Extra Credit Event 5: Robert Gero Exhibit

Event 5 Robert Gero Exhibit

Robert Gero is an artist working with using mathematics in his art. His exhibit, called Infinity Structures: Paradoxical Spaces, involves the creation of a structure that has a stable exterior and an infinitely expanding interior. This seems contradictory and impossible, since how could a structure have internal dimensions that exceed its external dimensions? 

The exhibit spans the entire room

It would seem like it would explode. Dr. Gero's work tackles this problem where the structures have quantitative additions in space and at the same time  move and express a qualitative change. The result is an interweaving structure made of styrofoam beams interweaving throughout the entire room and rotating lights that simulate the beams' movement.   There is a background soundrack that appears to change in sound intensity as one moves throughout the room and encounters a change in artwork. Since we talked about mathematics in creating perspectives in paintings and drawings, the Styrofoam structures combined with the sense of change in the audiovisual perception  brought in a new way of defining perspective with three dimensional sculptures. 

Dr. Gero talking about his exhibit

Dr. Gero is also a philosopher, so he does a good job of bringing about questioning the traditional. This exhibit also reminded me of how black holes in space form, when a star collapses  on itself, its mass remains the same but the density increases. However, this example is not as paradoxical as Dr. Gero's exhibit of expanding interiors yet constant exterior. I recommend it, but the only problem with this exhibit was that there were too many students from other classes and this made it hard to move about to take pictures. 

Me with the artwork and Dr. Gero to the right and background of the photo 

Extra Credit Event 4 LACMA

Event 4 LACMA

I visited the LA County Museum as an extra credit event. The museum has a variety of artwork that ties the topics of art to math, science, technology, and medicine. Its entrance contains a huge sculpture called Smoke by Tony Smith, first designed in 1967 and recently fabricated using aluminum in 2005. Smith describes his design in 1962 as "interruptions in an notherwise unbroken flow of space". Its  hexagonal and tetrahedral structure is mathematical, similar to how geometry is used to create the perspective views in  art . 

Smoke by Tony Smith

Another example that was relevant to the class in the LACMA is medicine in relation to art. Kienholz's Illegal Operation looks on the concept of abortion in the past where the operations were not done professionally and rather in dangerous conditions as seen through the chair and dirty medical equipment. Kienholz's work is an intersection of medicine and art. Through this work he protests the state of abortion during his time in the 1960's where abortions were illegal and women had to look to illicit means to get an abortion.

Illegal Operation with functional lamp, chair, and dirty medical equipment to left of the photo

A work similar to what I saw at the Fowler Museum's Making Strange exhibit was the mass of car chassis put together to form a sculpture. Like Making Strange, this exhibit recycled waste to form art, except in this exhibit, the waste was technology waste rather than medical items waste. Another work that involved technology were the Islamic inscriptions  praising Allah that were formed by shaping neon lamps. The use of placing a special mirror behind one of these inscriptions to give the appearance of infinite inscriptions also shows the mathematical concept of infinity and shows the use of mathematics in bringing out artistic techniques. The displays of technology to form art reminds me of how closely these two fields are linked.

Car Parts Sculpture

Neon Inscription stating God is Alive, He Shall Not Die 

Overall, the museum contains many examples of art, science, and technology and I recommend it if you wish to see more examples not mentioned in class. One only has to look for them since there are other examples of art only. 

A copy of my admission ticket into LACMA

Event 3 Hammer Museum

Event 3 Hammer Museum

I visited the Hammer Museum for the third event,  and visited the Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio and Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio.

