Week 4: Medicine + Technology + Art

The human body is always a popular topic among artists from the very beginning of the history of art. Actually, the body itself is a fantastic artwork. The eyes, arms, legs and fingers are all little pieces of art made by nature. These pieces are connected by the muscles and finally form the most incredible art in the world - the human body. Medicine, on the other hand, approaches the human body in a more precise and scientific way. In this case, I am surprised that people seldom related medicine to art when both of them have deep connections with human bodies.

Anatomy is the first attempt that art and medicine come together. In the time of renaissance, artists and doctors worked together to document the human body. Andreas Vesalius, usually considered as the founder of modern human anatomy, published the first reliable human anatomy books in the world, On the Fabric of the Human Body. In 1858, English surgeon Henry Gray published his book Gray's Anatomy which still regarded as one of the most influential anatomy books by artists and scientists. These books enable artists to study the human body better and create accurate human portraits. But the fusion of medicine and art can enlighten things far more than that.

Orlan, a French artist, is a perfect example of the fusion of art and medicine. Orlan underwent 9 plastic surgeries not for her own beauty but in order to examine the true meaning of beauty. She chose some person figure in the classic masterpieces and decided to replicate some part of their bodies. These figures are not chosen because of their beauty or her personal preferences, instead, they were in their place because the histories behind them. For example, Mona Lisa was chosen because Da Vinci hid himself in the portrait of Mona Lisa, causing a question on identity. By using medical methods, Orlan was able to express her idea to  the public.

Medicine, like any other science-related areas, is closely related to art and vice versa. Whether being a reference or a tool to express ideas, medicine is always standing beside the art and helps artists to create better works.

Sources:

"Artiste Transmédia Et Féministe. Météorite Narratif Du BIO ART. Son Oeuvre Questionne Le Statut Du CORPS Dans La Société. Ses Sculptures, HYBRIDATIONS Et Autoportraits Réinterprètent Le Rôle Des Nouvelles Technologies." Artiste Transmédia Et Féministe. Météorite Narratif Du BIO ART. Son Oeuvre Questionne Le Statut Du CORPS Dans La Société. Ses Sculptures, HYBRIDATIONS Et Autoportraits Réinterprètent Le Rôle Des Nouvelles Technologies. Web. 24 Apr. 2016. <http://www.orlan.eu/>.

"ORLAN, Omniprésence, 1993. Extrait." YouTube. Ed. Diy Artem. YouTube, 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN1teX2xzh0>. 

Vesna, Victoria. “Medicine and Art: Part 1.” YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 24 April. 2016.

Vesna, Victoria. “Medicine and Art: Part 2.” YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 24 April. 2016.

MutleeIsTheAntiGod. "Orlan - Carnal Art (2001) Documentary." YouTube. YouTube, 2011. Web. 24 Apr. 2016. 

 "Andreas Vesalius." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 24 Apr. 2016. 

Week 3: Robotics + Art

In today's lecture, professor Vesna talked about robotics and art. It all started at 1439 when Johannes Gutenberg introduced printing press to the west and dramatically speeded up the transfer of knowledge. Many years later Industrial Revolution brought industrialization to the world. Indicating those who worked in the factory, the word "robot" first appeared in Rossum's Universal Robots, a science fiction theater play in 1920.

                                     

I believe many people like me were surprised that "robot" was first defined by a theater playwriter but not a scientist, let alone robotics was not only born from art but also brought to the world by it. Thousands of films and books try to depict the world where humans and robots live together, inspiring many robotics scientists. For example, a 1989 movie called The Terminator depicted a future that robots overruled people, which is still a common concern to robotics today as robots develop closer to those in the film. This movie was a huge success and greatly promoted the influence of robotics.

Despite the concern of powerful robots ruling over the earth, a more realistic concern was mentioned by Walter Benjamin. In his essay The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, Benjamin wrote, "Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be." He pointed out that those reproductions of art by robots in the factory or machines did not possess the uniqueness and originality. Indeed, the replicas of the art can never have the aura that the original has. But does this really has a negative influence on art?

As we can see today, those nearly perfect replicas such as posters, postcards and photographs actually increase people's awareness of the original art which in the old times were always found out their beauty after the death of the artists. Moreover, in my point of view, industrialization and mechanization are not diminishing people's creativity but enhance it. It frees people from doing repeated work and enables them to focus more on the creation of new technology or art.
Robotics was born from art, new art was born form robotics and the cycle continues. They are bettering and depend on each other. They are inseparable.


Sources:

TheRecluseeee. "[The End of Mankind Tale] Rossum's Universal Robots (R.U.R.), SF Audiobook by Karel Čapek." YouTube. YouTube, 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeOSlC_yvk0>.

 "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Walter Benjamin. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. <http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm>. 

 Transfofa. "The Terminator Movie Trailer." YouTube. YouTube, 2006. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Jo8QoOTQ4>. 

Vesna,Victoria. “Lectures Part 1.” Robotics + Art. 17 Apr. 2016. Lecture.

