Extra Credit Event 2: The Getty Center

Visitor Card, stub for visit to the J Paul Getty Museum

For my second Extra-Credit event, I visited the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center. I am now a proud Californian, and can now proudly claim that I finally went to the Getty Museum after living 10 years in Los Angeles. Already entering the Museum from the parking lot, the Museum greeted us with a super clean, quiet and modern tram that took us over the mountains into the center.

Architecture of the Main Getty Center building

Walking into the main building of the Getty Center, I was flooded with the beautiful architecture, which every detail seemed to be intricately calculated. The architecture was designed to bring as much sunlight into the building, conserving much energy yet still looking so modern and artistically attractive. Although the lectures never touched on the topic of architecture, I personally believe that architecture can also become a branch of Mathematics+Art, part of our Unit 2 lectures.

2D  cave visuals, entrance of 3D room

2D visuals, entrance of 3D room

For this trip, I think my experience at the exhibit for Cave Temples of Dunhuang really allowed for an integration of technology+art. The exhibit of "Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China's Silk Road" features displays of rare objects originally discovered from Mogao in China, three full-size cave replicas, and lastly a 3-D virtual experience of Cave 45 from the eighth century.

Selfie with Uniformed Getty Center Employee.

The most significant part of my visit was the 3-D virtual experience, where the audience -in groups of 10-20 people- were guided into an entirely darkened room with a ceiling to floor screen wall, in which later the wall was projected with a first-person visuals of the Cave 45 from Magao China. We were given 3D glasses, and the experience was surreal. it truly felt as if I was in Cave 45, in Magao China, in the 8th century.

My own technological approach :)

This cave in real life was only witnessed by certified and pre-authorized researchers, however this virtual experience allowed the general public to experience the site while physically still in Los Angeles, CA. Technology allowed for art to be appreciated over barriers of time and distance, and I believe this truly integrated the technology+art genres.

I would recommend visiting the Getty Center to all my classmates, as the Museum was accommodated with cafes, restaurants, and rest areas; moreover, beautiful architecture, statues, and fine art exhibits. More importantly, for all foregoing reasons, I would recommend my classmates to go specifically to the Cave Temples exhibit before it ends in September 4,2016.

Event 3: Museum of Jurassic Technology

The Museum of Jurassic Technology, Ticket

Selfie with the main entrance display
(no picture allowed with employee)

For my third event, I visited the Museum of Jurassic Technology (MJT). Honestly when I first arrived, I was rather surprised at the humble outlook of the museum. The Museum had a petite and simple face structure, however some greater deep histories and exhibits were hidden within these walls. I was only able to take two pictures regarding this exhibit, as the regulations were very strict about photography.

The MJT was full of mysteries and provoking controversies, which personally made it even more interesting. The exhibits contained various mixtures of historic, ethnographic, artistic, and scientific exhibits and displays, which majorly emerged in the 16thC onward. The museum's mission was to be "an educational institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the public appreciation of the Lower Jurassic".

Henry Dalton's "Micromosaic"

Two specific exhibits I want to mention are the "Micromosaics" by Henry Dalton, and "Obliscence, Theories of Forgetting and the problem of Matter" by Geoffrey Sonnabend.

Henry Dalton was a prominent micrographer in the 1800s, who took apart butterfly wings scale-by-scale to arrange them in artistic forms, his works called  "Micromosaics". These Micromosaics were imperceptible to the human eye, and could only be seen through a microscope. Dalton took individual butterfly scales, sort them by visual characteristics, transfer them onto a slide, and crush them onto the palette; all looking through a microscope. The unique scientific art gained much attention and inspiration among the European naturalists.

Obliscence model, Geoffrey Sonnabend

Geoffrey Sonnabend was more of a theoretical scientists in the field of arts, prominent in the early to mid 1900s. Sonnabend began to question the validity of "true memory", raising the theory that memory is an imaginative illusion of our experience. In this theory, Sonnabend created a model of Obliscence consisting of the Cone of Obliscence and the Plane of Experience. Later into Sonnabend's later career, complex terms were adjusted within this model i,e, premonition, Deja vu and forebodings. These terms are even used in the present day, contributing to both psychological and neurological fields of science and imaginary inspiration of art.

I would definitely recommend this event to the class, as I believe this museum withholds much of the earlier works and beliefs that have allowed for artistic and scientific progressions, even against much opposition and social rejections. This museum can be defined as one of the mothers of technology+Art genre, displaying earlier works that have allowed for the genre today.

Event 2: Griffith Observatory

Griffith Observatory, attended on June 3, 2016; 90 Degrees!

Before the show began, beautiful artificial sky.

