Being a firm believer in my faith when I saw this weeks topic of Art and Body I immediately thought of God being the ultimate artist due to the fact him creating human beings and everything that makes us function. But continuing in this weeks material I found the Body Works project and the french lady Orlan to be really interesting.



The Body Works project was first mentioned in this weeks first lecture but I knew I have heard of it before. Then I remember having something similar to it in high school where there was this museum that showed the functions of the human body and how it was used in a artistic ways. It was in fact the same thing. The Body Works project shows plastinated bodies in which the body parts are used and put together to form certain functions of the body. This project travels all around the world and it has caused controversy in the past due the transportation of body parts. The project truly shows how the bodies can be used to form artwork and at the same time give knowledge to the people of the way the human body functions.

The idea of plastic surgery in comparison to art and medicine is my favorite. Whether or not it should be used for medical reasons or used in artistic ways. In World War 1 it was seen due to the new advances in war with chemicals used as weapons. Plastic surgery was used to help body defects or with limbs that were missing. In fact the Greek word for "plastic" is in fact to mold or form. However, we see how plastic surgery can also be used as in a artistic way when we look at the french woman Orlan. Orlan used plastic surgery to get the know the meaning of art, life, and beauty. She used artist work of previous years that gave her the meaning behind what true beauty is.

I do not have any desire of being a doctor or any motivation to do anything in medicine, the article of Hippocratic Oath was really foreign to me and had no idea that all medical students, in some way, had to know this particular oath. It was interesting that this piece is still in existence today and is still in some sort lived on by medical students today. While the technology has continued to get better and more advancement has been made with X-Rays and MRI's it is cool to see how the oath is still used in the same general way.













Sources:

Tyson, Peter. “The Hippocratic Oath Today.” PBS. PBS, 27 Mar. 2001.

Web. 25 Oct. 2012. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic- oath-today.html>

Vesna, Victoria. “Medicine Parts 1-3.” Lecture. Web. 26 Oct. 2012.

Casini, Silvia. “Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as Mirror and Portrait:

MRI Configurations Between Science and Arts.” (n.d.): n. pag. Web.

26 Oct. 2012.

http://www.smm.org/bodyworlds. "Body Worlds and the Cycle of Life"

"The Architecture of Life". Ingber, E. Donald.

Week 3: Robotics and Art (Industrialization)

As we continue on in these lectures we continue to see how art is not only influenced and intertwined with science and math but also in robotics. It seems to me that it doesn't play as big of a role, but nevertheless it does. Professor Vesna states how artist have been highly influenced by robotics and mass production. However, with mass production it takes away the uniqueness in the art. Art is rare and when there is a lot of something it takes away the significance of whatever it is. Walter Benjamin talks about this in his work and says, "Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element in presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be". Benjamin states how it takes away from the uniqueness but when I think about it doesn't take away the beauty in what the original artist had in mind. It just makes the artwork more applicable to other people and I think that is where mass production is a great thing. 

In 1995, Douglas Davis wrote in the Leonardo Journal how the advancement in technology and mass production have enhanced the abilities of artist. This contradicts what Benjamin stated nearly 60 years before Davis. Davis states how the enhanced technology hasn't limited them but it has enhanced their abilities, which allow them to create new work in which wasn't possible before. 

While I can understand both sides it is hard not to favor in what Davis believes in due to the fact of how far our technology has come since the first industrial revolution. I recently went to the Getty Museum and when I was looking at all the pictures, it was remarkable to see how the technology had transformed what I was looking at. Thats what Davis was talking about. It has enhanced everything in what we do today. 

The production of machinery has continued to be enhanced since the early industrial revolutions. The movies that are now made with robots in our future is what comes to mind when I saw todays lecture title. I think it is cool how the idea of robotics was first thought of hundreds of years ago. From the chinese inventing the printing press to actual robots made today and cars. Maybe one day it will be like the movie I Robot. 

Sources:

Benjamin, Walter . The Work Of Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction. Prism Key Press, 2010.        50. print.

Davis, Douglas. "The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (An Evolving Thesis: 1991-                1995)."Leonardo. 28.5    (1995): 381-386. Web. 20 Oct. 2013.                                                           

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576221>.

