erikjensenDESMA9

On May 28, I attended a lecture from guest speaker Toni Dove. Put simply, she builds automatons that tell stories. Through examining different pieces, she was able to interpret the meanings behind some abstract examples of art that use color, motion, and sound to evoke emotion from lifeless objects.  We began by looking at a piece called The Lasso . The exhibit depicts a spinning contraption that emits sounds. What was notable about this piece was its scale; in that it was almost human-sized. This, along with its motion and sounds, gave it an evocative nature. She then explained the phenomena of the uncanny valley. This occurs when a non-human object displays features and has the form of a human. This creates a sense of empathy, yet its differences from actual humans simultaneously gives the object a repelling nature and makes the viewer feel a sense of uncomfortability. In the Lasso, this uncanny valley phenomenon occurred in that the display had an insect-like quality about it, n...

  This week’s topic covers the connection between art and space. It would be impossible to talk about the beginnings of our endeavors into space without mentioning Sputnik. In 1957, the first man-made satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched [5]. [3] Though Sputnik 1 was only the size of a beach ball, it was quite reflective and therefore visible from Earth [5]. The event sent cultural waves around the world, and led to an increased interest in mathematics and science in America; including leading to the creation of NASA [5]. NASA would continue to be a leading force for learning about the vastness of space. Exploration still occurs, and inspires art and our perspective. In a famous lecture by Carl Sagan, he comments on the image of a small pale Earth sent from a distant spacecraft, “ Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light” [3].  Space and art would have a further in...

    This week’s topic revealed a surprising connection between nanotechnology and art. We watched lectures from James Gimszewkski, who has over 35 years of experience in the field. He provided a brief history of the beginnings of nanotechnology, various parallels between it and art, as well as what a possible future of nanotechnology will look like.     Much of the science of nanotechnology was predicted by Richard Feynman in his lecture at the American Physical Society in Pasadena in December 1959. He discussed miniaturization, and how it is theoretically possible to manipulate things on an atomic scale [4]. This would of course come to fruition in the near future, notably with the advent of the scanning tunneling microscope. This new method of observation allowed researchers to capture minute details all the way down to the atomic level; and even allowed researchers to manipulate individual atoms on the surface of materials [5]. [3]       ...

On May 7th, I attended a zoom meeting with lecturer Ann McCoy. While centered around the work of Otto Piene, she discussed other similar artists, as well as the themes that inspired such new approaches. Some of the non-linear works that deconstructed the status quo we are accustomed to were shocking and quite interesting. I would certainly recommend anybody who is intrigued by varying degrees of strange or simple art to attend McCoy’s lecture; or to look further into the work of Piene, the Zero Group, and light projection art.  One piece we specifically focused on was Piene’s Lichtballet. McCoy drew many conclusions from its deceivingly simplistic experience. As Piene’s choreographed lights danced around the exhibit, McCoy drew parallels from this to the ethereal nature of the stars.  [3] The stars were a crucial point of interest for McCoy. McCoy made the point that students and artists from the past had a particularly distinct view from today; in that they maintained a ...

There are many interesting links between neuroscience and art. It is amazing how far we’ve come in the relatively new field of neuroscience. In the late 1700s, Franz Joseph Gall, who was a schoolboy at the time, noticed that his classmates that could memorize long passages with ease all seemed to have prominent eyes and large foreheads [4]. [3] From this he inferred the origins of phrenology; the idea that neural abilities were indicated by external features of the skull and different organs in the brain. Another important figure in this field is Santiago Ramón y Cajal, who is dubbed the father of modern neuroscience. This would be a surprising fate as he was raised in the preindustrial Spanish countryside, far from any labs. However, it seems that the connection to nature that this environment endowed him with would give him a unique perspective from other scientists at the time. In his autobiography, he wrote, “I regret that I did not first see the light in a great city” [2]. ...

  This week’s topic is about the connection between Biotech and Art. It seems like this would be an unusual pairing, but as we have discovered from past weeks, art can be found in unexpected places. I was particularly intrigued by an artist introduced to me from this week’s material named Joe Davis. [1]    Joe Davis created the first genetically-engineered work of art and organized the most powerful radar signals for extraterrestrial intelligence ever transmitted [4]. He is currently a research affiliate in the Department of Biology at MIT, and a research scientist at the George Church Laboratory at Harvard Medical School [2]. Davis first attracted attention in the 1980s with his artwork “Microvenus”, where he used a resistant microorganism that can survive in space to permanently store information about us humans and thus send it to the most distant places and possible other intelligences in the universe [3]. [2] In this project he encoded a symbol for life and femininit...