Inspired by our lecture of Space+Art, I chose to visit the Griffith Observatory and watched the "Centered in the Universe" screening at the Griffith dome named Samuel Oschin Planetarium. First off, it was 90 degrees outside waiting under the canopy for 30 minutes to enter the dome, and the moment I stepped in I was faced with this beautiful artificial image of a sky-blue sky in a nice breezy room. I was stricken by how realistic technology had made the sky look, and how intricate they had the details added. I was only able to take one picture of the dome before the screening began; however the sky changed colors, clouds changed positions, and sunlight was withdrawn as if within a real sunset.

The screening was about how human beings are metaphorically the "center of the universe" even within all the scientific investigations and discoveries proving how we are not, literally. Surrounded by the circular shape of the dome, and with every corner filled with some beautiful projection of visuals, the audience looked around 360 degrees as if it were the real sky.

Myungjae song, with Uniformed Griffith Observatory worker

 The computer graphics of the show took us through eras of pre-modern to modern histories, all the way from Alexandria, Egypt of 140 A.D., to astronomer Clausius Ptolemy's Earth-centered universe, to Galileo's Sun Centered Solar system -which reminded me of Professor Vesna's lecture about the Copernicus model of the sun centered system, and lastly onto Edwin Hubble at Mount Wilson Observatory.

The graphics were designed in such a way that it provided visuals from both the bird-eye&human-eye perspective. This show was visually aimed to trigger the audience's creative imaginations according to the bits of realistic time travel, making us question the fundamental questions about the universe, who we are, where we come from, and how the space was integrated into so many aspects of inherent questions to where we are today.

 For me personally, this was such an interactive way to experience the integration of science into technology, visualizing astronomy, made into art; I would definitely recommend this event to all my classmates. As Professor Vesna said, Space is where all the subjects we learned came together;  where robots projected artificial yet beautifully realistic images onto the dome sky, where exploration of astronomy&science was explored through the technology of computer graphics, and where imaginations and visual effects were artistically expressed and triggered through such technological tools.

Week 9: Space + Art

As our last lecture, we discussed about the topic of Space+ Art, which integrates all subjects of technology, science, math, and art. Professor Vesna stated in her lecture that she chose this specific topic to finalize our course as it sums up all previous topics into one definitive lesson.

"Interstellar" movie dimension science

As Professor Vesna touched on the topic of space race, I found it personally artistic that scholars were able to locate visual personalities of the supposed evidences provided by the countries supporting victorious news of the space race. The Space Race began in human curiosity of the cosmos beyond the trees and the clouds of our own world. As Sagan describes the earth as a “lonely speck”, scientists began its significant and active research in order to be able to explain the cosmic dark outside the lonely speck of earth.

In thinking about space, the film “Interstellar” come up in my mind. Although the movie is a 21^st century digestion of the concept of space and cosmos beyond the earth, the film visualizes the theory of an entirely different system of the dimension in which was able to be achieved with the balanced integration of scientific research, mathematical calculations and artistic creativity.

Another film in which corresponds to the curiosity to the Space and the technological aspects of the operations in space is the film “Gravity”, which plays with the space’s concept of gravity. Motion artists and visual artists are shown, defining, expressing, and fiddling with such concepts related to space. Space is still a mysterious concept to the general public, and the subject of Space allows for an opening for artists to exercise creative imaginations and for scientists to theorize for realistic measures in order to invent for more discoveries.

MCA, Art and Architecture Against Gravity

An exhibit by the Museum of Chicago Arts has opened in 2012 named “Skyscraper: Art And Architecture Against Gravity”, which collected a series of artworks by artists who wanted to express the human desire to build farther into the sky against “gravity”, testing technological limits “while embodying a yearning for spiritual connection to the heavens”. The opening of curiosity to the Space world has opened technological advancement based on the experimental nature of the Scientists, and has opened an entire new cosmos of mystery and “unknown” to the artists. Now we wait to see to what  our artists and scientists may achieve in cooperation into Space.

Sources

Gravity. Dir. Alfonso Cuaron. Perf. Sandra Bullock. Heyday Films/ Warner Bros Studios, 2013. Film.

Interstellar. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Warner Bros. Studios, 2014. Film.

Museum of Chicago Arts. "SKYSCRAPER: ART AND ARCHITECTURE AGAINST GRAVITY." Past Exhibitions of MCA. MCA, n.d. Web. 29 May 2016.

Sagan, Carl “A Pale Blue Dot.” A Pale Blue Dot. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 May. 2016. Web. http://www.bigskyastroclub.org/pale_blue_dot.html.

