Event1: “Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio”

        I visited the exhibition of “Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio” at Hammer museum this weekend. The studio is started by a famous British designer Thomas Heatherwick, a genius for the uniquely creative nature of his work including large public and private architectural projects around the world, and small products such as handbag with design concepts.

       In the exhibition, I saw a lot of inventive design of architectures that impressed me a lot. I really like how the Heatherwick Studio combines practical concepts with natural factors when they design all the architectures. The designers endow their spirits of the harmony of man and nature into the building for the blend of the ancient and the iron-and-cement-made metropolis. For example, how can a traditional Chinese moon bridge meet today’s standards of accessibility? The Heatherwick studio adapted the elegant S-curves of historical Chinese moon bridges, but unlike a conventional drawbridge, this bridge is crossable in any position – up, down, or in between – visually accentuate the bridge’s transformative movement. This is allowed by a unique mechanized structure that rolls up into a circular snail-like form. The bridge is as beautiful when spanning the channel as when raised for water traffic.

        Also the Al Fayah Park built in 2010 in Abu Dhabi. The project evolved as a series of cracked pieces of the desert surface raised on columns to form a gentle dome across the site. If view from the top, it looks like huge pieces of earth cracks from the heat of the sun which embraced the idea of celebrating the beauty of the desert that the city is built on and its distinct surrounding landscape. These elevated pieces create a perforated canopy of partial shade under which a lush garden can grow, protected from the harsh excesses of the hot desert sun. It is a good place for families to gather and picnic, as well as a place for learning and festivals. Again, the Al Fayah Park fully embodies the idea of the harmony between man and nature.

        Engaging in a collaborative iterative design process, the studio asks questions, poses provocations, tests ideas, and makes models and prototypes to arrive at the best solution. As Thomas Heatherwick says, “people touch, experience, and live in the world”. In a nutshell, I highly recommend my classmates to go to this exhibition!

       

works cited 

 "Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio." HAMMER, 20 Feb. 2015. Web. 20 May 2015. <http://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2015/provocations-the-architecture-and-design-of-heatherwick-studio/> 

 "Al Fayah Park." Heatherwick Studio. Web. 21 May 2015. <http://www.heatherwick.com/al-fayah-park/> 

NanoTech and Art

    This week we talk about nanotechnology and art. Before, I barely make any connection of nanotechnology with my daily life because I can't see things in a nano scale, but actually we are all exposed to the nano world, which is also a world of art. After this week's lecture, I'm surprised by the beauty of the nano world.

    Let's first look at the spherical fullerene which is also called buckyball because it resembles soccer. It has a cage-like fused-ring structure. The amazing structure contains 32 faces with 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons that satisfies isolated pentagon rule in mathematic aspect. On the other hand, the sophisticated structure is in a nano scale which is the scale of 10^-9 meters! We can see the relationship between nano scale and normal scale in reality with geodesic dome structure popularized by architect Richard Buckminster Fuller. It is extremely strong for its weight and has the largest volume with the least surface area. The geodesic dome is also envisioned to be used in all types of structure like houses, cars and museums. Once again, nano structure is not only closely related to mathematics but also to art.
 
    In addition, I'm impressed by how particle's properties will change in a nano scale. Nanoscale gold illustrates the unique properties that occur at the nanoscale. Nanoscale gold particles are not the yellow color which we are familiar but appear to be red or purple. Such property is shown even in some ancient materials such as the British Lycurgus cup, which changes color from the opaque green cup to a glowing translucent red when light is shone through it. Also, the size and optical properties can be put to practical use. For instance, the nanoscale gold particles selectively accumulate in tumors where they can enable both precise imaging and targeted laser destruction of the tumor by means that avoid harming healthy cells. This nanotechnology reminds me that the topic of "MedTech and Art" several weeks ago.  
     Nanoscale world is an amazing field that is worth to be explored further, and nanotechnology not only appears anywhere in our daily life but also inspires people on artworks.

Work Cited

Gimzewski. James K. "Introduction to Nanotechnology for Artists" Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 21 May 2012. Web. 21 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7jM6-iqzzE>

Gimzewski. James K. "Introduction to Nanotechnology for Artists Part2" Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 21 May 2012. Web. 21 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEp6t0v-v9c>

"Programmable Bio-Nano-Chip as Medical Diagnostic Tool." Nanowiki. Tiddlywiki, 20 Feb. 2011. Web. 21 May 2015.
<http://nanowiki.info/#%5B%5BProgrammable%20Bio-Nano Chip%20as%20Medical%20Diagnostic%20Tool%5D%5D>

Gimzewski. James K. "Introduction to Nanotechnology for Artists Part4" Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 21 May 2012. Web. 21 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHCuZetAIhk>

"New nano particles make blood clots visible." Nanowiki. Tiddlywiki, 07 Feb. 2011. Web. 21 May 2015.<http://nanowiki.info/#%5B%5BNew%20nanoparticles%20make%20blood%20clots%20visible%5D%5D>

Neuroscience + Art

    I am really interested about this week's topic of neuroscience and art, because neuroscience look into the mind and discover the relationship between consciousness and unconsciousness. Also it studies the powerful field of mind control. It is amazing to think about that the nanoscale neurons in your brain actually have optimized tree-shape to communicate with each other and that's how govern your mind and therefore your body, so study of neuron can explain every human activity, personality and behavior in the world.