British Designer Thomas Heatherwick's studio designs and produces small to monumental sized projects in the forms ranging from public sculpture to architecture. The work of Heatherwick and the studio is an example of combining function and art for the public's use. For example, one of the studio's designs is Zeitz MOCCA. It is a museum celebrating contemporary African Art and is being built on the site where a grain silo stood in Cape Town, South Africa. To also celebrate the grain silo's historical significance, the studio designed the building to have 42 enormous concrete tubes along with much glass paneling to celebrate both historical and contemporary culture. Other works that have been realized is the rolling bridge that people use to cross the Grand Union Canal. A scaled model for a similar type of bridge for the larger Thames River is proposed in this exhibit too. Most recognizable to me was the 2012 Summer Olympics Cauldron. The 204 "petals" close together as a flower, but also functioned as the torch for the Olympic Games in London. Thus the petals form the artwork, but the cauldron also had to be designed to pipe fuel to sustain the fire and withstand the heat. 

Zeitz MOCCA model

Thames River Rolling Bridge Model

Petal from the 2012 Summer Olympics Cauldron

2012 Summer Olympics Cauldron Model

The other exhibit was Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio. This exhibit is a sculptural model for a catchment of the Los Angeles River water via a waterwheel that will be built this year in Downtown Los Angeles. It is called The Catch and has the sounds that the waterwheel will make as it functions to reroute some of the water back to the city. The water lens creates a reflection that is similar to reflections of water as the wheel will carry. Given the current talk of water conservation in California, the Catch is meant to make viewers think of the new methods to bring freshwater back into cities. 

The Catch

The Device that Creates the Waves of the Catch

Thus what I learned from these exhibits was the impact of contemporary styles of art and architecture on society.  Even though they are already prevalent and part of culture, we might not notice right away the science and art that was involved in designing them. I would recommend the Hammer Museum to classmates.

Me with a Hammer Museum Employee

week 9 Space and Art

Space, like mathematics and medicine, has always been in the focus of art and science. Since ancient times, people have looked to the movement of the stars both for practical and artistic purposes. For example, from Gary Thompson. ancient civilizations and the Greco-Egyptian scholar Ptolemy viewed some groups of stars or constellations as resembling mythical figures or objects such as Orion the hunter and the Big and Little Dippers. From Bruce McClure, sea faring peoples have always looked to the North Star to guide their ship navigation before the compass's invention and widespread use. In addition, a well known part of science that was focused on during the Renaissance was astronomy, with the works of Copernicus and Galileo challenging the church's accepted belief in that the earth is the center of the solar system.

Even in today's society, space is a topic that is very prevalent in both art and science. Space could probably have the most publicity in the field of art and science, as almost every elementary school has taught students about NASA's role in probing planets and asteroids, sending spacecraft into orbit, and sending men to the moon. Kepler's three laws describing planetal orbit is taught in introductory physics textbooks (Serway 214). Most people are familiar with space related movies such as Star Wars, ET, and Star Trek. Star wars: Empire Strikes Back was even added to the Library of Congress in 2010 according to Jordan Zakarin.  Even in high school, I remember watching and having to analyze 2001: A Space Odyssey for English class.

Historically, a shift in  education with an emphasis on math, engineering, and technology came about with the space race during the Cold War. According to Larry Abramson,  Russia's launching of Sputnik, a satellite just meant to catch the world's attention with its simple radio signals and highly visible reflective surface, pushed the United States to catch up by focusing more on math and science. Overall, Sputnik could be considered a work of both art and science that served as a catalyst that helped bring about change in the United States' education system.  

Abramson, Larry. "Sputnik Left Legacy for U.S. Science Education." NPR. NPR, 30 Sept. 2007. Web. 30 May 2015. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14829195>.

McClure, Bruce. "Star of the Week: Polaris Is the North Star | EarthSky.org." EarthSky. N.p., 26 May 2015. Web. 30 May 2015. <http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/polaris-the-present-day-north-star>.

Serway, Raymond A. College Physics. Pacific Grove, CA: Thomson-Brooks/Cole, 2006. Print.

Thompson, Gary. "Illustration Gallery." History of Constellation and Star Names. N.p., 1 Nov. 2014. Web. 30 May 2015. <http://members.westnet.com.au/gary-david-thompson/page11-26.html>.