Vesna , Victoria, dir. Space Parts 1-6. 2012. Film. 29 May 2016. 

Week 8: Nanotech + Art

This week’s lesson about Nanotechnology +Art by far was the most interesting to me. As Professor Vesna introduced, I believe Nanotechnology can actually be the third culture collaborator of shifting paradigms that pushed us into our 21^st century.

For this week, Professor Jim Gimzewski gave us our lectures and lesson on different perspectives of Nanotechnology and art. From his lectures, I understood that nanotechnology was all around us in our lives! Surprisingly, nanoparticles existed from decades back in Roman Empire with the use of “glass”, with the use of nanoparticles, which has the biggest market today. Today, Refrigerators and anti-bacterial wipes are things that work through nanoparticles in order to benefit our personal lives. This technology does not remain simply a technology; it becomes a paradigm shifter in art, science, and society.

As you can see in the video above, nanotech is being developed with nanoparticles to take a useful and technical part of our lives. The “Liquipel” products, which make smartphones completely waterproof while operable, are an example of how artful mechanisms can be developed through science, and used for society. 

Nanoart; Cris Orfescu, “NanoMaiastra –
Brancusi, In Memoriam.” (© 2008, C. Orfescu.)

In Professor Gimzewski and Professor Vesna’s article, they as authors write how nanoscale science and media art together become “powerful synergies” that become the third real culture in helping the symbolic sense of 21th century emergence, implementing for a biologically inspired shift with “new aesthetics and definitions”.  Today, artists use nanotechnology in art directly through a new genre of “Nanoart” as well. Through this new genre of Nanoart which is considered as a direct way in familiarizing the public with the all-pervasive nanotech in our world of science and arts, artists create Nanosculptures and visualize the nanostructure.

As elaborated through this blog, so many artists have taken initiative in expressing creativity through nanotechnology; moreover, I believe scientists themselves rightfully became “artists” within the research and experimentation of science and technology. I have learned that nanotechnology is essentially opening a new paradigm shift for both science and art, and that nanotech was more familiar in my life than I have known. 

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Sources

Ad Trending, Http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48wK9trXIkot1Dvh65_wmQ. "Top 3 Nano Technology." YouTube. YouTube, 24 Nov. 2015. Web. 23 May 2016.

Gimzewski, Jim, and Victoria Vesna. "The Nanoneme Syndrome: Blurring of Fact and Fiction in the Construction of a New Science." Technoetic Arts Technoetic Arts 1.1 (2003): 7-24. Web.

Gimzewski, Jim. “Nano Tech + Art.” Lectures Nanotech for Artists . 2016.

Orfescu, Cris. NanoArt: Nanotechnology and Art. N.p.: Biologically-Inspired Computing for the Arts: Scientific Data through Graphics, 2012. Print.

Vesna, Victoria. “Nano Tech + Art.” Introduction Nanotech for Artists . 2016.

Week 7: Neurosci + Art

The most interesting point from this week’s lesson can definitely be said as the concept of “unconsciousness” and the different influences to some unseen religious aspects. As Professor Vesna covered, the in-depth research of neurology becomes eminent especially with Franz Joseph Gall’s concept of phrenology, where mental functions were said to be localized and one’s feelings reflect such localized functions. Although Gall touched on the topic of 8 senses in which humans had where other animals did not, this idea went perpendicular to Gall’s era where it was highly religious in Judo-Christianity. Similarly, prominent researcher Mark Cohen also touches that around this time, there existed such different standards of neuroscience than of today; that even people believed criminals have bumps on heads specifically where the brain had localized characteristics.

A more modern perspective comes into picture when Carl Jung was said to introduce the idea that every person has some psychic culture in his unconsciousness, as Professor Vesna describes. In Carl Jung’s article, in which the language was personally heavy to read, Jung states that the body lays claim to equal recognition, that it exerts the same fascination as a psyche. 

Jung’s ideas reflected a more modern view of the spiritual sense within science, somewhat similar to many concepts introduced by various deitic religions. In its modern transitions of the neuroscience research, many inventions and experimentations- both inside laboratories and outside- are conducted such as Mark Cohen’s inverted goggles testing brain’s adaptation abilities.

In Swann’s Hypothesis article, author Max states that researcher Lehrer found that writers and musicians consistently lead the way to new theories with inspiration while scientists mop up with hard data. In this, we can even see the correlation of artistic activity to scientific research, as scientific research is not always conducted in laboratories; they are brought from the everyday life, with many inspirations and products of everyday lifestyles- much including art. As Frazzetto and Anker states, the interaction between art and science offers an opportunity to make the scientific community and the public aware of the social and ethical implications of the scientific advances in neuroscience. As Neuroscience reveals individuality, there is no way that individuality can precede without putting Art into the picture! Although so many theories are introduced and experimented for every day, as it has been for the last century, the true product comes from its interaction with art.

