Taking this course was an eye opening experience because I never knew that science and art could ever correlate. Turns out there are a lot of things that relate to one another. In all of the topics, I have truly learned the history of medicine, and further my knowledge on the topics that I was already familiar with such as, neuroscience. There were also topics that I had never heard of such as nanotechnology and biotechnology. Through this class, I was able to learn about those two topics. Out of all the topics I had learned throughout the quarter, my favorite was biotechnology. As I stated before, although I had no knowledge of what biotechnology was, there were materials that I actually knew. It was really interesting to learn about how there is such a thing as bio artists. I have decided to research more about biotechnology and art and write about that for my final paper. That topic intrigued me the most and I can’t wait to learn more about it while writing my final paper!
Extra Credit: Miracle Mile & Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination
For my second extra credit event, I attended the famous Miracle Mile exhibition. With Miracle Mile, Robert Irwin reconsiders the properties of light, material, and color. This site-specific work subtly plays with the architecture in which it is housed and responds to both Wilshire Boulevard and Primal Palm Garden, an outdoor installation Irwin created at LACMA in 2008. This exhibition also portrays the topic we learned in week one, which is two cultures. It correlates the relationship between science and art.
A linear configuration composed of sixty-six fluorescent tubes, the works stretches to length of approximately thirty-six feet and can be experienced from both within beyond the gallery walls.
Another exhibition I attended was the Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination. Through these projected images, we are able to see her marvelous work. My particular favorite was the images of the moon. In real life, the moon is really big and it's viewed by a projector. This also correlates with science and art, but it also emphasizes how advanced our technology is. Also, it shows the importance of technology and the variety of ideas that can come out through technology.
In an interview, Diana tells us how she couldn't paint, so she decided to do something she was able to do. She utilized the properties of the medium. She got her BA in art history but was always more interested in film history. I truly recommend visiting this exhibition, because it was such a fun place to take pictures and also learn about a different way of portraying art. It also encourages the audience to never lose hope even though you are bad at what you love, because there is always a different way to be a part of it. Even though she was mad at painting, she still didn't give up the art industry and made an innovative way to portray her artwork.
Extra Credit: Revealing Creation: The Science and Art of Ancient Maya Ceramics
I attended LACMA for my extra credit events. I attended a unique exhibition where I was able to see the science and art of ancient Maya ceramics. Before coming to the exhibition, I was very confused what it meant but I found out that this was very interesting. The exhibition combines insight gained from technical analysis of ancient Maya ceramic vessels with indigenous knowledge, from the Maya religion and languages and archaeological findings. The research shows how Maya artists endeavored to manifest the cosmos by shaping painting, and firing clay.
Through these ceramics, you are truly able to see the correlation between art and science. The ceramics itself portrays the are while the technologies they used portray the science.
LACMA's scientific analyses illuminate Maya artists' techniques for making ceramic vessels. This was very interesting to me because I did not understand the correlation of science and art through Maya ceramics. For example, digital x-radiography confirms the vessels were coil-built by setting coils of rolled clay in stacked rings. X-rays reveal these rings and expose traces of tools and fingers used to smooth coils and adjust vessel walls. The X-ray also reveals the shapes of vessel walls, rattles inside bases and feet, and the sculptural forms made from molds.
This is called Vase with Monkey and Ritual Scenes. It was from northern Guatemala or Southeastern Mexico, and is 600-900 years old. This is a slip-painted ceramic with post-fire pigment. Like others in this exhibition, the vessel creatively combines ceramic vase and figurine traditions. X-ray radiographs reveal the monkey was made in two separate pieces, a hollow head that inserted into a hollow body. The parts were attached to the cylinder, which has two panels carved with intricate ritual scenes. The monkey, whose curling tail overlaps one panel, takes over as the central focus. He was adorned with Maya Blue after firing.
This is called Cylinder Vessel with Palace Scene. It was from Guatemala, Peten, Dos Pilas or vicinity, Maya, 740-800 years. You can't see it through this image, but the image actually portrays K'awiil Chan K'inich, a Dos Pilas prince, before his accession to king. The painter's name, Akan Suutz', appears behind the prince's headdress, indicating the artist's prominence. This painter achieved remarkable colors, including lavender and punk, using iron-rich slips. Chemical analysis revealed he painted white highlights on the men's faces, feathers, and jewelry after the vessel was slipped and fired.
These are the different types of technologies used:
IR photography requires images in the infrared region (700 to 1000nm) of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Through X-radiographs, it reveals the rattles in the chamber at the bottom of the vessel. You would not be able to identify that without the technology. Also, it reveals inclusions in the clay. Horizontal orientation indicates coiling was used to build the vessel. The crack between the two coils in the ceramic was revealed.
