Event Blog #3

“Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem” at the Fowler

Conveniently, this exhibition was also at the Fowler, so I was able to attend it on the same day I saw “Singular Spaces.” “Making Strange” consists of a number of dresses that artist Vivan Sundaram created using extraordinarily random, original, recycled materials. When I first walked into the dark exhibition room, I read the description and was intrigued when it said that Sundaram essentially wanted to poke fun at the uptight world of high fashion when he created these works. I really like the fact that Sundaram used recycled items that ranged from the mundane such as industrial tubing or strange such as tampons.

This piece uses wire mesh to make a hooded outfit. It makes me think of both a medieval knight in chain mail (because of the shiny wire mesh) and a veil that a Muslim woman would wear (because of its low hanging hood). It takes a very creative artist to juxtapose those differing cultures together into one piece.

The next piece that caught my eye was the thin white jumpsuit that was adorned with pills. I noticed that the combinations of pills in each pouch were pretty much symmetrical across the centerline of the outfit. It made me wonder what kind of thought process Sundaram went through as he chose the placement of each pill because it did not seem arbitrary and did seem to have flow throughout the piece.

Overall, I think that “Making Strange” is a perfect event for this class because the materials that the artist used are from practical, everyday use (and some were from engineering applications), but they were put together in such a way to create art.

 

Event Blog #2

“Singular Spaces” at the Fowler Museum

I decided to go to the Fowler Museum for an event blog, and I was not disappointed. “Singular Spaces” shows art that is original and raw, almost surreal. Jo Farb Hernandez’s pictures of artists’ work out in the open using only materials that they had in hand displays the ingenuity and creativity of the artists. Usually, the artists would create the art around their homes, with no reason other than to express their feelings or simply amuse themselves. The description makes the point that the artists did not have any formal training, and I think that this makes the work more interesting and refreshing. Although I have never been schooled in artistic techniques (and therefore I may not be qualified to make this statement), I feel that sometimes artists feel to need to conform to certain genres that they were taught in class, and consequently their work is stuck in a well-traveled rut. I think that it is much easier for an “untrained” artist to break new ground, and the artists in Jo Farb Hernandez’s pictures are good examples to prove this idea.

Julio Basanta Lopez’s work was the most striking to me. He created these sculptures to exorcise the demons of his past because his life had been constantly beset by heartbreak. In many of the forms of his work, you can see how much pain he was experiencing.  The color red permeates most of his works leading me to believe that the red represents the bleeding that his family experienced and also represents the constant ache from his heart.

Many of his sculptures take the form of demons that Lopez may have been seeing in his nightmares. The red one looks particularly menacing because it appears to be holding a weapon and has a chain around its neck. The white one with the red blood stain looks more innocent to me because it is shorter and wider. I wonder if it represents one of his lost children as a ghost.

Event Blog #1

“Movement” at the CNSI Art Sci Gallery

When Professor Vesna emailed about a showcase of student art in the CNSI building, I jumped at the opportunity to attend.  “Movement” seemed to be the perfect complement to this class because it focused on art that was inspired by scientific principles.

As a walked around the room, this piece, Float (The Grand Jete) by Taylor Leong, caught my eye. She used acrylic and India Ink to create this work. The strokes convey movement and fluidity. In addition, her work is like a time lapse picture because there are five images of the ballerina, each one drawn at a point in time slightly after the one before it. I like the fact that the center image is bright and has lots of contrast with the background, while the outer images are less vibrant. It looks like the ballerina was moving into the focus of a camera lens and a spotlight and then after the center image was read, she moves out again.

In her description, Taylor describes the ballerina’s movement, the Grand Jete. The ballerina jumps into the air with her legs pointed down, and then at the highest point in her jump, she lifts her arms and legs. This movement raises her center of mass and allows her to extend her jump creating a sense of having “hang time.” I find it fascinating that dancers like this ballerina have been aware of physical phenomena like this for hundreds (possibly thousands) of years before physicists developed the math to explain why it happens. I think that this Grand Jete is a very pure and intriguing combination of art and science because it is an example of something where the science followed the art, instead of the art following the science (as seems to usually be the case.)

 I really appreciate all the dimensions that Taylor put into this piece. It seems like you can view it in layers, and with each layer you unveil, you understand Taylor’s motive more clearly and appreciate her creativity even more. I’m definitely glad I decided to stop by this gallery in the CNSI building.

Float (The Grand Jete) Taylor Leong

NeuroScience And Art

Few mediums can combine art and science like the brainbow can. The vibrant colors of the neurons on a dark background in a brainbow image make it very visually appealing, like a pointillism picture. However, I wanted to learn more about the science behind a brainbow image. According to the Harvard Gazette, the colors in the neuron image are created using “a mix of genetic tricks and special proteins,” which reminded me of last week’s unit on Biotech.

