Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Extra Event #1 Nanoscience

Extra Event #1
Art + Brain & Morpho Nano launch of two catalogs and book signing


          I attended an event about Art and Brain&Nanotechnology. In the session, there were several guest from Irvine and east coast talking about their understandings over art and nanotechnology. They briefly introduced their experience over nanotechnology and art in brain and then also talked about their opinions over nanoart projects. One of the idea impressed me was that art was actually promoting the technology development.  In addition, the second chapter Nanoscience in the signed book drew my attention. 

















          On  the cover page of the chapter 2, there is a quote from Michelangelo saying: "A man paints with his brains not with his hands." The nanoscience deals closely with neurons and human brain structure. Through analyzing the function and the structure of human brain, artists apply the theorem of "Reductionism" in art creations. However, this theorem has sometimes be considered as a mistake since details may be emitted and therefore make the original idea distorted. 

          People often draw an analogy between human brains and computers. In nanoscience, this analogy works, too. Generally, human brains are considered as more mysterious and a more powerful thinking tool. It is self-organized and has innumerable variations and possibilities. Comparably, the utilities of computers are limited and in progress. The intrinsic characteristics of human brains thus provide innumerable inspirations for artistic creation. In addition, people mimic animals' physical structures and then create similarly structured products. For example, the network of neurons in brain can be another analogy to the internet networking.




Sources:

"The Definition of Reductionism." Dictionary.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 June 2016.

Event #3 Blog

      I attended the event lecture by Maria Antonia Gonzáles on Thursday of Week 9. She mainly discussed on art producing and knowledge intersecting with humanities, arts and science. 
      In the beginning, she aimed at art and science. She proposed to narrow down what we understand about art since the idea of art is too broad. It would be more practical to talk about art if we choose specific fields and perspectives of art. Then Maria focused on scientific art. 
 
-- 3D Printer technology
      She asked questions such that in order to manipulate machines, how much do we have to know science? By reading papers? Going to seminars? And How deep should we know science? She gave an example of DIY movement, which aroused my thinking over art production and humanities. Whether should I study more about technologies before I use them? To create better artistic works, do I just need to understand how to use the machines or should I also know the principles behind how those machines function? Besides, Maria led us to think about the natures and artifacts in art production. She presented many questions like how much natures are in art and how should we deal with nature and artifacts in order to let us think over the philosophical side of art production. 

     Later on, Maria showed us the project of Arabidopsis thaliana AG. GUS is a plant, an organism. This project works on flowers and tends to produce the mutant of flowers - superflower. The project plays with the idea of beauty. 

     Meanwhile, there are another biotech art using maize as bio artifact. They has a community to work on transgenetic corns, put the corns in glass and observe behaviors under different circumstances. 
Maris is talking about a meat game.



Sources:
Mearian, Lucas. "Review: LulzBot Mini 3D Printer Delivers Outstanding Details."Computerworld. 2015. Web. 31 May 2016.
"Transgenic Multivitamin Corn through Biofortification of Endosperm with Three Vitamins Representing Three Distinct Metabolic Pathways." Transgenic Multivitamin Corn through Biofortification of Endosperm with Three Vitamins Representing Three Distinct Metabolic Pathways. Web. 31 May 2016.
"Hydroponic Method." Hydroponic Method. Web. 31 May 2016.



