, a pendulum can swing back and forth forever, and we can predict the path of the pendulum. It moves linearly, and the path of it is symmetric. Since the principle of math and physics, the pendulum can move with a symmetric path, and this principle is used in a lot of area of architecture which shows the beauty of art. 

In the Griffith Observatory, I saw a large number of equipments, and they are used to observe stars. It is another example that art and science have close relationship. All these equipments are invented by science (optics, mathematics, etc.), and they are used to observe stars, and people can enjoy the beauty of stars via these equipments.

Planet forecast 

Since I am a stock trader, the Griffith Observatory makes me think about William Delbert Gann. Gann is a very famous technical analyst, and he is also a successful future trader. Gann thinks that dealing with equity market is a mixture of art and science. Gann has his own theory which is called “Gann’s Theory”. Since Gann is very interested in astronomy, he tries to use the location relationship of eight planets to predict the trend of equity market. Gann thinks the attraction of planets will change when they have different location with each other, and human’s psychology will change due to the changing of attraction. It is quite amazing, and Gann is viewed as both an artist and a scientist.

Me

I really enjoy the trip to the Griffith Observatory, and I highly recommend my classmates visiting the Griffith Observatory. However, I think it will give me more intuitions after I learn “art and space” in week 9. If my classmates want to visit the Griffith Observatory, they can go over the contents of “art and space” first.

 Work Cited:

Gann, William D. The W.D. Gann Master Commodity Course: Original Commody Market Trading Course. Milton Keynes: BN Publ., 2009. Print.

Week 6: BioTech + Art

different color strawberry

Biotechnology is not a topic that I am familiar with. I do not think that artist and scientist will work together in the same laboratory before this class. Levy states that "art has the capacity to reveal some of the underlying assumptions built into our technology” (15, Levy), and it shows why artist and scientist work together can benefit a lot of studies. This week’s topic is attractive but controversy. It is no doubt that the combination of biotechnology and art brings a lot of benefits and possibilities. However, if people over used biotechnology, it will cause problem. One example is foods which are genetically modified, and they have different artistic colors and shapes. Nevertheless, people have many genetically modified foods will get strange illness, and it will hurt us.

Joe Davis

Alba Bunny

In the lecture, Joe Davis is the person who attracts me the most. He is the pioneer of connecting biotechnology and art, and he wanted to create an “info-gene” to translate human being genes into meaning. Joe Davis said “The most absurd things are connected in very absurd ways", and it leads to the appearance of many Bio-Art performance. 

Artists and scientists work together to do some organisms which not appear naturally. Alba Bunny is an example. Alba Bunny is created by Eduardo Kac, and it is inserted jellyfish’s fluorescent protein which makes it a green fluorescent bunny, and it is created with the work of artist and scientist. In Levy’s essay, he shows the different fluorescent protein projects, and it includes genetic engineering of plants and animals. 

Nowadays, the application of biotechnology and art in the area of medicine has improved our lives. One example is that the fluorescent protein can help find an anti-cancer gene. However, overusing biotechnology will cause some serious problems due to the mutation of species. 

 Work Cited:

Levy, Ellen K. Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications. Print.

Vesna, Victoria. Unit 6 Lecture BioTech+Art. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaThVnA1kyg#t=157

AbbyMediaRoots. "What is Genetically Modified Food?" Dec 16. 2009. Web. May 10. 2015. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAP6ZtfP9ZQ

Phil Mckenna. "Joe Davis: The mad scientist of MIT?" Mar 23. 2012. Web. May 10. 2015. http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2012/03/the-mad-scientist-of-mit.html

Biotechcellence. Web. 8 November 2013. http://www.biotechcellence.org/