medicine + teche + arte

For thousands of years, humans have been very interested in the topic of our very own anatomy. The act of dissecting cadavers, then drawing and recording the details discovered was (and still is), however, frowned upon in most cultures. Of course there were still many artists that studied the human anatomy in great detail using this method, but it would be until the twentieth century that we would be able to look at the human anatomy in greater depth using less invasive techniques. X-rays, CAT scans, and MRIs, to name a few, were developed to take pictures of the body noninvasively and give us images with very specific details as to what is all going on in different bones, organs, tissues, etc.

In the sci-fi film The Island, people can have clones of themselves in case they ever needed an organ transplant or something of the sort, but the public is unaware that these clones are conscious beings and not vegetative husks like the cloning company assured. This film brought the idea of reconstructive plastic surgery to another level by demonizing the concept of having clones used for our benefit and that the whole idea of ‘Playing God’ ultimately has its consequences.

In Diane Gromala’s TED talk, she depicts virtual reality programs being used in all sorts of fashions to cause intra-sensory conflicts, or even to relieve pain. When immersed in a virtual simulation, users may find that if they ’move’ rectilinearly through their surroundings, a proprioceptive conflict can cause them to have sensations of weightlessness and other sensory abnormalities associated with the use of drugs. This is really fascinating because with these images and sounds, we can use the power of meditative focus to essentially achieve the bodily ‘high’ commonly associated with drugs. Gromala also presented the idea of using monitoring techniques, to allow users to interact directly with their virtual environment, and the closer that they are able to achieve a meditative state, the imagery and sounds surrounding them becomes clearer. By having them focus inward as opposed to outward, their bodies temporarily “forget” about the pain they have.

Sources 

"Culturebase.net - a Unique Online Source on Contemporary International Artists." Zoran Todorovic Artist Portrait. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

"Genome Research." Genome Research RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2015.

Gromala, Diane. "TEDxAmericanRiviera - Diane Gromala - Curative Powers of Wet, Raw Beauty." YouTube. YouTube, 7 Dec. 2011. Web. 25 Apr. 2015. 

The Island. DreamWorks Home Entertainment, 2005. Film.

UConlineprogram "Medicine Pt2." YouTube. YouTube, 21 Apr. 2012. Web. 25 Apr. 2015.

Doumo Robotics & Art

     Robotics has long been a topic of interest and conflict. Since the introduction of the printing press in 1400s, western civilization has made huge leaps in the advancement of technology and robotics. Robotics is present in an innumerable amount of various objects and appliances we use daily, from textiles to the manufacturing of automobiles. This technology has not always been used for the greater good, however. Walter Benjamin saw the malice of the robotics industry in its prime during the world wars and in his work, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, he proclaims that mankind is not mature enough to advance robotics in the right direction and that even the production of non-lethal objects, we lose a sense of aesthetic originality since each product is but one of millions of copies.

     Indeed western civilization has seen great strides in both directions of the use and misuse of robotics. It makes our lives run more smoothly and efficiently, but many people fear that with more and more advancements and complexities in robotics and artificial intelligence, there might be a chance that it could get out of hand and cause, say, a robot revolution enslaving the human race as depicted in many western films. On the other hand, movies such as WALL-E show a more delicate side to artificial intelligence, giving the robots human characteristics or love, fear, and sympathetic cooperation.

     Continuing the friendly aspect of robotics, Japan has a much different view of the use of robotics. Whereas western civilization has more robotics in manufacturing that look to do the task they are created for such as an arm to manufacture cars, Japan uses more humanoid androids to interact with the public. Machiko Kusuhara shows us that the Japanese people have advanced many of their robotics and artificial intelligences to serve less as mindless servants, but more as helpful companions, with friendlier appearances and language to appease the needs and desires of their audiences. They even go as far as being able to play musical instruments!

Sources used:

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Marxists. 1936. N.p. Web. 19 Apr 2015.

Brooks, Rodney.  “Robots will invade our lives.”  Online video clip.  Ted.   Ted, Sep. 2008.  Web. 19. Apr. 2015.

Brunelle, Marcus. "How the Printing Press Revolutionized Humanity." Scientiareview.        Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.   

Kusuhara, Machiko. "Robotics: Machiko Kusahara." YouTube. UC Online Program, 14 Apr. 2012. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.

McGovern, Bridget. "Wall-E: Pixar's Lasting Tribute to the Power of Art." TOR, 19 June 2012. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.