Sunday, May 29, 2016

Week 9 Blog

Space and Art

      The Power of Ten presents both an insight into microscopic world and a macroscopic view of the cosmos; from a couple on grass ground, to the blue earth planet, to the solar system, to constellations and the Milky Way, to nebula; also to cell, to DNA, to molecules, to atoms, to electrons... It is amazing how the power of ten shows the beauty of vastness and of minutiae. 
      From the video of Earth to the Heavens, there are many similarities between terrestrial scenes and universal images taken by NASA. The video delivers an idea that "There are patterns of beauty across our Earth and throughout the Universe."
      The left image is the forest of Santa Hycinthe; the right one shows a glowing debris of an exploded star.
      The left picture depicts flamingos on Lake Nakuru in Kenya; the right one shows the hot gas seen in the collision of two galaxy clusters.
      The left one is the Great Barrier Reef and the right picture is the Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant. 
      From the pictures above, we see that there is a distant similarity between the universe and the planet we live. Meanwhile, we believe that there must be more examples to show patterns of beauty between a microscopic world and the magnitude of the environment we live in. 
      In the film Interstellar, a famous scene is that the main character floats across different dimensions, sees the past and future, and tries to make a little difference to the past. Multi-dimensional space has always been an unimaginable and mysterious topic. Nolan made this complex notion visible and intriguing. 

Sources:
"Space and Art." - NASA Watch. Web. 30 May 2016.
Vesna , Victoria, dir. Space Part 1~6. 2012. Film. 30 Nov 2012.
"Leonardo Space Art Project Visioneers." Leonardo Space Art Project Visioneers. Web. 30 May 2016.
"Interstellar Almost Had This Dark, Tragic Ending." - CINEMABLEND. 2015. Web. 30 May 2016.
"Happy Powers of Ten Day!" Powers of Ten Blog. Web. 30 May 2016.




Sunday, May 22, 2016

Week 8 Blog

Nanotechnology and Art

      Nanotechnology is the natural product of the new era, since we are always interested in the smaller world and now we have abilities to see it to some extent. How does it function? How does it look like? How much are we still unknown about? The nanotechnology enables people to visualize and manipulate objects which are small and were invisible for people in the past. According to Jim's video lecture, some people have not realized that they are using nanotechnology, and some others are rejecting nanotechnology in certain fields such as in food industry.

      Nanoscale is about 1-100nm. The nanotechnology works on atomic scale and make new things. According to NanoArt: Nanotechnology and Art, based on the artistic scientific process, the NanoArt creates new nanosculpture and visualizes nanosculpture. Meanwhile, nanoart has prompted new ideas of artistic interpretation of images using different artistic techniques. 

                       

      From the perspective of molecule assembly, the two pictures above represent NE-1 and POV ray and NE-1 and Qutemol respectively (from left to right). This means that different formation process of molecules can produce different products even though they have same and equal elements.

      In addition, the application of nanotechnology in food industry is quite interesting, especially when referred to people's reactions. Some people are against the nanotechnology used in food. Their rejection to this technique is not unfounded. As Jim has implied in the lecture video, a particle on the microscopic scale may differ radically when turned into a nanoparticle or a nanoparadigm. In my opinion, the scientific road to a healthy food market with nanotechnology is going to require scientists deeply understanding the rule and carefully use nanotechnology in food after tons of safety experiments.  


Sources:
Thomas, Paul. Nanoart: The Immateriality of Art. Print.
"Food Nanotechnology." Nanowerk. Web. 22 May 2016.
Gimzewski, Jim, and Victoria Vesna. The Nanomeme Syndrome: Blurring of Fact & Fiction in the Construction of a New Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2012. <http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/publications/publications/02-03/JV_nano/JV_nano_artF5VG.htm>.
"Can Art Make Nanotechnology Easier to Understand?" National Geographic. National Geographic Society. Web. 23 May 2016.
"Recent Appearances, Hessen-Nanotech and Institute of Physics." Welcome to Somewherevillecom. 2007. Web. 23 May 2016.
"The Art of Nanotech." Bits The Art of Nanotech Comments. Web. 23 May 2016.

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

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Week 7 Blog










In recent periods, scientists invent new technologies such as MRI in order to observe the brain activities. Through analysis process, people can actually see how themselves feel and react to different activities. As professor Vesna introduced, we may see mysterious butterfly shape in MRI. This shape implies that there may exist a symmetrical structure inside human brains. Meanwhile, there are different forms of butterfly in MRI and thus also reflect identical mind activities. 






