Week 4: MedTech and Art

This week’s topic of Medicine/ Technology and Art was really interesting because things that I see everyday I never connected it to the relationship of medicine and art and how important they really are to each other. In Prof Vesna’s first lecture she mentions that understanding human anatomy is critical for both art and doctors: for artists to be able to dissect the body and accurately represent it in their paintings and for doctors to physically dissect and understand the body. The art that is put into doctors books have to be correct for the sake of accurately learning the inside of the body which make the relationship of medicine and art so crucial.

When trying to find a relationship between medicine and technology and art, plastic surgery is what makes the most sense to me in connecting these two worlds. Opinions set aside, the world of plastic surgery is art, people use plastic surgery for means of sculpting and responding to society. It is the reconstruction of someone’s face, which happens all the time in art, but in this case it’s real.  It was shocking to me that the art of plastic surgery has been around for 4000 years and that it came from war. Many connections between the art and medical world came from war, and injuries endured on the battlefield. 

Plastic surgery can be used for fixing deformities or can be means of expressing oneself, which artist Orlan did. At first I was taken back that she would use her own body as means of entertainment for other people, so I researched her a little more to better understand why she does what she does. She is actually a scholar using her body to question societal body changes, “Orlan is the only artist working so radically with her own body, asking questions about the status of the body in society.” From this I gained a lot of respect for her and how much dedication she has to get her point across.

"Contoversial Artist Orlan The Reincarnation of Saint-Orlan - Creative Mapping." Creative Mapping Controversial French Artist Orlan Is Perhaps Most Infamous for Using Her Own Body as a Tool for a Series of Performancesurgeries Known as The Reincarnation of SaintOrlan Comments. N.p., 04 Aug. 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.

Orlan – Carnal Art (2001) Documentary. Dir. Stéphan Oriach. Perf. Orlan. N.d. Film. YouTube. Web. 26 Oct. 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=no_66MGu0Oo>

"Plastic Surgery." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.

Vesna, Victoria. “Http://www.youtube.com/v/Ep0M2bOM9Tk.” Lecture. Medicine pt1 . Youtube, 21 Apr. 2012. Web. 25 Apr. 2015. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep0M2bOM9Tk>.

Vesna, Victoria. “Http://www.youtube.com/v/FIX-9mXd3Y4.” Lecture. Medicine pt3. Youtube, 22 Apr. 2012. Web. 25 Apr. 2015. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIX-9mXd3Y4>.

"Who Is Orlan?" Who Is Orlan? N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.

Week 3: Robotics and Art

Most technological advances all start from ground zero, which not all people think of ground zero being an artist. The first thing I thought about to represent this relationship was the development of cars. Anything we use today in the “robot world” for example cars, comes from a sketch and from that comes robotic engineering. I thought that this quote was very interesting, “Artful automobiles are all about the symbiosis of man and machine, and not just about basic transportation.” It’s amazing to me how much of the behind the scenes work that is put into final products we forget about. After listening to this weeks lecture on robotics and art I began to understand and appreciate the everyday things that we use being not only a part of technology and robotics but also a whole different world of art.

In this week’s lecture, Professor Vesna talked about that in many ways art has directly influenced the creation of new forms of technology, which until this week I usually thought about it the other way around with all the different advances in the art world due to technology. The thing that I found most interesting was mass production and how it affects the art world and the concept of authenticity.

Although many good things come from this relationship, Walter Benjamin points out that is has actually hindered the art world in the essense of authenticity. Authenticity is prized in the art world because authenticity holds its value and now due to technology it’s very easy to duplicate originals making the prices depreciate.

Douglas Davis goes on to discuss the same idea of the relationship between and original and a replica in his thesis, saying that the distinction between the two is getting smaller and smaller due to digital reproduction. “There is no clear conceptual distinction now between original and reproduction in virtually any medium based in film, electronics, or telecommunications. As for fine arts, the distinction is eroding, if not finally collapsed” (381).

John Myatt’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” (top left) is a copy of Vermeer’s original (top right). Han van Meegeren’s “The Procuress” (above right) is a forgery of Dirck van Baburen’s 1622 painting (above left).