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Brain and Art Img. "Psychology Brain Art - Danasojak." N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2016.

Cohen, Mark. "Neuroscience-Mark Cohen.mov." YouTube. YouTube, 12 May 2012. Web. 15 May 2016.

Frazzetto, Giovanni, and Suzanne Anker. "Neuroculture." Nature Reviews Neuroscience Nat Rev Neurosci 10.11 (2009): 815-21. Ucdesma. Web. 15 May 2016.

Jung, Carl. "The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man." Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 10: Civilization in Transition (n.d.): n. pag. Ucdesma. Web. 15 May 2016.

Max, D. T. "Swann’s Hypothesis." The New York Times. The New York Times, 03 Nov. 2007. Web. 15 May 2016.

Phrenological Img, Dale Michels. "Phrenological Phacts." Fine Art America. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2016.

Neuroculture Img. "Is Neuroculture a New Cultural Revolution? | OUPblog." OUPblog Is Neuroculture a New Cultural Revolution Comments. N.p., 26 Nov. 2015. Web. 15 May 2016.

Vesna, Victoria, narr. “Neuroscience Art Lectures I-III.” N.p., . web. 16 May 2012.

Week 6: Biotech + Art

Although this week’s  topic of Bio art was and is still somewhat distant to me, the modern approach to cultivating any form of nature into something so creatively intriguing was indeed surprising and interesting. As Professor Vesna mentions in her lecture, Technology has relations to this week’s topic as well as it is generally expanding into bodies and environments, for science and for art.

Looking at Eduardo Kac’s “Transgenic Art” where he experimented with rabbits to make that unnaturally translucent in the dark, there seemed to be many contrasting approaches to the use of Animal experimentation not only within the field of his scientific input, but more because he is using it for art.

"Ear on Arm" by photographer N. Sellars

So what makes a legitimate standard in judging one’s artwork, or experimentation,  unethical or inappropriate? Related thereto, in Ellen K. Levy’s article; Philosopher Haraway questions how psychic and commercial investments are to be made when lines among human, machine, and organic nature are highly permeable and eminently revisable.

Personally, after much research I have come to add a statement that although animal experimentation is generally looked down upon in its “unethicality” of abusing a living object, the practice is acceptable when it has a tangible benefit to the lives of the human beings. According to, a experimentation like that of Eduardo Kac with the GFP Bunny where it seems to have no medical or physical benefit to human beings will be prone to much opposition. Similarly, Kathy High recognizes that although she is not against animal scientific research, she believes only certain kinds of research should be conducted.

At the end, as Chris Kelty says in his article- Creativity breeds creativity, and innovation breeds innovation. Therefore which method the innovation is conducted should not be focused on, as there seems to be no linear form of accumulation as to what standard one’s work is determined as supposedly an “outlaw”. 


I come to understand that the ambiguity remains in determining one experiment’s righteousness over another when using animal experimentation, as the same argument can cause hindrance to an experiment actually crucial for a discovery for science. So should we set down the rules to determine the ‘rights’ from ‘wrongs’ in Bio-art and their experimentation? I can only assume that Bio art- because it is so closely linked to biological and medical sciences- we can only respect the ambiguity and strive upon further innovations to expand.

Eduardo Kac's GFP Bunny

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 Sources

High, Kathy. "The Politics of Empathy." Embracing Animal. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 May 2016.

Kac, Eduardo. "GFP BUNNY." GFP BUNNY. Kac Web, n.d. Web. 06 May 2016.

Kelty, Chris. "Meanings of Participation: Outlaw Biology?" Journal of Science Communication (2010): n. pag. Web. 07 May 2016.

Levy, Ellen K. "Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 08 May 2016.

Marcredi, Janique. Image. "Rencontre(s) Avec Edouardo Kac." NUMEDIA-ART. NUMEDIA-ART, 2007. Web. 8 May 2016.

Person, and George Dvorsky. Image. "7 Bio-Artists Who Are Transforming the Fabric of Life Itself." Io9. N.p., 24 June 2013. Web. 09 May 2016.

Strijip, Mu. Image. "Body of Matter: Body Based Bio Art and Design." Bio Art & Design Award. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 May 2016.

"Summer Residency in Bio Art at SVA | Art & Education." . Image. Art & Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2016

Vesna, Victoria. "Biotech + Art Lectures." UC Online. Professor Vesna, n.d. Web. 08 May 2016.