Vesna,Victoria. “Lectures Part 2.” Robotics + Art. 17 Apr. 2016. Lecture.

 "RUR Title Page." RUR Title Page. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. <http://www.umich.edu/~engb415/literature/pontee/RUR/RURsmry.html>. 

 "MONA LISA IS MISSING: A BOOM IN MONA LISA POSTCARDS." MONA LISA IS MISSING: A BOOM IN MONA LISA POSTCARDS. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. <http://monalisadocumentary.blogspot.com/2010/09/boom-in-mona-lisa-postcards.html>. 

Week 2: Math + Art

Among all the things that go against the art, math may always be the first that jumps out of people's minds. However, in this week's lectures, professor Vesna related art and math together by talking about how math help artists to produce stunningly beautiful arts. She introduced perspective, golden ratio and other math-related techniques that enable many artists to make their art more realistic.

A Song Dynasty watercolor painting of a mill in an oblique perspective, 12th century

As a person who deeply in love with drawing, though not very good at it, I always found those techniques useful. The Golden ratio is largely employed by architects and logo designers. The concept of perspective and vanishing point help artists to create realistic art better and easier. But instead of continuing the examples of the paintings in the old days, I want to introduce a relatively new art form to prove the importance of math to art in this blog.

The Flying Carpet by Kurt Wenner

Artists can actually do much more things than just depicting the reality with math. Nowadays, a new form of painting has gradually come in front of the stage - 3D sidewalk painting. Instead of creating realistic paintings on the canvas or paper like those artists mentioned in the lectures, as one of the top 3D sidewalk painter in the world, Edgar Müller produced false impressions of those impossibles to the audience on the street using the same math-related techniques mentioned before. He used lines, shapes, vanishing points and the concept of perspective to create those astounding paintings.

Oliver the Xu uploaded two videos on Youtube that explain the concept and the procedures of 3D sidewalk paintings a few years ago. These two videos clearly show that artists can not create those paintings without the help of mathematics.

                                   

As what professor Vesna indicated in the lectures, people are making math and art into one thing - they are not as separate as what people used to think. With math, art can evolve into higher levels - just like from realistic paintings to 3D sidewalk paintings. Although some of the mixtures of art and math may not be accepted easily by people by now, as indicated in the novel "Flatland", they do push art onto new roads. Math and science are not only the tools to create art but also part of it.



Sources:

Song Dynasty Hydraulic Mill for Grain. Wikipedia. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_(graphical)>.

The Flying Carpet by Kurt Wenner. Top 10 Inspiring and Creative 3D Painting Arts. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. <http://www.elist10.com/top-10-inspiring-creative-3d-painting-arts/>.

Mueller, Edgar. "The Crevasse - Making of 3D Street Art." YouTube. Edgar Mueller, 2009. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SNYtd0Ayt0>. 

Oliver the Xu. "3d Street Art Tutorial How to Part 1." YouTube. YouTube, 2010. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. 

Oliver the Xu. "3d Street Art Tutorial How to Part 2." YouTube. YouTube, 2010. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. 

Abbott, Edwin. “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions.” Web. Apr 10, 2016. http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/eaa/FL.HTM

Week 1: Two Cultures

As a student who major in computer science and have a strong interest in design, I have experienced the phenomena mentioned in the readings "Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution" and "Third Culture: Being in Between" through my first college year.

UCLA has a quite separate campus organizing with art majors on the north campus and science majors on the south. Moreover, many courses in design and media arts majors are not available to students in other majors, even those which are closely related to other fields, for example, game design. Due to this separation in education, I barely have a chance to study design.

Game programming and design cooperate together

However, things changed after I joined a game-developing club. I was not restricted to my major and could active as both a programmer and a designer. During the development, I found out that science and art are closely intermediate. Programmers had to change designer's ideas into code and designers had to think about how to make their design easier for people to use with current technology. Only with this cooperation between art and science could our team make a good game. Luckily, being the "third culture" in this club enabled me to discover the beauty of this merge.

merge of art and science

To be honest, I never thought about the separation of art and science seriously until this week and suddenly all my previous experiences linked up. Indeed, gaps exist between art and science but they are never entirely separate. The "third culture" act as a bridge between them and light up lots of new possibilities. I believe this "third culture" will become the mainstream of education in the future as Sir Ken Robinson mentioned in his video about changing the education paradigms. With different academic fields link together, new ideas will bump up, for example, those that may change the world.



Sources:

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

Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 121-25. Web. 03 April. 2016.

TheRSAorg. "RSA ANIMATE: Changing Education Paradigms." YouTube. YouTube, 2010. Web. 03 April. 2016.

"The Two Cultures." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 03 April. 2016.

SkookumScipt. Web. 03 April. 2016. <http://skookumscript.com/unreal/>. 

EQ. Web. 03 April. 2016. <http://www.eqsa.co.za>.

Sogeti Lab. Web. 03 April. 2016. <http://labs.sogeti.com/author/joo-serk-lee/>.