Event: Sam Wolk

Last week, I attended a lecture where Sam Wolk talked about some of his current projects, focusing on synthetic life.  The appearance of these pieces he was creating did not resemble those of actual biological systems that they were based on.

 

Genes of many different plants

The main project he showed us was called Replica Praesens, a synthetic “universe” which contained plants, animals, and nutrients, created using a programming language called Processing.  The nutrient levels were shown as red, green, and blue pixels on the screen.  His plants were concentric circles that changed in radius over time.  Each plant had its own genome, which he represented as a strip of genetic material, with many different “genes” of different shades of grey connected together.  Each plant had an odor radius, which was how far its smell could travel.  Wolk used iterations of random mutations to introduce genetic variation into the species.  He used a Gaussian distribution and changed the standard deviation about the species average to control the gene distribution.  

Wolk also had creatures in his universe which could smell, see, and eat plants, travel, and reproduce.  Besides eating, these creatures also liked to socialize, and Wolk represented this using lines drawn between creatures.  He also showed us a model of a neural network of a creature, which made decisions based on its knowledge of its environment, self, and emotions.  Then, Wolk showed what would happen upon introducing predators into the universe.  Finally, he showed us a universe with many different creature populations.  In the code, there was a bug that was intentionally put there.  The bug caused the universe to stop functioning and saved all the information at that moment, so that upon running the code again, the universe would start exactly where it left off.  Wolk said he did this to explore what it was like for someone in that universe when it stopped running.  He concluded that they would have no idea about it stopping because it would continue on where it left off.

Movement of creatures when they were only socializing

 

Sam Wolk used a significant amount of science and technology in his art, namely many biological concepts from genetics, as well as computer programming.  His project was interesting because it was a visual representation that was very different from real life.  However, I wish he had told us more about the vision and purpose of his project.

Sam Wolk seemed pretty busy, so we didn't get a chance to talk to him in person.
Fortunately, me and my roommate were still able to get a photo with him.

Event: Getty Museum

The introduction to the exhibition In Focus: Electric!

On May 15, I went to the Getty Museum with a few friends.  We only got to see a few of their many exhibitions, but one that seemed most related to this class was called In Focus: Electric!  The pieces in the exhibition were all related to electricity and light, and their influence on society.  We have become dependent on electricity, as most first-world countries are.  The exhibition also looked at the experience of darkness.  Unfortunately, photos were not allowed in the exhibition, but I was able to get the introduction outside.

An old clock, with some type of
scientific model on top

Another very large exhibition featured many furnished decorative rooms dating from the 1600s to 1800.  They contained very ornate tables, beds, armchairs, and other furniture.  There were many walls covered in tapestries and large paintings, and most had wallpaper resembling that of a few hundred years ago.  It was amazing to see the degree of luxury of those rooms, of the intricate designs and artisan metal and wood pieces.  The exhibition also shed some light on the technologies at the time.  There were some fancy decorated clocks, like the gilded one pictured.  From the design of the clock we can see that it was influenced by the scientific developments of the day.  On the top of the clock, there is a structure that bears resemblance to a model of an atom or solar system.  Though it is not clear, the clock is definitely topped by either something scientific where there are orbits around a body, or an art piece by someone influenced by one of those scientific models.  Thus, we see that the artistic design of the clock was affected by science.  Another more explicit view into the science of the day is with a microscope featured in the exhibition.  It resembled the optical microscopes we use today, though it was more ornate and came with a case.  The microscope looked very much like an art piece, and it probably was to those who built and used it.

An early microscope, and its case on the left

My visit to the Getty was quite pleasant; I would recommend people visit, as there is a large variety of exhibitions and they can definitely find something they like.  And for me, the best part about the Getty is that the museum itself is a beautiful work of art.

The view from the Getty was beautiful; we could see UCLA.