Brainbow Image of an Organism

Before this lecture, I had heard of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, although I did not know that they were contemporaries, and I did not know that their ideas were so philosophically different. I think that Jung’s research on Archetypes is interesting because it uses historical images from cultures around the world to show that all people share personality traits and ideas that are inherently human.

Although Professor Vesna did not go into this in lecture, I think it is interesting to look at pieces of art that people create when they are on LSD. As described in this Buzzfeed article, an artist drew self portraits as she progressed through her LSD trip. One can see how much more vibrant and impressionistic her self-portraits become as LSD frees her mind from normal constraints.

Self-Portrait Before Taking LSD

Self-Portrait During LSD Trip

Albert Hoffman’s experiment on himself with LSD was courageous and groundbreaking. But since then, scientific research on LSD has stagnated. I was surprised to find out that there has not been much research into the imaging of a brain on LSD. Recently however, a group led by Professor David Nutt is looking to change this with a crowd-funded research study. The tests have already been performed, and now they are analyzing their data. I hope that in the future, more research is done in this exciting field!

 Web. 16 May 2015. <http://pixshark.com/brainbow-synapse.htm>.

 Web. 16 May 2015. <https://walacea.com/campaigns/lsd/>.  

 Bradt, Steve. "Researchers Create Colorful “Brainbow” Images of the Nervous System." Harvard Gazette. 31 Oct. 2007. Web. 16 May 2015.   

 Jung, C. G. "The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man." Modern Man in Search of a Soul. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1933. Print.  

 "LSD-Inspired Artwork: LIFE Photos From 1966 | LIFE | TIME.com." LIFE. Web. 16 May 2015.  

 Leggett, Tabatha. "11 Self-Portraits Drawn During An LSD Trip." BuzzFeed. 18 Nov. 2013. Web. 16 May 2015.  

 McLeod, Saul. "Carl Jung | Simply Psychology." Carl Jung | Simply Psychology. 2014. Web. 16 May 2015.  

 "People's Brains Scanned While on LSD in Study in Cardiff - BBC News." BBC News. 15 Mar. 2015. Web. 16 May 2015.  

 Rana, Himmat. "Sigmund Freud." Psychology History. 1 May 1997. Web. 16 May 2015.  

Medicine, Technology, and Art

In t

he Renaissance, art was strongly focused on trying to capture human anatomy accurately. Thus, “as European artists turned towards more lifelike portrayals of the human body, they needed a deeper understanding of how the structures of the body worked together” (sciencemuseum.org). That is why scientists and artists worked together during this time period (and were often one and the same).

Renaissance Anatomy Art

 X-Ray Art is a good example of an artistic medium where artists have taken advantage of a medical technology. This piece, by Nick Veasey, shows our connection to technology because both the microphone and the headphones look similar to our skeletal structure, as if they could be natural appendages to our bodies.

Nick Veasey's X-Ray Art

Silivia Casini writes that “even a single MRI image might be considered to be a portrait or self-portrait” (Casini, 89). Thus, artists have also begun to make use of MRIs to make art that expresses themselves and others. I think that this piece uses MRI technology to express angst.

MRI Art

After learning about how MRI machines are used to make art, I began to wonder how they worked. I learned that MRIs shoot electromagnetic radiation at specific frequencies to see certain types of tissue. This is how MRIs are able to see soft tissue, like muscles, while X-Ray machines can only see bones.

Robot Assisted Surgery

I also became very interested in robot assisted surgery, since this technology seems to build off last week’s lecture. Robots can duplicate the hand motions of a surgeon, and can this allow “a specialist to operate on a patient who is very far away without either of them having to travel” (allaboutrobocsurgery.com). However, they are still prohibitively expensive for most applications.

"All About Robotic Surgery." Surgical Robots, Robotic Surgery, Robotic Systems. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://allaboutroboticsurgery.com/surgicalrobots.html>.

Casini, Silvia. "Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as Mirror and Portrait: MRI Configurations between Science and the Arts." Configurations: 73-99. Print.

Gould, RT-(R)(MR)(ARRT), and Molly Edmonds. HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks.com. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://science.howstuffworks.com/mri5.htm>.

"History of Robotic Surgery." History of Robotic Surgery. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://www.laparoscopyhospital.com/history_of_robotic_surgery.htm>.

"Robot-assisted Surgery." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot-assisted_surgery>.

"Science Museum. Brought to Life: Exploring the History of Medicine." Art and Anatomy. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. 

<http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/themes/understandingthebody/anatomy.aspx>

"Sylvie Guillems." X Ray Art. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://sylvieguillems.blogspot.com/2010/06/x-ray-art.html>.

