MedTech+Art

    Speaking about medical technology and its relation to art, the first thing that comes into my mind is the human body dissection and its application on painting. For example, the study of muscle can help us know better about human body's motion so that it will be more accurate when we sketch. After this week's lecture, I find more about the importance of medical technology in Art.

    The improvement of technology as time passes by really helps us study human body further. From the way that ancient Egyptian or ancient Greeks to process the corpse to the human body dissection that developed during renaissance, from the visible human project which cut the cadaver into thin slices and photographed and digitalized each slice to the human genome project that identify all human DNA, we are exploring more and more about the secret of human body and apply them into art and life. 

    One of the most impressive technology I have looked at in detail is the X-ray. X-ray is being used anywhere in our life now, like in the airport when we check the luggages, or in manufacturing when we text the components, or in medical text etc. The improvement of X-rays than other technique before like dissection is that it allows us to know the detail of human body without cutting the body apart. 

    Moreover, X-rays is apply to medical field such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and CAT scan. In MRI, people use scanner cutaway to scan through human's brain or body. It is widely used in medical diagnosis to investigate the anatomy and physiology of the body in both health and disease without exposure to ionizing radiation. In CAT scan, X-ray images are processed by computer to produce tomographic images (virtual 'slices') of specific areas of a scanned object. Compared to the visible human project, CAT scan allows us to "see through" the scanned object without cutting it. 

    The usage of X-ray reminds me in the linguistic class I took last quarter, the linguists also use X-ray to scan through people's articulation organ and figure out how the phonetics works. When we see the images we will find out that human body is truly an art because the mechanism is amazing and beautiful. So from here we can know that medical technology not only been widely used for human's health but also closely related to art.




Works Cited:

Vensa, Victoria. "Human Body and Medical Technology: Part 1." Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 21 Apr. 2012. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep0M2bOM9Tk>.

Vensa, Victoria. "Human Body and Medical Technology: Part 2." Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 21 Apr. 2012. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psjnQarHOqQ>.

Vensa, Victoria. "Human Body and Medical Technology: Part 3." Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 22 Apr. 2012. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIX-9mXd3Y4>.

"X-ray Computed Tomography." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 14 Dec. 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_computed_tomography>.

"Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)." Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://www.nibib.nih.gov/science-education/science-topics/magnetic-resonance-imaging-mri>.

Robotics and Art

    Nowadays we are living in a world that is full of mechanization and industrialization. Robot is immersed in our daily life, from the cleaning machine to the automobile etc. It becomes more and more urgent to ask about the question: Will robots invade out lives?
    People's attitude towards robot is alway changing. Because of the human instinct, we are naturally scared of anything that is new and unknown. When robot, the mechanical artificial agent, first appeared in our life, we hardly accept it. Like in the movie The Imitation Game which is based on the biography Alan Turing : The Enigma by Andrew Hodges, the British cryptanalyst Alan Turing devoted himself to artificial intelligence and helped solve the Enigma code during the Second World War by inventing the first computer in the world. However, before Turing's machine could work successfully, the commander Denniston even ordered it destroyed and stopped any foundation. From here we can tell that no matter in what time period, there always have people cannot understand and against developing robotics. As time passes by, robot gets more and more involved in the mass production and industrialization that benefit human a lot, so people began to accept it generally. Like in the video "Dirt: The Homeless Robot", people can't help to touch the robot that looks like a homeless and become so curious about its appearance.

        On the other hand, when our tolerance to robot is increasing, we start to scare of another thing: will robot becomes too powerful and take over human beings? Through the development of robotics, the design of robot is more and more humanoid now, and some robot even have self-aware and emotion. So we are worry that robot will supersede the human position one day. But people can actually accept and make better used of what they used to be afraid of. For example, like in the popular Japanese animation Astroboy, which was released after Second World War that the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the robot Astro Boy actually using the nuclear power as the fuel. Also as it's known to all, Japan has highly developed robotics.
    So I think what we need to do is to have a positive attitude toward the development of robot and make them improve our society better.

Vensa, Victoria. "Robotics Pt1." Robotics Pt1. Youtube, 15 Apr. 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRw9_v6w0ew>.

"Dirt: The Homeless Robot." Youtube, 7 Sept. 2008. Web. 19 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5HfmKXfp394>.

Brooks, Rodney. "Rodney Brooks: Robots Will Invade Our Lives." Rodney Brooks: Robots Will Invade Our Lives. TED, 15 Feb. 2003. Web. 19 Apr. 2015. <http://www.ted.com/talks/rodney_brooks_on_robots>.

Lipson:, Hod. "Hod Lipson: Building "self-aware" Robots." Hod Lipson: Building "self-aware" Robots. TED, 15 Mar. 2007. Web. 19 Apr. 2015. <http://www.ted.com/talks/hod_lipson_builds_self_aware_robots>.

Math and Art

        Math and art, the two subjects that seem like in different paths, are actually inextricably linked: Math is commonly found in our life, and our life is made of art.

        The first thing that I think about related to both math and art is perspective: the parallel lines in 3D world drew on a 2D surface will converge to one point, which can be also stated as the Vanishing Point Theorem: "If two or more lines in the real world are parallel to one another, but not parallel to the picture plane, then they have the same vanishing point"(2). According to the lecture, "Perspective is necessary in order to understand painting. It is completely mathematical." It is interesting to compare this with the novel Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott: the 1D line from lineland can't understand the world of 2D square from flatland, and similarly, the square can't understand the world of a 3D sphere. However, in painting, prescriptive perfectly connects three dimension world with two dimension world.

        Fractal is also a mathematical set that exhibits a never-ending artistic pattern. Mandelbrot fractal is the most popular one that generated from a very simple formula: z=z^2+c. Its boundaries not only contain miniature copies of the whole set, but also have a truly infinite variety of different shapes. The shapes include tree, rivers with lakes, galaxies and waterfalls. All of these are art!

        When we look at a specific art, the Japanese paper-folding origami, we will find the connection again. Such as alternate angles around a vertex sum to a straight line, and skinnier flap leads to a circle etc. Artists use the patterns or rules to create forms. With computer program, we can design different origamis on demand, such as the Japanese solar array flew in 1995. At this point, we can see the influence of mathematics in art and science.

        Mathematics, art, and science are in juxtaposition. They are inseparable. Just like the relationship between the two cultures, only when we understand the connection among mathematics, art and science can we make further progress in our society.

Abbot, Edward A. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. 1884.

Lang, Robert. "Robert Lang: The math and magic of origami.” TED. Feb. 2008. Web.  10 April 2015. http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_lang_folds_way_new_origami?language=en

Lesson 3: Vanishing points and looking at art. Marc Frantz 2000.

Fractals - Mandelbrot. "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivRQDbAduoM#t=99" Youtube, 17 Jun. 2006.

Vesna, Victoria. "Mathematics-pt1-ZeroPerspectiveGoldenMean.mov." YouTube. YouTube, 9 Apr. 2012. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.