 Images:

"Art Forgeries in the Spotlight at Springfield Museum Show - The Boston Globe." BostonGlobe.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.

"THE PERFECT CAR." Brandpowder. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.

"Welcome to Econs-land! Where Dreams Come True!" Welcome to Econs-land! Where Dreams Come True! N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.

Sources:

"Authenticity in Art." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2015. 

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.

Davis, Douglas. “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction.” The MIT Press, 1995. Web. 18 Apr 2015. <http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1576221?uid=3739560&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101286048881>.

Nick. "Art of the Automobile: Can Cars Be." Mind over Motor. N.p., 04 June 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.

Vesna, Victoria. “CoLE.” CoLE. N.p.. Web. 18 Apr 2015. <https://cole.uconline.edu/~UCLA-201209-12F-DESMA-9-1

Math and Art : Week 2

In this weeks topic of the relationship with mathematics and art it made me really step back and think about how much math influences our everyday lives. Listening to lecture this week help me put in perspective of the art advancements are solely due to the understanding of mathematics.

Without a general understanding of basic geometry, art wouldn’t be where it is today. The concept of perspective I found particularly interesting that it wasn’t always known in the art world. Brunelleschi, credited in the west for his additions to perspective and vanishing point where all parallel lines in a plane converge changed the world of art. These colliding worlds were the essentials to beautiful art. Leonardo Da Vinci was the master at colliding these two worlds and proved that artists and mathmaticians can learn from each other. Da Vinci was someone who did it all in the realms of art and math. He was an expert in both which helped him become arguably the best artist of all time with his works, Mona Lisa, The Last Supper and Vitruvian Man which showed his understanding and mastery of both worlds. 

The article that I found very interesting and helped me understand how influential each world of math and art can be was in the mathematical origami article. It’s an easy way to see really how math influences the art world. Origami is all about the right proportions and uses the golden ratio in many ways. The Golden ratio says that the shorter part is to the longer part as the longer part is to the whole, a very well known math rule. I personally have to use it in my math class that I’m taking now quite often, which is why the Golden ratio stood out to me because although I’m not in the art world, we use the same concepts to do different things which is when it really clicked with me how much one influences the other. 

"Brunelleschi." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.

"Golden Ratio." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.

"Leonardo Da Vinci." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.

"Origami Mathematics." Origami Mathematics. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.

 Vesna, Victoria. “Mathematics-pt1-ZeroPerspectiveGoldenMean.mov.” 12 Apr. 2015. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMmq5B1LKDg&feature=player_embedded>

This week we learned about Two Cultures and how the connection and or disconnect between the two cultures is all around us. It really made me think about how it affects my personal life and the disconnect has been right in front of me for nearly my whole life. I am 20 years old and so is my sister, I am a twin and we couldn't be more different. She is very artistic and has been her whole life where I have little to no artistic ability whatsoever. I've always been drawn to math or equations and having a set answer and she has drifted toward the musical world where you can express yourself in anyway you choose. This is shown through the majors we chose as well, I am an Economics major and she is a Music History major. Being an Economics major the only art exposure I get really is through GE's. My major is isolated from the arts. Snow explains this disconnect of how educated people sometimes don't understand the simplest aspects of each culture.

But then this is where the Third Culture comes in which essentially connects the two separate cultures which Snow didn't mention in his thesis. Although my sister and I are very different we are still able to hold our own in both fields which Snow said they are very different. My favorite quote in The Third Culture which really summed it up for me was "Bridging and synthesizing many worlds while composing "something else" becomes the real art". I think that these people are really important to society and that it takes a special person to be able to merge both worlds and be equally good at both.

I see the connection between science and art in everyday life. One example is the tv show Cosmos. It explains scientific concepts through images and cartoons to make it intriguing to a wider audience, not only scientific thinkers. I believe that connecting the two cultures is the best way to learn because not only are you leanring to master your field but also widening your understanding in other fields.

"Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey." National Geographic Channel. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2015.

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

"The Two Cultures." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2015

Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 121-25. Web. 3 April 2015. 

"What Is Science? From Feynman to Sagan to Asimov to Curie, an Omnibus of Definitions." Brain Pickings RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2015.