"Vesalius's Renaissance Anatomy Lessons." Vesalius's Renaissance Anatomy Lessons. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://www.bl.uk/learning/artimages/bodies/vesalius/renaissance.html>.

Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://picslist.com/image/29065540172>.

Robotics and Art

The silent movie, Modern Times, that stars Charlie Chaplin, provides a good characterization for the mechanical automation that dominated the second industrial revolution. The famous “Factory Scene” is very funny, but is also a critique of society, or a critique of the direction that the filmmakers thought society was moving in.

Charlie Chaplin in  Modern Times

In Modern Times, “the worker becomes an appendage of the machine,” not the other way around (“Chaplin: Analysis of Modern Times.”) It was films like this one that led people in Western societies to be afraid of robots and the industrialization that they bring.

Another movie that builds on the Western cultural fear of robots and mechanization is The Terminator. Meia Chita-Tegmark writes that “the prevalent visual representation of AI risk has become the terminator robots,” and I think she is correct in assuming that Western society fears the advancement of AI.

However, as Professor Vesna mentioned in the lecture, Japanese society has traditionally been more open to robots. This sentiment is expressed in the anime, Android Kikaider, where a humanoid robot develops a friendship with humans and ultimately saves the day ("Android Kikaider: The Animation.")    

Outside the world of fiction, robotics is being pioneered here at UCLA in Dr. Dennis Hong’s RoMeLa laboratory. I have a friend that works in this lab, where he manufacturing parts for a hexapod robot, and a humanoid robot, THOR. According to the group, “THOR-RD’s humanoid form is ideal for the human centric environments encountered in disaster areas.” (Team THOR.) Thus, humanoid robots are not only fear inducing elements in science fiction; they are useful in real world scenarios.

RoMeLa's Hexapod Robot

Disaster Relief Robot, THOR

Amazingly, in the future, robots may even be creating their own art, called algorithmic art! ("Creative AI: The Robots That Would Be Painters.")

Algorithmic Art

"Android Kikaider: The Animation." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0305046/>.

"Chaplin: Analysis of Modern Times." Philosophy Philosophers. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. <http://www.the-philosophy.com/chaplin-analysis-modern-times>.

Chita-Tegmark, Meia. "Terminator Robots and AI Risk." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/meia-chitategmark/terminator-robots-and-ai-risk_b_6788918.html>.

"Creative AI: The Robots That Would Be Painters." Creative AI: The Robots That Would Be Painters. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. <http://www.gizmag.com/creative-ai-algorithmic-art-painting-fool-aaron/36106/>.

"Home." Team THOR. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. <http://www.thordrc.com/>.

"My Seven Species of Robot." Dennis Hong:. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. <http://www.ted.com/talks/dennis_hong_my_seven_species_of_robot>.

I am very interested in the various mathematical patterns and ratios that show up in nature and can be used to make art realistic and aesthetically pleasing. One of these patterns that Professor Vesna described was the Fibonacci sequence. When I was little, my Grandpa showed me that pine cones and sunflowers have Fibonacci patterns in them, so it was interesting to see their relationship to the world of art.

The Fibonacci Sequence in a Plant

The golden ratio, phi, was also interesting to learn about. Although it is not widely used in math (compared to pi, or e), it has been used in arts and architecture for thousands of years. Professor Vesna discussed how the Parthenon was designed using the golden ratio so that it would be timelessly aesthetically pleasing. 

The Parthenon with the Golden Ratio

The Parthenon itself is a work of art, and thus clearly shows how mathematics can influence the artistic world. If the Parthenon was designed without knowledge of the golden ratio, I doubt that it would be as iconic and timeless. In the past, architects have needed to have some knowledge of math, so that they could design proportional and aesthetically pleasing buildings. I think it’s safe to say that this fact will continue into the future.

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbott Abbott seems to be a very original (although somewhat convoluted and outdated) piece of literature. I’ve never read anything quite like it, as the author pretends to be a square and uses other geometric figures to describe society.

M. C. Escher’s Waterfall is another interesting application of mathematics in art. He uses two Penrose triangles, which are physically impossible figures (and thus ignore the laws of perspective) to draw a perpetual motion machine. Water flows from the base of a waterfall to the top, without appearing to travel higher in elevation, and therefore abiding by the first law of conservation of energy. 

Waterfall lithograph, 1961

Abbott, Edwin Abbott. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1963. Print.

"Fibonacci in Nature." Fibonacci in Nature. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.

"The Golden Section / Golden Ratio - Phi 1.618: The Golden Number." Phi 1618 The Golden Number. N.p., 14 May 2012. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.

"The Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher." The Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.

"Pics For The Parthenon Golden Ratio." Pics For The Parthenon Golden Ratio. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.

The Story of 1. YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.