Vesna, Victoria. "Robotics Art." DESMA 9. UC Online. . Lecture.

http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/window/

Math an Art: Week 2

When thinking about the mind and the way it process’s information it would seem like math and art would not be together in any way. Even after referring to my blog last week when I talked about how our at campus at UCLA is separated among what subject you study. This weeks material was interesting because it reminded me what I was taught when I took art and drawing classes when I was younger. The vocabulary seemed very familiar to me but it was cool to see the history in which it all came. In this weeks lecture the golden ratio seemed to be a very popular term. It refers to creating perfect symmetry and the artist who used it a lot was Leaonardo da Vinci. The golden ratio is seen in the pyramids of Giza, the Parthenon of Athens, and one of the most popular symbols that is used today representing the human body is "The Vitruvian Man." After seeing what the golden ratio has been used for it is safe to say that it is very important to artist when they are looking to make realistic proportions. 

Another example of mathematics in art and science would be the use of geographical figures that would be used to cover a page that would not contain any gaps. This was used by M.C. Escher and it is a trip. It kinda plays tricks on your eyes but it is very cool.

One of my favorite things in this weeks material was the Fibonacci sequence. The Fibonaccis sequence are a series of numbers where the next number is found by adding up the numbers before it in which it creates a spiral. I remember this specifically in school due to the fascination I had with how the numbers actually did something to form art. An example of this is the use of vanishing points, which are invisible points where parallel lines are used to converge artwork. This just makes things more exact. The Fibonacci sequence is seen in nature everywhere. Some examples would be sunflowers and sea shells. 

Overall, this weeks material was very cool. How in depth and creative the artist were in the early years of art were cool. Also, the importance of numbers is something that is also mind boggling. I have seen the move "The number 23" and how much numbers can actually do in this world is facinating. 

References:

"Fibonacci, Fractals, and Financial Markets." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2013.

 "Golden Ratio." N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2013.

"Vanishing Point." N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2013.

"INTRODUCTION." Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2013. 

http://www.mathacademy.com/pr/minitext/escher/

http://uploads7.wikipaintings.org/images/m-c-escher/mosaic-i.jpg

http://www.sxc.hu/assets/62/614827/sea-shell-1-460165-m.jpg

http://foglobe.com/data_images/main/leonardo-da-vinci/leonardo-da-vinci-04.jpg

Week 1--2 cultures.

The idea of "Two Cultures" was something I really never thought of until reading the material and watching the lectures for this class. After analyzing and reading about this idea of two different cultures between art and science, I realized that the cultures are especially separated when you start college. The

reason for this is because people usually focus on a certain subject rather than a variety of subjects in which you do in middle school and high school. Like in what C.P. Snow says in his article I find myself hanging out with the people of my same major. I am a history major so I start my day hanging around people that study the same thing as me. However, one of my good friends is a mathematics and econ major and it is obvious how different the brain waves are between the two of us. Like the article of the “Third Culture” says people think that the people that study science or think more concretely are looked as or being known as nerds. I have found myself calling my friend a nerd very often but not because of any other reason but because of what he studies. With the separation of the two campuses it restraints the possibilities for someone to gain the knowledge and understanding of the way the other campus thinks.

                                                                                                                         

 The thing I found most interesting in all the lecture videos was the video of the “Changing Educational Paradigms”. It makes sense on how much our educational systems have changed and how kids have

this way of thinking that they can just get these pills or stimulants that help them focus while in reality they may not need them. Technology has changed the way of educational systems in the terms of the way teachers teach and the way students are distracted with I phones and things of that sort during class.



Overall, after reading the different authors and watching the lectures it has made me realize that we should not shut down our minds to different ideas or be closed minded just because I am part of one side of campus or study only one specific subject but instead keep in open mind.

Sources:

RSA Animate. "Changing Educational Paradigms" YouTube. Oct 14, 2010. Oct, 6 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDFpL4U

Snow, C.P. "Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution" The Rede Lecture, 1959. Cambridge University Press, New York.

Kelly, Kevin. "Third Culture". http://www.sciencemag.org/content/279/5353/992.full

Pinker, Steven. "Two Cultures" Seedmagazine.com YouTube, May, 18 2010. Oct 6, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BUbVc7qVpg

Vesna, Victoria. Leonardo. "Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between" JStor, 2001. http://links.jstor/sici?sici=0024-094X%282001%2934%3A2%3C121%3ATATCBI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3

Pictures:
1. http://www.scientificamerican.com/media/inline/an-update-on-cp-snows-two-cultures_1.jpg
2. http://voluntaryistreader.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/oldschool.jpg?w=600
3. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaSnafjwvHcODBGRK_XKfiyuegmFQk7FGlj8yDmUgOi1KWu2MmtaoJWkVbUkBbP0l2tioIF7ZB4-yh0vO9Fd36vQUNzSXY27ISajuFMb_fyZUWN5wZ21_V6WHVauoqgvFq_6rXuVYQILQJ/s1600/Education+Scrabble.jpg