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. 

Resources:

 EamesOffice. "Powers of Ten™ (1977)." YouTube. YouTube, 2010. Web. 27 May 2016.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0>

 "Laika." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 27 May 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika>.

 "Memorial to Laika." Memorial to Laika. Web. 27 May 2016.

<http://www.novareinna.com/bridge/laika.html>

 "Space.com." Space.com. Web. 27 May 2016.

"Space Is Endless, Unlimited, Infinite." Open Science Repository. Web. 27 May 2016. 

<http://www.open-science-repository.com/space-is-endless-unlimited-infinite.html>

Vesna, Victoria. "8 Space Intro 1280x720." YouTube. YouTube, 2013. Web. 27 May 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dPAmpBiVHY>.