This technology is called the XRF, which stands for x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. This machine gathers information about the elemental composition of the vessel's surface.
Overall, through this exhibition, I was able to gather new insight by gaining more knowledge about the technical analysis of ancient Maya ceramic vessels.This exhibition considers ancient Maya ceramic production as both art and science and highlights how artisans worked to emulate acts of creation through their labor of shaping, painting, and molding clay. Not only did I learn about the correlation of science and art, that was discussed during week one, I was also able to learn more about the different type of technology they had used to reveal these hidden images. I definitely recommend coming to this exhibition while you are taking this class because it will help you better understand the topics.
The most interesting topic throughout this course was medicine technology and art. The relationship between art and medical technologies is surprisingly interconnected. With our growing body of knowledge about human anatomy and physiology, it is no surprise that artists embrace this knowledge by finding new, creative ways represent the body. Although I am a north campus major, the human anatomy is intriguing. Not only is the human body outstanding, technology has claimed its place within medicine.
Technology has helped doctors to advance the understanding of the human body as well. Art and the science of medicine are complementary, and physician training would be positively augmented with courses in humanities and the arts in order to learn to creatively address novel medical issues. The invention of X-rays and MRI’s is a great to understand what the doctors are saying. In pursuit of creating art, practitioners have generated tools and techniques that have aided researchers, while sometimes crossing into controversy, such as by releasing invasive species into the environment, blurring the lines between art and modern biology, societal, and environmental issues that challenge scientific thinking.
Not only does this topic cover the human body and look how science, technology has influenced medicine, but how humans are shifting through bio-tech too. It all began with human dissection. Dissection is truly at the intersection of art and science. Leonardo da Vinci performed private studies, in which he dissected human bodies. These formed the basis for his detailed, lifelike, anatomical drawings. He made a significant contribution to social acceptance of the study of the human body. Then, it shifts into looking at the technology progresses from X-rays to CAT scans to MRIs, and how our perception of the body is shifted.
There are different types of medical visualizations, such as X-rays, MRI, and CAT scan. The X-ray was discovered by Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen. He was a German physicist who produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range today known as X-Rays. The first X-ray he ever did was on his wife’s hand. The MRI, which stands for magnetic resonance image was discovered by an American medical practitioner, Raymond Vahan Damadian. He was his first patient but was too big to get in, so a graduate student volunteered to go in first. MRIs use a powerful magnetic field to align the magnetization of some atomic nuclei in the body and radio frequency fields to systematically alter the alignment of this magnetization. It causes the nuclei to produce a rotating magnetic field detectable by a scanner. The information is then recorded to construct an image of the scanned area of the body. CAT scans are X-ray computed tomography. It can be used for medical imaging and industrial imaging methods employing tomography created by computer processing. Digital geometry processing is used to generate a three-dimensional image of the inside of an object from a large series of two-dimensional X-ray images taken around a single axis of rotation.
Another important factor of medicine that I learned was the origins of plastic surgery. It is stated that it started because of war. Many people today believe that it started recently. It originated from the East, then to India, and then they studied the skin reconstruction work and moved on to Europe. Plastic does not mean artificial but “plastico” means to give mold or give form. The first plastic surgeon in America was Dr. Montoya. He performed the first cleft palate with instruments that he had designed himself.
Another famous person was Andreas Vesalius, a flemish anatomist, a physician and author of one of the most influential books in the medical history. The book, De Humani Corporis Fabrica,is about the human anatomy and was published in 1543. It was the turning point in the history of modern medicine. It was the first time the treatment of the disease was understood to be rigid and accurate representation of the human body inside and out. Vesalius is referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy. He was the first to provide accurate description of the internal structures of the work of the human bodies. Thanks to him, it revived the scientific method for studying the human anatomy.
The artist that caught my attention was Virgil Wong. He is studying the health implications of The Proteus Effect, which describes how people’s actual behavior can be affected by their use of a digital persona. In his current study, Virgil created an iPad app that generates medical avatars of smokers personalized to match their appearance and body type. The app creates “time travel” simulations that show study participants the immediate and long-term impact of smoking on both their face and their bodies from the inside out. The effects of quitting smoking are also illustrated. Virgil uses the correlation of art and medicine in order to educate about the risks of smoking.
He is a creator of the “Medical Avatar.” In the TedTalk, he talks about how when he was young, he was obsessed with a Helen Keller biography and wanted to experience how it felt to be blind, so he blindfolded himself for a week. This led to serious injuries that consisted of mild concussion, broken nose, broken tooth, and a doctor’s note that read, “Why was this kid pretending to be blind? Possible psychiatric issues.” He says he remembers opening his eyes again and not just thinking about how vibrant the world was, but there’s still so much that he couldn’t see and how much under the surface and under the skin that he wanted to investigate. He fell in love with art technology because it was the tool that allowed him to study the world and helped understand the world even better. His mother started losing her vision and was soon diagnosed with a brain tumor, and he felt so frustrated and sorry because he wasn’t able to go to medical school. But his mom looked at him and told him, “medicine helps us live longer lives, but art is about why we live. Always be proud of being an artist as you would a doctor.”