9: Space + Art

Pale Blue Dot photo.  The circled dot is Earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

Space is incredible.  Considering its vastness and beauty, it is no surprise that it has been the subject of much art.  There is also a sort of incomprehensibility of the relation of people to all the much larger objects and systems in the universe.  This is demonstrated in the film Powers of Ten, where it can be seen that as your view changes by orders of magnitude, there is a remarkable change in what you see.  Reflecting on the Pale Blue Dot photo (of Earth), Carl Sagan talked about how everything that has so much meaning to people is just found on a tiny dot that is easily lost in the rest of the universe.  Learning more about space definitely makes people feel more small, but it also inspires some to explore the territory beyond earth, whether physically or, probably more feasibly, artistically and philosophically.

The original Star Trek
http://nerdist.com/minimalist-original-series-
star-trek-art-is-super-groovy/

Out of the topics we've explored in this class, I think the influence of space on art and popular culture has been one of those most apparent to me.  However, it took me a moment to realize it because it has become so integrated; for example, space travel is in classics like Star Trek and Star Wars.  It is also interesting how space exploration was featured in books and films well before the actual technology was developed.  Space has always captured people's imaginations -- it is a realm of so much unknown possibility.



As scientists have found ways to go into space and learn more about the universe, it has influenced more current art.  For example, the Dancing on the Ceiling exhibition explores transcendence and zero gravity, and the fact that people can never escape gravity.  Space exploration also made the art of Chesley Bonestell possible.  Bonestell created images of views from various locations in space.  I do not think we will ever get tired of looking at our universe -- space will never cease to amaze people and inspire their art.

Exploring Mars, by Chesley Bonestell
http://www.bonestell.org/

Sources:

"A Pale Blue Dot." The Planetary Society Blog. Web. 25 May 2016.

"Chesley Bonestell." About Chesley Bonestell. Bonestell LLC. Web. 25 May 2016.

EamesOffice. "Powers of Ten™ (1977)." YouTube. YouTube, 26 Aug. 2010. Web. 25 May 2016.

Forde, Kathleen. "Dancing on the Ceiling: Art & Zero Gravity." Dancing on the Ceiling. Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center. Web. 25 May 2016.

"The Leonardo Space Art Project Working Group." Leonardo Space Art Project. Leonardo. Web. 25 May 2016.

8: Nanotech + Art

Artists have begun implementing nanotechnology in their artwork.  This is interesting because you cannot really see things at the nanoscale in the same way that you see other things.  Because of this, artists probably have more room for creativity and imagination.  I think the use of nanotechnology is a bit romanticized in today's culture and is seen as very high-tech and powerful; this is probably because of the lack of contact of society with the actual science and the difficulty of visualization, as stated by Gimzewski.

Quantum corrals
http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/
view_group_subpage.php?id=4252

I am currently taking a course on quantum chemistry, so I have been learning about the properties of things at the quantum mechanical level, which are very different from properties at the classical mechanical level.  It is definitely very abstract and difficult to visualize, but it is really cool that we are able to come up with models that are good enough approximations to practically apply.  One of our past exam questions involved nanoscale structures.  More specifically, we applied the particle-in-a-box model to a square-shaped quantum corral.

DNA origami; short strands connect different parts of longer strand, causing folds
http://openwetware.org/wiki/Biomod/2014/Design

The different properties at the quantum level in nanostructures has caused the development of new, smaller technologies.  People are applying concepts used on the normal, classical scale to the nanoscale, like programming and origami.  Kurzweil observed that the growth of informational technology has been consistently exponential for many years, which means it will continue becoming smaller in size and more powerful.  He believes that eventually, nanotechnology will become more integrated with people's bodies.  However, the science of nanotechnology is still very new and we do not know much about its effect on the human body, so I think it is hard to say how much we will be using nanotechnology in the future.

Nanobees, designed to work in our bloodstreams, might become a reality in the future.
http://blog.longnow.org/02009/10/14/invasion-of-the-nanobees/

Sources:

"Art in the Age of Nanotechnology." Art.Base. Art.Base, 11 Mar. 2010. Web. 19 May 2016.

Gimzewski, Jim, and Victoria Vesna. "The Nanomeme Syndrome: Blurring of Fact & Fiction in the Construction of a New Science." Victoria Vesna. Web. 19 May 2016.