Zakarin, Jordan. "'The Empire Strikes Back' Inducted Into Library of Congress' Film Registry." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 28 Dec. 2010. Web. 30 May 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/28/the-empire-strikes-back-inducted-into-library-of-congress-film-registry_n_802041.html>.

Event 2 Kathy High Exhibit

Event 2 Kathy High Exhibit

Kathy High is well known as an artist working with biotehnology. Her work involving white blood cell interaction called Blood Wars at SymbioticA and her exhibits involving care for research mice  have been introduced in lecture. Her exhibit here involves a discussion on a subject matter that is not commonly talked about in art, human feces. The paintings displayed, called the Remediator Series,show a mutualistic relationship between people, the environment, and the large intestine. They represent how important human waste and the organs producing it are important to us, making us think about them more than we really do.

The Remediator Series artwork

From my science classes and from the video playing at her exhibit, human feces transplants have been a subject of much recent research in the biomedical sciences. The human colon contains many species of bacteria that exist in a mutualistic relationship with the human body. These are good bacteria and prevent pathogenic species of bacteria from invading the colon. When these mutualistic bacteria are killed either due to a malfunctioning immune system or by antibiotic use, there is new empty space on the colon surface for pathogenic bacteria C. difficile  to invade. This invasion can be cured by reintroducing the mutualistic bacteria by taking a fecal sample containing the  bacteria from a healthy person and having the patient ingest it. To be able to preserve the fecal matter before transplant, expensive storage procedures involving cryogenics have to be carried out on the feces. Kathy High tackles this expensive problem in her work where she preserves the feces in honey. She explains that the honey preserves the feces in a much more inexpensive way. This work is thus a commentary on making medicine more accessible  to everyone.

Artist Kathy High is crouched in the background, explaining her display of feces preserved in honey

Finally, Kathy High herself suffers from Crohn's disease, an autoimmune disease of the colon as mentioned in lecture and her exhibit. The third part of her work shows large self-portraits of her and a letter to David Bowie. The letter expresses her hope of it and her self-portraits reaching David Bowie and that he will give her a sample of his feces so that she can try the new experimental method of treating Crohn's disease with a fecal transplant.

These are the self portraits of Kathy High and her letter to David Bowie.

Overall, this was a thought provoking exhibit where I could relate art with the medical and biotechnology I learned just a quarter ago in microbiology class. It was great to see human waste, a controversial art subject as seen when other artists spark huge debate when they involve it, as art in real life. The exchange of artistic self portraits for fecal matter to be used for cure is also an interesting way of obtaining medicine that is often bought through cash or insurance. I recommend it to classmates.

Myself with the manager of the CNSI art gallery. 

Week 8 nanotech and art

Nanotechnology is a rapidly expanding field of science and art. Materials that behave as we normally know in bulk form, do not behave when they are of the nanoscale size, which is between 1 to 100 nm. For example, according to Zeeya Merali, the ancient Roman Lycurgus Cup appears to be yellow green when lit from the front but red when lit from behind due to the Romans mixing finely ground mixtures of nano-particles of gold and silver as they made the glass. Merali also describes more modern experiments that placed different liquids into tiny glass wells containing gold and silver nanoparticles, and different colors were produced as a result.  Gold and silver as we know in bulk form do not possess this red color. Thus, the cup, along with stained glass windows in cathedrals, are examples of art and nanotechnology informing one another in their works.  

Lycurgus Cup. A shows lighting outside, B shows lighting inside cup

More modern examples of nanotechnology in science include the use of quantum dots to track molecules and diagnose diseases. Quantum dots are semi conductors within the nanoscale range and due to this size, quantized effects of single colors for each type of quantum dot composition and size can be observed (Rossetti and Brus 4470). Due to their small size and unique colorings, quantum dots can therefore be attached to synthetic or biological molecules and cellular structures to track their movements or presence with great sensitivity (Li and Zhu 2507). Diseases caused by pathogens or cancerous cells often produce unique molecules, called antigens. Diagnosing these diseases can be improved by being able to detect them at earlier stage when there is less antigen present. With the characteristic colors of nanoparticles such as gold along with their ability to be chemically modified to bind to these antigens, the sensitivity of diagnoses can be improved (Tang and Hewlett S59).