As an artist, he started creating these portraits various individuals where you can literally see your bodies from inside out. It's an art form that allows you to visualize your health information in past, present and future. It's a way that would help people understand and manage their health care in a super easy and visual way that could've helped out his mom. He is also working on creating merged medical portraits of difference people. He interviewed a patient who was a veteran and was being treated for a horrific war injury. Through this experience, he said that he learned that it's so important to know that he's not the only with this injury and that it's nice to know that there are other people going through the same issues as he was. What he is trying to do with this Medical Avatar is to find a way for medical patients to be able to connect and relate to one another. Technology could be a way to better understand our differences. Through his work, he truly wants people to see and experience how it feels to be sick or blind.
In my opinion, I truly enjoyed researching about Virgil Wong, because he gave me a new insight on medicine and art. He helped me further my knowledge about the correlation between them. His inventions are magnificent and I truly believe that they will make a huge impact in life.
Future medical technology breakthroughs will build from the incredible progress made in nanotechnology, biotechnology, computers, the information learned from deciphering the human genome and other scientific areas. There is a major health crisis today in terms of the shortage of organs. The fact is that we’re living longer and medicine has done a much better job making us live longer and the problem is as we age, our organs tend to fail more. Currently, there are not enough organs to go around. In the last 10 years, the number of patients that require organs have doubled. This is a public health crisis. There are many futuristic medical devices and technologies that are in development or are predicted. For example, medical robots can be an invention that will make a huge impact. They will be able to patrol hospital hallways on more routine rounds, checking on patients in different rooms and managing their individual charts and vital signs without direct human intervention. The device can be a mobile cart with a two way video screen and medical monitoring equipment, programmed to maneuver through the busy halls of a hospital.
Another help invention in the medical field is needle free diabetes care. Self care is a pain because it brings the constant need to draw blood for glucose testing, the need for daily insulin shots and the heightened risk of infection from all that poking. Continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps are today's best options for automating most of the complicated daily process of blood sugar management. The sensor collected one reading per minute and sends the data wirelessly to a remote monitor, triggering audible alarms when levels go out of the patient's optimal range and tracking glucose levels over time.
In the future, I truly hope that we are able to find a cure to cancer. Beyond chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, doctors are uncovering new ways to harness the power of the patient's immune system to combat cancer. I strongly believe that we are advanced enough to find a cure. In a Tedtalk, Siddartha Mukherjee talks about how we think about diseases in a short term: Have disease -> take pill -> kill something. He discusses how instead of it being a mechanical or chemical problem, maybe it's a stem cell problem. Through these inventions, the world will advance tremendously and unfold many new discoveries along the way.
Bibliography:
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Monday, June 6, 2016
Event #3: S.A.D SHOW
For my third event, I attended S.A.D. Show (Staring in the Age of Distraction Show). This was by far my favorite event I had attended because it was so interesting and eye-opening. I was introduced to a whole new perspective and outlook on art through some of the student's artworks.
Personally, I was very intrigued by a particular artwork created by a student named Louis Pham. Louis created an artwork called "Pain and Pleasure." I know what you're thinking, pain and pleasure are total opposites and how can you make an artwork about that? When I first passed by his artwork, truth be told, I didn't think much of it. I saw mini cacti so I immediately assumed it was just a garden, but I was completely wrong.
His artwork truly opened my eyes and helped me better understand the two culture topic we had learned during week one. The two cultures he correlated was pain and pleasure. Louis Pham says that throughout life, we experience conflicting states of well-being. We have to make sacrifices and choose what is the best option for us to suffer now or later. His project juxtaposes the feeling of comfort and discomfort. While resting on the bench allows relaxation and comfort, the tightness of the spaces causes anxiety and discomfort. The tension is amplified with the interaction of this piece. By interesting with this piece, one experiences pain and pleasure. The pricking cactus inflicts pain, but the joy of creating sounds is pleasurable. His project also shows the advancement of technology. When you press on the cactus, it makes a noise!!
Funny story behind this picture: I was looking all around the place, looking for Louis Pham. My friend and I asked everyone who the artist of the cactus artwork was, but no one had a clue. Finally, we were given a description of how Louis looked from one of the staffs, but we were still struggling to find him. We decided to stay in the area and just wait and while waiting, we asked a random boy that was next to us if he was Louis Pham. The boy replied saying that it was his friend right next to him. Turns out Louis Pham was right next to me and I didn't even realize it. He was extremely nice and answered all my questions!! I truly had a great experience here!