"Making Stuff: Smaller." PBS. PBS, 21 Aug. 2013. Web. 19 May 2016.

"Paul Rothemund: DNA Folding, in Detail." TED. Feb. 2008. Web. 19 May 2016.

"Ray Kurzweil: A University for the Coming Singularity." TED. Feb. 2009. Web. 19 May 2016.

Midterm: Run the World App

https://www.dropbox.com/s/voja97wpjydl7l2/VICTORIA_NG_DESMA9_MIDTERM.pdf?dl=0

7: Neuroscience + Art

I've never learned much about the mind, but after reviewing this week's materials I could see that it has its own place in culture.  As society has become more individualistic, people have begun to put more confidence in their own selves.  Some people want to be what Jung calls a "modern man," who is very in touch with their own consciousness.  Because everything in the world seems to lack certainty, they look within to their own psyche for something constant.  I see this in today's culture where people are told to discover their own identity within themselves.  Also, the idea has come about that there is no objective truth, which Bateson asserts.  People think there is no objective truth because things are relative and people have different opinions.

Roger Penrose
https://maas.museum/observations/
2007/07/16/what-was-there-before-
the-big-bang-a-new-theory-from-
roger-penrose/

Roger Penrose believed that a person's consciousness had "noncomputable ingredients," suggesting that he did not think consciousness could have come about by evolution.  However, many scientists disagreed with him.  I think it is interesting that the consciousness is something so incredibly complex; however, scientists think it could have come about from something as comparatively simple as evolution.

First edition of Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

As with other types of science and technology, art provides a way for the public to learn about current advances in neuroscience.  Sometimes, artists discover things before scientists do.  For example, in "Swann's Way," Marcel Proust says some things about memory that were not scientifically discovered until relatively recently.  Popular culture has also been affected by the earlier use of certain drugs.  Aldous Huxley used drugs like LSD while writing his well-known book, "Brave New World."  Muse is one of my favorite artists, but I did not know what the name of their song "MK Ultra" meant until learning about the CIA project this week.












Sources:

Bateson, Gregory. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. New York: Dutton, 1979. Web. 13 May 2016.

Frazzetto, Giovanni, and Suzanne Anker. "Neuroculture." Nature Reviews Neuroscience 10 (2009): 815-21. Web.

Jung, C. G. The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1933. Web.

Max, D. T. "Swann’s Hypothesis." Sunday Book Review. The New York Times, 03 Nov. 2007. Web. 14 May 2016.

"Roger Penrose." The Third Culture - Chapter 14. Web. 14 May 2016.

6: Biotech + Art

Joe Davis' audio microscope
http://geneticsandculture.com/
genetics_culture/pages_genetics_culture/
gc_w03/davis_audio_scope.htm

This week's topic of biotechnology and art was incredibly interesting to me.  I had never thought that biotechnology could be used for art in so many different ways, which shows how unimaginative I am.  For example, Joe Davis was sort of a pioneer of this type of art, and some of his work included an audio microscope and bacterial reaction to jazz.  The art of Davis and some other artists is confusing because it can be hard to tell whether it is for the purpose of art or science.  Eduardo Kac created a fluorescent bunny named Alba and declared it art, though it sounds more like a science experiment.  However, part of his artwork was the public dialogue caused by the rabbit.  It can be seen in this work and others that part of the art is seeing how the public reacts.

Eduardo Kac and Alba
http://www.artnexus.com/
Notice_View.aspx?DocumentID=19376

Another example is the transgenic rats made by Kathy High.
Though rats are often used for scientific research, she used
them to look at people's attitudes toward them as pests and as
friends.