Delving into neuroscientific field, since each tiny neuron or each small part of brain may control an organ's function, it requires large amounts of work to mark each points in brain or each neuron. A method is called Brainbow technology. In the picture below, this technology was used to map human brain in different colors. This new technology inspired art works of mimicking human body or human mind with colors. As well, through the mapping technology, scientists and artists found many special patterns, one of them is fish larvae.


In the beginning of the lecture, Professor Vesna proposed a question, which I found really interesting, is, "Is mind control inevitable." She said yes. To some extent, I agree with her. With alcohol, people can barely control their mind. Some even try poisonous mushrooms and drugs. These chemically effective mind-blower takes control of human minds, translates humans' potential desire into dizzy or even crazy behaviors, fosters magic and unimagined world in minds. Because of the "fantastic" results that drugs can bring, many poets, musicians, artists depend on drugs to look for new inspirations for works. In the end, many of them become addicted. When chemicals may make human minds out of control, they present both good and bad outcomes. 

Sources:
Vesna, Victoria. “Conscious / Memory (Part 1).” Lecture. 16 Nov 2012.  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DLVQIwOn7o8>
Vesna, Victoria. Lecture. “Conscious / Memory (Part 2).” 16 Nov 2012.  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Xlg5wXHWZNI>
        Vesna, Victoria. Lecture. “Conscious / Memory (Part 3).” 16 Nov 2012.  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=E5EX75xoBJ0>
Cohan, Mark. Lecture. 16 Nov 2012.  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eDq8uTROeXU>
"Natural Affinities." Mapping the Marvellous. 2009. Web. 16 May 2016.
"Dangerously Beautiful Poisonous Mushrooms." Imgur. Web. 16 May 2016.
Person, and John Hewitt. "Mapping the Entire Brain with New and Improved Brainbow II Technology." Mapping the Entire Brain with New and Improved Brainbow II Technology. Web. 16 May 2016.



Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Event #2 Blog

Event #2

I attended the event about robotic technology and art design.
During this event, from the perspective of science and fictions in movies, the lecturer list many films like Metropolis, Frankenstein, Star War and so on. Then she mainly concentrated on the part of reality.

She introduced briefly Hanson Robotics, which are from US and move to China. As well, she discussed about the Android robot, which is just a head of Android. It is very human-like and almost indistinguishable from humans. This robot can do daily works. For example, it can help us to put the groceries away; it can be humor and tell cute jokes, like when she said that she would destroy the earth. The lecturer presented an important idea that Android's robots are not only about science and technology, but also about philosophy. This idea gives me some thoughts about the relationship between robots and human consciousness.


These are Professor Hiroshi and robot Geminoid: they look similar. The robot has skins which are really like human skin, with detailed face, on which shows pores, wrinkles and so on. The robot looks almost real. The thought this robot bring to us is that the function of the robot is doing things reversely since the professor is going to be older, but the robot will stay young forever. Hiroshi created this robot to preserve his younger time.
This is the robot Geminoid F with a real girl. There is a story about them: the girl is dying. This robot is created with some of her own organs to mimic herself. Therefore, she might still exist in the world and would not be alone after her leaving the world.

In my opinion, I think that the robot technology may eventually mistake humans selves. Recently, there is a robot answering students' email for months in George Tech University, but no student has realized its existence before acknowledged so. The new technology foster the world to seem like fictionally real, in which we human can even not distinguish the reality and the fiction. Finally, we may live in a fictional world that we create.


Sources:

"Geminoid News, Videos, Reviews and Gossip - Io9." Io9. Web. 12 May 2016.
"Android (robot)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 12 May 2016.
"Pro. Ishiguro Has Received "the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Award" in the Presence of Shaikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum." HIL. Web. 12 May 2016.

