Sydney Olofe DESMA9

This week we delved into the topic of Space and how it's allure inspires all types of artists everywhere. In art, space is defined as "the distances or areas around, between, and within components of a piece" (Esaak). There is no art piece that doesn't include an element of space in it, some type of space can be found within all art pieces. Many artists use space to manipulate it into the vision they see. They could make objects bigger or smaller depending on their place in the space; or if they're a sculptor, they would need to take into account external factors like lighting and where they'll be placed.  Dean, R. (2024, April 3). Michelangelo, Working for God. Signifier. https://medium.com/signifier/michelangelo-working-for-god-9c9ddda9ccfc One person who sat at the forefront of modern space art is Chesley Bonestell who created the modern aesthetic called Descriptive Realism. It prides itself on being an art form that focuses on being scientifically realisti...

When I think of nanotechnology, I often think about all the sci-fi movies that have come out explaining the quirks and mechanics of how they managed to create small particles that can transform our bodies into powerful machines. To my surprise i t seems that society has advanced more than realized as we already include nanotechnology in our everyday use. They can be found in many products like cosmetics, clothing, and even furniture (Opperman). Bush, J. (2018, April 22). Working with nanotechnology. Safetyandhealthmagazine.com; Safety+Health Magazine. https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/16883-nanotechnology In a Ted Talk by Kurzweil, he talks about the technology field and how it will continue to advance at frightening speeds. This realizations leads him to creating Singularity University, which is run by students and faculty that are dedicated into studying and nurturing the rapid development of technology so they can benefit the environment and humanity in the long run (...

Love Machines is a collective of art in different mediums, including an interactive VR headset exploring the mingling of multiple generations to a live human performance exploring their relationships to others and themselves within the context of the internet. The main theme of the collection is to display how using the facets of the internet and its mediums can lead you to learning more about yourself and eventually falling in love with the person you've become (DMA). Photo of "Love Machines" Pamphlet As I was walking through the exhibit the artist who caught my eye the most would be Aurora Mititelu. She submitted two works: Gen/esis and Abel & I . She explained that her projects were based on an Ai-generated depiction of what she believed to be a 'perfect' boyfriend. Aurora's boyfriend is actually a genderbent version of herself and she was able to create him by using a 3D scanner to scan her face and upload it into a program. Through this project she w...

This week we're looking into the growing interest of the human consciousness. Up until this point in life, I never really understood the concept of 'consciousness' and never tried to dive deeper into it until now. In Jung's paper, he expresses that "to be wholly of the present means to be fully conscious of one's existence as a man" (Jung). This compelled me to search deeper and learn how to live. Wikipedia Contributors. “Consciousness.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness. In my search to understand, I was led to the Global Consciousness Project. It's a multi-national collaboration where they attempt to record all of the world's events starting from August 1998. Their reasoning for picking up this project is to demonstrate how the human consciousness can be measured through REGs, or random event generators. These REGs generate long strings of binary numbers and are used to prove that the "human c...

On Wednesday, April 24th, I had the opportunity to visit the Pigeon Art Studio and learn more about the hard work that led to the creation of "Pigeon Art". The overarching goal of Professor Blaisdell and his team is to "understand the 'why' and 'how' of why pigeons make art" to hopefully use them as a stepping stone into understand the fundamentals of human art (Blaisdell). One of the featured birds at the exhibit was Darwin, the star of their event. She's described to be a gentle and sweet bird with the intellect that surpassed the lab's understanding at the time. She was the first pigeon to figure out how to paint using the touchscreen and filled countless screens with imaginative shapes and colors. After years of contribution, Darwin has gone to learn more advance skills; like fast mapping, which is a type of quick learning that ties into the language learning skills seen in children. A photo of Darwin's art piece Another integral pige...

This week we learned about the interconnectedness of medicine, art, and technology. In Hippocratic's modern version of his speech he relays that "there is art to medicine as well as science...". Art pla ys a huge role when it comes to medicine as it's responsible for mapping out the body to creating little characters to get children excited to learn about the benefits of medicine.  An example of this would be Virgil Wong. He is a man that stands at the forefront of medical advancement and technology. He has gone to create a plethora of websites and databases like WeillCornell.com, a healthcare portal that gives patients access to their own health files and an online space where they could virtually contact their doctors. He "create[s] avatars and symptom data visualizations to help physicians see their patients more clearly" and he was able to achieve this with the creation of Medical Avatar. Medical Avatar is a program where you enter one of their "Hea...

This week's topic focused on robots and how they incorporate themselves into art. There's no surprise that robotics is an art form as the scientists that work tirelessly to perfect their craft have to weave in countless amounts of patterns to have a functional robot.  Robots transitions from being machines incapable of feeling emotion to machines that can 'feel' empathy for humans. Many forms of media experiment with this idea daily and you can see an abundance of this topic in children's media. One example would be the Disney Channel movie Meet The Robinsons , as the main character is transported into the future filled with robots who can not only speak but are apart of the family. Unfortunately for the main character, they have to fight against one of their own creations as it gained sentience and tries to destroy the world by using an army of mechanical hats. In lecture it was brought up how easy the assembly line, patented by Ford, was able to create a multitude...