The rise of the use of biotechnology in art has come about during a time of much change in the nature of the field of biotechnology and the questioning of scientific categories.  The combination of living and nonliving things in art has called into question where the divide between the two are.  Also, the use of biotechnology in art has caused people to question what kinds of living things can be considered property.  These artists are working outside of what Kelty calls Big Bio, but they are still dependent on it for the science and the tools that they use.  Making this art is only possible because of the availability of biotechnology to artists today.  Although artists don't usually contribute to important scientific research, they benefit society by increasing the public's awareness of current science by using it in their artwork.  I think life is definitely a valid expressive medium, but it does need to be more carefully dealt with.  Restrictions should be more stringent on artists than on scientists because scientific research has more of a direct effect on people's bodies.

Stelarc considers himself a cyborg.
http://scooblrinc.com/the-worlds-most-famous-real-life-cyborgs/

Sources:

"All About Transgenic Rats." Embracing Animal. Kathy High. Web. 08 May 2016.

"Joe Davis." Genetics and Culture. Design|Media Arts 98T. Web. 08 May 2016. 

Kac, Eduardo. "GFP BUNNY." GFP BUNNY. Web. 08 May 2016.

Kelty, Chris. Meanings of Participation: Outlaw Biology?

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

Event: Hammer Museum

Outside the Leap Before You Look exhibition

On April 27th, I visited the Hammer Museum with my roommate.  The main exhibition that we looked at was Leap Before You Look, which examines the history of Black Mountain College.  Many of the works created at the experimental college were featured at the exhibition.

One thing that reminded me of what we have been learning in this course was the area of the exhibition focused on Buckminster Fuller.  There were a few pictures of him with his geodesic domes.  Fuller was an artist, but he had a great impact on science.  His geodesic domes were mainly architectural, but they highly resembled the structure of carbon nanostructures.  Now, many of those structures are named after him, like fullerenes.

Artwork that looked very dynamic

Buckminster Fuller and
his geodesic domes

Some other works in the exhibition showed pictures of people dancing and moving around.  The pieces had a very strong sense of movement and reminded me of the transition of art from still to dynamic.  Though these were just snapshots, you could still tell that there was movement.

In a walkway at the museum was Oscar Tuazon's piece, Vena Contracta.  It was a pipe made out of fiberglass concrete.  It very much resembled vessels in the human body, but it was made of very inorganic material.

Vena Contracta by Oscar Tuazon

Overall, I enjoyed my visit to the Hammer. The Leap Before You Look exhibition had a huge variety of artworks.  It was interesting because there were so many types of art that related to many different things.

Me and an employee at the sculpture exhibition

Leap Before You Look: https://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2016/leap-before-you-look-black-mountain-college-1933-1957/

4: Medicine + Technology + Art

The Hippocratic Oath
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/
body/hippocratic-oath-today.html

Before this week, I never really thought of practicing medicine as an art.  It just seemed incredibly science-based and precise.  At first, calling it an art made it seem like doctors kind of messed around and tried things in the hopes that they could heal patients.  But now, I understand a bit of why medicine can be called an art.  The process of treating a patient or performing a surgery can be very artistic.  In fact, the precision that makes medicine seem like science also makes it more like art.  When doctors work, it is like an artistic performance, carefully thought through and carried out. The Hippocratic Oath that doctors take shows the gravity of the work they do.

Still from Digital Dervish, 1993
Diane Gromala and Yakov Sharir
http://gromala.iat.sfu.ca/New/dervish.html

Looking at art that uses medical technology, one thing that struck me was that for the most part, the artists use their own bodies in making their art.  Some of it actually involves having surgical procedures on themselves.  For example, Orlan went through plastic surgery in her artwork.  This type of art seems more personal and internal than other types because the artist’s body is so often used.  Diane Gromala does art and research using virtual reality and biofeedback.  She is interested in studying the internal senses of the body, so although she doesn’t change her own body for art, she is exploring something deeper inside.  The image on the right is from a virtual reality inside the body. Casini describes something similar in MRI, where her focus is not on the static images obtained, but the sounds and movements experienced.

The anatomy of the body has long been used in art; people have always been fascinated with the human body.  Of course, this is not surprising because the body is complex and beautiful.  In his article, Ingber explores the architecture of many biological structures that are similar.  Because of tensegrity, stress can be distributed across structures in unexpected ways and perform certain functions.  Different patterns in structures recur in many different organisms in nature.  It is amazing that living things are so distinct and unique yet also have so many similarities.