  

    I'm impressed by the technique of Brainbow which visualizes individual neuron by using fluorescent proteins. The resulting image is really striking and colorful. It is a great piece of artwork. Like what Santiago Ramon y Cajal, a great scientist and artist who draw so many iconic pictures of neuron that still used in textbooks nowadays, says that "only artists are attractive to science and originally want to be an artist", science is the source of inspiration of art. The study of neuroscience allows artists to create artworks like Brainbow that help people understand nervous system better in return. Once again we can see how closely art and science are related. 

    I'm also interested in the study of dream. Dream is a way to travel through time and space, and it represents human's unlimited power of imagination.The unconscious mind can be seen as the source of dreams. Unlike other skills that people gain during school or from society, dream is a psychic archetype that endowed with everybody since the birth. A great deal of complex cognitive processing occurs at the unconscious level and affects how humans behave, think, and feel. This reminds me of the movie Inception: the characters in the movie can change people's mind by idea implantation.  Therefore we can see the relationship between consciousness and unconsciousness. To study the boundary between them leads to a lots of research related to neuroscience which is a board and promising field.

Work Cited

 Vensa, Victoria. "Consciousness/Memory." Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 17 May 2012. Web. 15 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzXjNbKDkYI>

 Vensa, Victoria. "Unconscious Mind and Drean" Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 17 May 2012. Web. 16 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFv4owX3MZo> 

 Berlin, Heather A. "The Neural Basis of the Dynamic Unconscious." Neuropsychoanalysis. Nyu, 13 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 May 2015.<http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/BerlinTreatment.pdf> 

 Vensa, Victoria. "Neuroscience and Art" Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 16 May 2012. Web. 17 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5EX75xoBJ0> 

 DeCharms, Christopher. "A Look inside the Brain in Real Time." TED. TED Conference, 1 Feb. 2008. Web. 17 May 2015. <http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_decharms_scans_the_brain_in_real_time?language=en> 

BioTech + Art

    This week we talked about biotechnology and art. It is amazing to see how closely biotechnology is related to art. Such as Joe David's work in the field of "space art", if we look at the printing technology when it is first invented and then to the application of publishing and finally to the application of genetic engineering that go out of the space, we will be surprised of the development of bioart.
    The use of transgenics, mutilation, mutation, recombinant or selective breeding as an artistic technique inspires people to think about the relationship between biotechnology and art, and therefore help people to better understand cultural ideas around scientific knowledge and inform critique of the ethical and cultural issues of life manipulation. The SymbioticA, which is an artistic research lab founded in 2000, impressed me a lot. It offers a new means of artistic inquiry where artists actively use the tools and technologies of science, not just to comment about them but also to explore their possibilities. Like the fish and chips project which later evolved into MEART - the semi living artist. This project also combines robotics and art: It uses neurons from goldfish as 'wetware' to control a robotic drawing arm. The project focuses on creating the artist instead of the artwork. It leads us to think about what is creativity and what creates value in art. The eeaning inherent in the use of biotech as an artistic technique.

    Human's creativity is limitless. With the aid of our newly acquired knowledge of life processes,  such as the ability to cut and paste genes from different organisms, the possibility of coercing living functional tissue (outside of an organism) to grow and behave according to human determined plans, and the prospect of designing artificial genes, artists are now exploring the new knowledge and tools offered by modern biology to manipulate and create living and semi-living works of art.
    Although there is some debate about bioart as creating living beings and practicing in the life sciences brings about ethical, social, and aesthetic inquiry, bioart- which is often shocking or humorous- is leading us to discover more overlap between art and biotechnology. The embodiment of biology and the machine creativity emerging from a semi-living entity shows the meaning inherent in the use of biotech as an artistic technique. From an historical context, artist always concerned about imitating life and giving life qualities to non-living entities. Technology especially the biotech has joined forces with art forms to create more sophisticated types of artificial life systems.

work citation

 Vensa, Victoria. "Biotechnology and Art." Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 18 Sept. 2013. Web. 9 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaThVnA1kyg>

 Vensa, Victoria. "Biotechnology and Art Part 2." Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 17 May 2012. Web. 9 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdSt-Hjyi2I&list=PL9DBF43664EAC8BC7> 

 "Joe David: Genesthetics." Design|Media Art: Genetics and Culture. Viewingspace. Web. 8 May 2015.<http://www.viewingspace.com/genetics_culture/pages_genetics_culture/gc_w03/davis_joe.htm>

Vensa, Victoria. "Biotechnology and Art Part 4." Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 17 May. 2012. Web. 9 May<https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL9DBF43664EAC8BC7&v=2qSc72u9KhI#t=121>

 Schuler, Barry. "Barry Schuler: Genomics 101." TED. TED Conference, 1 June 2008. Web. 8 May 2015. <http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schuler_genomics_101?language=en#t-1131907> 

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.