Quantum dot solutions containing the same semiconductor but of different particle size

Finally, there are many examples art and nanoscience combined. The California Nanosystems Institute's facilities have large photographs of specimens that were being researched taken at the nanoscale using electron microscopy or scanning tunneling microscopy. Examples include wings of a butterfly or semiconductor surfaces. Similarly, the electron microscope manufacturer FEI hosts electron microscope photograph competitions. In addition, similar to how diagrams can make science easier to understand, artwork can help make nanotechnology more engaging according to Stefan Lovgren. Overall, the unique images created by nanoscale imaging makes it possible for both art and science to work together.

Vermiculite, a silicate compound, as seen under electron microscope

 References

Li, Jingjing, and Jun-Jie Zhu. "Quantum dots for fluorescent biosensing and bio-imaging applications." Analyst 138.9 (2013): 2506-15. Print.

Lovgren, Stefan. "Can Art Make Nanotechnology Easier to Understand?" National Geographic. National Geographic Society, 23 Dec. 2003. Web. 23 May 2015. <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/12/1223_031223_nanotechnology.html>.

Merali, Zeeya. "This 1,600-Year-Old Goblet Shows That the Romans Were Nanotechnology Pioneers." Smithsonian. N.p., Sept. 2013. Web. 23 May 2015. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/this-1600-year-old-goblet-shows-that-the-romans-were-nanotechnology-pioneers-787224/?no-ist>.

Rossetti, R., and L. Brus. "Electron-hole recombination emission as a probe of surface chemistry in aqueous cadmium sulfide colloids." The Journal of Physical Chemistry 86.23 (1982): 4470-72. Print.

Tang, Shixing, and Indira Hewlett. "Nanoparticle-based immunoassays for sensitive and early detection of HIV-1 capsid (p24) antigen." Journal of Infectious Diseases 201.Supplement 1 (2010): S59-S64. Print.

Event 1 Fowler

Event 1 Fowler museum

For Event 1, I visited the Fowler museum's Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem. This exhibit by Vivan Sundaram, is comprised of sculptures of clothing made from recycled waste materials. Some of the materials included hair, vacuum tubing, handbags, corrugated rubber, bicycle tires, and consumable medical supplies such as medicine packets and surgical hair covers. By turning trash into unique pieces of clothing, Sundaram shows a way that trash from a technological world filled with manmade materials can be turned into art. Thus one of the ideas that I got out of this is the use of modern materials created through science to produce art, rather than natural materials such as stone, canvas, and mineral pigments.

The trash is turned into a sculpture of clothing. Interestingly, this clothing's main purpose is not for humans to wear. It is meant to exist as a sculpture to be fit onto a mannequin, with the manequin as another important part of the artwork. Sundaram' work is a commentary on the culture of consumerism and the human body. The use of trash to create clothing such as bicycle tires demonstrates how people throw out clothing and other fashion items for newer novel items. In addition, the use of medical waste such as X-ray film and medicine packets goes well with the medical technology and art section of the class.

I learned in class of the use of MRI's, anatomical drawings, and implants as examples of medical technology contributing to artistic expression. The use of existing medical supplies, including the X-ray images, to form sculptures of clothes is thus another unique way to incorporate medical technology into art. Finally, the sculptures of human anatomy remind me of the beginnings of medical art through studying anatomy and dissections. Overall, I would recommend this exhibit since it fits well with the class concept of medical technology and art and it would benefit you to see a thought provoking way in which medical technology has been made art, that is using pre existing medical supplies. 

Myself with the museum staff