A model of part of a DNA string using tensegrity.  I think it's pretty cool.

http://www.tensegriteit.nl/e-dna.html

Sources:

Casini, Silvia. "Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as Mirror and Portrait: MRI Configurations between Science and the Arts." Configurations 19.1 (2011): 73-99. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.

Ingber, Donald E. "The Architecture of Life." Sci Am Scientific American 278.1 (1998): 48-57. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.

Medicine pt1. Youtube.com. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.

TEDxAmericanRiviera - Diane Gromala - Curative Powers of Wet, Raw Beauty. Youtube.com. Web. 21 Apr. 2016

Tyson, Peter. "The Hippocratic Oath Today." NOVA. PBS, 2001. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.

3: Robotics + Art

A robotics tournament at my high school. My idea of robotics.
http://thesmokesignal.org/2014/02/01/1100-am-1230pm
-live-coverage-of-msj-robotics-tournament/

When I think of robots, what usually first comes to mind are the contraptions built by school robotics teams.  It was interesting to learn from Professor Kusahara's lecture that in Japan, most robots are humanoid and are considered friendly.  It contrasts with the Western view of robots, which usually involves either an assembly line or robots taking over the world.  Our idea of robots came from industrialization, which actually originated from the printing press.  Industrialization is often associated with wars and the suffering of the lower class, so it is no wonder that we have a more negative or machine-like perspective of robots.

Japanese humanoid robots
http://www.newsweek.com/robot-reads-your-emotions-go-sale-japan-345167

The development of robots and industrialization affected art in that it allowed for mass production.  Walter Benjamin claimed that mass production endangered the originality of art because it could be more easily reproduced.  He also predicted that art would not be as appreciated and would be geared toward the masses.  This can be seen in mass media and entertainment today.  However, the reproducibility of art has also changed how art is created today.  Moving on from mass production, art can now be shared and reproduced virtually.  This has resulted in more collaboration and the blending of unique voices.  It has also created more outlets for creativity and made projects more accessible.  For example, Arduino is a platform that allows people with all sorts of interests to create whatever they wish.  Because it is open-source, users have access to a large amount of helpful knowledge.  Reproducibility of projects allows people to build on others' work.  With industrialization, art has changed from something very original and personal to something that is shared, but still is unique.

Arduino 101 board
http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoard101

Sources:

"Arduino - Introduction." Arduino - Introduction. Arduino. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. 1936. Print.

Davis, Douglas. "The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (An Evolving Thesis: 1991- 

1995)." Leonardo 28.5 (1995): 381-86. JSTOR. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.

"Relating the Rapidly Changing Present to the Distant Past as Far as Book History Is Concerned."  

HistoryofInformation.com. Jeremy Norman & Co., Inc. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.

Robotics MachikoKusahara 1." Youtube.com. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.

2: Math + Art

I never really appreciated mathematics until I took a calculus class.  It was then that I began to see how math could be cool and even pretty amazing.  So now, I can better understand why math is even used in art in the first place.  Math often deals with concepts that seem really mind-blowing or profound, like multiple dimensions and complex systems.  From my understanding, these concepts are deep enough that artists would want to use them or explore them.  For example, in Flatland, different dimensions are used to display the somewhat limited perspectives and worlds of the shapes.  The ideas explored in Flatland could potentially be applied to many different things, but using math creates something that is very easy to see and understand for most people.

An image from Flatland.  To a 2-D shape, a 3-D sphere that moves looks like a circle that changes size. http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland/

Painting by Piero della Francesca, who studied
the mathematics of perspective.

Math can also be really simple and model the ordinary things around us.  For example, in the lecture video we learned about how painters used math to control the perspective of a spectator.  It seems pretty simple to paint a realistic painting, but in actuality there is a lot of math involved to make it look so real in its proportions.