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Event #2: Suspense
For my second event, I attended the Culture Analytics at IPAM. The program I chose to go to was the Suspense lecture, by Mark Algee-Hewitt. He is a professor at Stanford University. His research focuses on the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in England and Germany and seeks to combine literary criticism with digital and quantitative analyses of literary texts. He is particularly interested in the history of aesthetic theory and the development and transmission of aesthetic and philosophic concepts during the Enlightenment and Romantic periods.
The lecture was about how suspense is measured. He begins with a scenario of a bomb being under the table. He says suspense is when we question whether or not the bomb will go on and who it will kill. This lecture helped me understand how our brains are functioned, particularly during suspense and fear. Through Mark Algee-Hewitt's lecture, I have learned that even though we know that an event is going to happen, we still arrive at the suspense. This made me question why the human brain does this and how interesting it is to see how our brains react like this. This is a great example of how we are not able to understand the brain because it is constantly growing.
Another interesting topic that stood out to me was the Neural Net: Schematic Diagram. This was a machine that inputted all topic model fields, MDW field and age of acquisition scores-all scored in .5% slices in each text. This machine was extremely useful in determining the percentage of suspense in a book. 81% of the time, given a passage at a neural net, would find the passage suspenseful. Mark's main question was: Is suspenseful generated at both the episodic level and narrative level? The first one focused on suspense and non-suspense over time. To do this, he added up the suspense scores, and rated on a scale of 1-8 (1 being not suspenseful and 8 being very suspenseful). He concluded that there is a linear relationship to the age of the text and how suspenseful they thought it was. He had found out that 1900's novels were more suspenseful than 1800's novels. Then, the next hypothesis focused on episodic suspense. Through this hypothesis, he explains how there is a distinct difference between suspense and surprise. He brings up the bomb scenario he brought up in the beginning of the lecture and explains how nothing is happening and then all of a sudden, a bomb explodes. This is seen as an episodic suspense
Through this lecture, I was able to correlate it with the lecture on neuroscience+art. Suspense is created in our own minds, and suspense is different to all of us. For instance, some might find a video of a clown scary, but others who are not scared of it would not find it scary. This helped me further my knowledge of our human brain and how it functions differently.
Through this lecture, I was able to further my understanding how suspense is measured. I also had a better understanding of the idea of Two Cultures. For instance, Mark was an English professor at Stanford, but in order to come up with these data's, he conducted an experiment. He is both an English professor and a scientist. Technology also played an important role. Without the neural net, it would have made Mark's experiment harder to conduct. Thanks to the neural net, he was able to measure the suspense levels faster and more accurate. Overall, it was an interesting lecture and I was able to learn a lot about suspense. Mark Algee-Hewitt was a wonderful speaker and I know that this won't be the last time I will be attending one of his lectures!
Friday, May 27, 2016
Space+Art
"Eventually, everything connects" -Charles Eames
The final lecture is about Space and art. Learning about space is a place where it all comes together. There is nanotechnology, biotechnology, mathematics and robotics correlated within space. Space is a concept that is almost incomprehensible. Watching the video, Powers of 10 helped me understand and comprehend the idea that our universe is infinite and expanding is unfathomable.
From the beginning of time, we have been fascinated by the skies, stars, and the planets. We've looked at the cosmic ocean for thousands of years wondering what the meaning of life was. Ancient astronomers looked at these points of lights and called these objects with roman names. Jupiter was the king of Gods, Mars was the God of war, Mercury was the messenger of Gods, Venus was the Goddess of love and beauty, and Saturn was the father of Jupiter and God of agriculture.
In this week's lecture, the topic I found interesting was about how animals played a big role by being the first ones going to space. The Russians were the first to have a dog test what it is to have a living being going up into one of the capsules. Laika was the first living being to orbit the Earth in space. Laika, which means "barker" in Russian was a three year old stray dog.
At that time, they knew little about the impact of spaceflight on living creatures at the time of Laika's mission, and the technology to de-orbit had not yet been developed, and therefore Laika's survival was not expected. Sadly, Laika died within 6 days, thanks to Laika, the experiment aimed to prove that a living passenger could survive being launched into orbit and endure micro-gravity, paving the way for human spaceflight and providing scientists with some of the first data on how living organisms react to spaceflight.
I also enjoyed how the term "artists" is not referring to the actual depiction of an artist that uses paintbrushes and paper, but rather, a person who's creativity is expressed through different types of mediums of reality. This concept of science influencing art helped me relate back the first week's topics of art and science. In the beginning, I believed that art and science were seen as separate, but through the past nine weeks of understanding the relationships that art has with the different topics of science, I was able to fully open my eyes and realize that they are both necessary to make the progressive culture we see in today's society.
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