Math + Art

      Delving further into our discussion of how science and art are intertwined, we had a look at how properties of mathematics appear naturally in our everyday environment. The Fibonacci sequence is a perfect example of naturally occurring ratios in plants, animals, and weather phenomena. Humans have been using the concept of this ‘golden ratio’ to represent a sense of natural aesthetic perfection from the pyramids of Egypt and the Parthenon to the logos for iCloud and Pepsi. Along with this ratio, it should be noted that humans also have a penchant for symmetry. Being symmetrical in our appearance, humans have a natural tendency to use symmetry in nearly all art forms.

[Apple's iCloud logo uses the golden ratio in its design]

      In twentieth century music, radical shifts away from tonality produced a style of music that, quite literally, turned music into numbers. This style came with its own sort of manual called ‘set theory,’ which assigns each of the twelve pitches a number from 0 to 11. Using a modular system with 12 as its base, set theory takes a motif consisting of a ‘set’ of pitches and transforms them by means of reflection, transposition, inversion, etc. to elaborate an idea. This can be applied to certain pieces of composers like Béla Bartók. In the excerpt below, the five notes of the first and second measure contain the same number of whole-steps and half-steps and in the same order ( pitch class set representative: [0,2,3,4,5] ), just symmetrically inverted around an axis and transposed. These algebraic techniques are used to show the symmetry and relationships between sets of pitches.

[first two bars from Bartók's Bulgarian Rhythm No. 155 from Mikrokosmos]

      The interrelationship between art, science, and mathematics is right outside our window. Artists in all cultures are influenced by numbers, whether they know it or not, due to mathematical occurrences in nature. Fractals can be seen in things such as ferns, lightning, and nautilus shells, which then can be found in the braiding of hair in African cultures. People can use properties of linear symmetry to fold paper into origami, capturing the beauty of a crane on the surface of a pond. It all fits perfectly.

 

[Fibonacci sequence occurring naturally]

 Citations:

Eglash, Ron. 'African Fractals'. Ccd.rpi.edu. N.p., 2015. Web. 7 Apr. 2015.

"Fibonacci, Fractals and Financial Markets - Socionomics.net." YouTube. YouTube, 31 May 2007. Web. 9 Apr. 2015.

Hart, Vi. "Doodling in Math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and Being a Plant [1 of 3]." YouTube. YouTube, 21 Dec. 2011. Web. 9 Apr. 2015.

Lang, Robert J. "Huzita-Justin Axioms." Huzita-Justin Axioms. Web. 9 Apr. 2015

Lefkowitz, David. Analysis of Post-Tonal Music: A Parametric Approach. N.P., 2014. Print.

Two Cultures

Hello all! My name is Zach Thoennes (pronounced ten-ness) and I am a second year oboe performance major. Being in the field of music, I am very interested in the physical properties and intricacies of sound and music so this course seems like a cool way to learn about other arts and the 'science' behind them.

            The modern age shows little, if any signs of the marriage between the arts and physical sciences as described by C. P. Snow. He writes that the divorce between the two arose around the time of the industrial revolution, when public education came into play.

[public school does not cater to the needs of all]

Public education was catered to teaching individuals about the fundamentals of the physical sciences and that they were most important for being successful while the fine arts were merely arbitrary in a divertimento sort of way. Times have changed drastically, but the public education system, unfortunately, has hardly changed in principle, even widening the gap more between science and the arts.

[Pearl demonstrates the natural beauty of petals dancing in the wind being methodically calculated in real time]

 C. P. Snow wrote also that despite the estrangement between art and science, a new “third culture” would emerge as the bridge between the two other cultures.  It can be looked at as combining the two cultures in a way where knowledge of both is necessary to execute a truly masterful work of art. The ones that have an understanding of how the two cultures intertwine have the potential to advance that art/technology in new and creative ways according to Stephen Wilson. Pinker says that the third culture should not have to be the sort of ‘secret club’ it is now and that the marriage of science and art should be more prominent in order for the third culture to really blossom.

 

[the theremin is a product of arts and science being used together for music]

Robinson, Ken. "RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms." YouTube. YouTube, 14 Oct. 2010. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U>.

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

Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures: And a Second Look. Cambridge: U, 1964. Print.

Vesna, Victoria. "TwoCultures Part1." YouTube. YouTube, 30 Mar. 2012. Web. 02 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=146&v=VNI7dF3DIAM>.

Wilson, Stephen. "Myths and Confusions in Thinking about Art/Science/Technology." (2000). Print.