The Mandelbrot Set

As mentioned before, I didn’t really have any interest in math until recently. However, in high school I did look into chaos theory, which also involves looking at fractals, like the Mandelbrot set.  At the time, I thought fractals were really interesting because it was order within disorder, and they show up in nature everywhere.  I also thought they looked really cool, but I never thought of them as having to do with art because I was looking at them from the point of view of a physical scientist.  But it is no surprise that artists use fractals in their work.  I had no idea that Jackson Pollock used fractal patterns in his drip paintings.  I think it is fascinating that he used such complexity and tried to stick to fractal dimensions that were close to those in nature so that perhaps they would be more pleasing to the human eye (though I don’t think he had a way of measuring fractal dimensions).  

Blue Poles, by Jackson Pollock
http://www.jackson-pollock.org/

From this week and the last, I’ve been exposed to more art that uses math and science, but still not really any science or math that uses art. So I would say that the juxtaposition of mathematics, art, and science is somehow one-sided.

Sources:

Abbott, Edwin. Flatland. 1884. Web. 09 Apr. 2016.

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. By Edwin Abbott. 1884. Transcript.

Ouellette, Jennifer. "Pollock's Fractals." Discover Magazine. Kalmbach Publishing Co., 1 Nov. 2001. Web. 09 Apr. 2016.

Vesna, Victoria. "Mathematics-pt1-ZeroPerspectiveGoldenMean.mov." Youtube.com. Web. 9 Apr. 2016.

Weisstein, Eric W. "Mandelbrot Set." Wolfram MathWorld. Wolfram Research, Inc. Web. 09 Apr. 2016.

1: Two Cultures

Basically my life. My father also
wears glasses.
memegenerator.net

For most of my life before college, I was not aware of the two cultures of the arts and the sciences as introduced by C.P. Snow.  The main reason I was not aware of these two cultures was that growing up, I was only exposed to one culture.  I basically did not even know that the arts were important to society.  I was raised on the idea that I had to study something in the STEM field so I could have a "good career" (hopefully as a doctor, lawyer, or engineer) and that pursuing any type of artistic career would leave me in shambles.  Fortunately for me, I had little to no interest in art, so I didn't feel like I was being denied a part of life.

Boelter Hall, which is currently
my home on campus.
http://getacollegelife.tumblr.com/

Upon entering college as a chemical engineering major, I got a little more exposure to the existence of another culture.  Half of our campus is devoted to the humanities, and the fact that the campus is divided into north and sound visually reveals that there is a clear divide between our "cultures" and interests.  Also, there are definitely stereotypes that exist between north and south campus majors.  For example, south campus majors are usually under the impression that north campus majors do very little work and just hang out all the time.  Although these stereotypes are sometimes untrue, it just goes to show the lack of understanding between our two cultures.

Victimless Leather--A Prototype of 

Stitch-less Jacket grown in a Technoscientific 

"Body," created by Tissue Culture & Art Project

http://www.artnews.com/2013/03/18/biotechnology-as-art-form/

Reading Wilson's article about artists using technology in their art introduced me to a relationship between art and science that I had never ever been aware of before, showing me a bridge between the two cultures.  However, Kelly explains in "The Third Culture" that this technology has become integral in a sort of "nerd culture," which is dependent on the sciences in arguably a much more significant way than the arts.  This applies to my life because I am interested in studying semiconductor manufacturing, and semiconductors are essential to most common technologies, like computers and smartphones.  I see myself in the future working on the science that the third culture often takes for granted, but relies on.

Sources:

Kelly, Kevin. "The Third Culture." Science 279.5353 (n.d.): 992-93. Science. AAAS. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Miranda, Carolina. "Weird Science: Biotechnology as Art Form." ARTnews. ARTnewsltd, 18 Mar. 2013. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Cambridge UP, 1959. Print.

Vesna, Victoria. "Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between." Leonardo. 34 (2001): 121-125. Print.

Wilson, Stephen D. “Myths and Confusions in Thinking about Art/Science/Technology.” College Art Association Meetings. New York, New York, 2000. Print.