Event #1 Blog

Scent Fair

I went to the Scent Fair during the weekend of week 6 at Hammer Museum. The perfume production process is quite fascinating.
In the beginning of the lecture, the lecturer talked about the popular culture of perfumes. For example, the appearance of eau de Toillete, a fragrant oil mix with alcohol that evaporated slowly on skin, changed the way how people think about perfume. The lecturer believed that scent gradually found its way into popular culture and art.
Scent makes sense. There is the experiment workshop in Hammer, in which we can smell different scents and try to interpret them with self understandings. As I know, there are some scent shops in Beijing, called scent library. Customers smell hundreds kinds of scents such as the smell of hug, tears, mud and so on. An interesting set is the scent set of cities, which let customers feel the different smells of cities.
Next, the lecturer introduced the famous Cherry Blossom perfume: a desirable scent during the lost 19-20th generation, as well as the English show Floreadora. This show was really popular and influenced the female of the time. During the time, perfumes could inspire an actress to act by giving her a perfume "jag", since women were crazy about perfumes.
This event is closely related to the course for the close relationship between perfume and art. Perfumes have proved the significant role in art creation; Perfumes played an important role in inspiring women to act; Perfumes to some extent represent the symbol of women's awareness of consciousness. Nowadays, developing different scents/perfumes become a popular art. Moreover, the scent library provides a space for people to enjoy this type of art.


Sources:
"Watch Live." The Hammer Museum. Web. 17 May 2016.
"Perfumes & Cosmetics." : Perfume Production UAE in Springfield. Web. 17 May 2016.
"Florodora." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 18 May 2016.
"Scent Library." Baidu. Web. 18 May 2016.
"Eau De Toilette." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 18 May 2016.

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Week 6 Blog

The techniques that scientists apply to delving into the inner structures and functions of living organs are sometimes considered as artistic techniques. Meanwhile, some question about the morality and ethnics of these techniques such as transgenetics, mutation, selective breeding with animals and so on. As well, there are also a group of people questioning about the aesthetics of using these living tissues as a medium. 




The picture describes a prototype of a stitchless jacket grows in a bioreactor of The Tissue Culture & Art Project. 

As professor Vesna mentioned in lecture video,  since rats have the similar evolution history with human beings, rats are often used in biological experiments to test changes under varied changes. Transgenic rats of unimagined shapes are the eventual real results of these medical and biological studies. Although there is a voice questioning about the humanism of the experiments for rats abuse, the idea of using rats and changing rats still spreads in scientific field and artistic field. The new wave for artists is to  to experiment with using biological structures as a medium.

 In the journal they showed a picture of a mouse with what appeared to be a human ear growing out of its back. The Vacanti mouse was a laboratory mouse that had what looked like a human ear grown on its back. The "ear" was actually an ear-shaped cartilage structure grown by seeding cow cartilage cells into a biodegradable ear-shaped mold and then implanted under the skin of the mouse, then the cartilage naturally grew by itself. By this famous experiment, some scientists realized that life can be used as a raw material. Not only ears, in the future, life can actually produce more and valuable organs. This technology can be used in organ transplantation. 

These kinds of studies arouse many discusses. Many open-minded people support such researches. As well, some people believe these researches are abusing animals and are non-humanistic. In my opinion, I support a thought in the end of the article Bioart: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Using Living Tissue as a Medium, "The idea is to engage with people, involve them in the ethical decision-making and encourage them to understand some of the scientific pursuits being illustrated by the artworks, be it bioengineering or stem cell research." Whether there should (or not) be limits for human creativity should still be discussed. Although those studies will keep going on without any power to stop them, the discussions should continue. I think the truth will come out after being discussed over and over again. 



Sources:
The Tissue Culture and Art Project: http://tcaproject.org/
Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications:
http://nanobioart.artscicenter.com/hybrid/sites/default/files/Ellen_Levy_BioArt.pdf
Vesna, Victoria, narr. “BioTech Art Lectures I-V.” N.p., . web. 5 Nov 2012.
“SymbioticA.” The University of Western Australia. 20 Aug 2012. Web. <http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/>.
"Bioart: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Using Living Tissue as a Medium."Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital. Web. 09 May 2016.
"Ear Mouse." The Famous Pictures Collection. 2013. Web. 09 May 2016.
“The Manifesto.” The Tissue Culture and Art Project. 2009. Web. <http://tcaproject.org/>.