Emily Leung DESMA 9

I attended the Media Art Nexus talk in Broad Art Center with speakers Ina Conradi and Mark Chavez. There, I got a great understanding of some of the projects they were working on which had a lot of overlapping ideas with this class. This presentation will help me in forming final project ideas through expanding my horizons on different areas of the topics we covered in class, such as the topic of emotions and art which relate to the neuroscience section of the course. I found the work of Chavez to be quite fascinating. He was involved in a lot of 3D modeling projects, and when his powerpoint showed models of the human head, I immediately thought of the Visible Human Project from the week on MedTech and Art. Even though Chavez doesn't have a background in any medical field, his skills and creativity built 3D models that allow society to advance our understanding of the human body. Chavez's work with 3D modeling Chavez also discussed a project he worked on where he built

From this week's material, my mind was blown thinking that science fiction has dictated some important discoveries in space exploration. For example, Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon described weightlessness all the way back in the 19th century! Verne also accurately mirrored a lot of aspects of Apollo 1 in his novel, including that people would return to earth by parachuting into the sea. Similarly Konstantin Tsiolkovsky wrote of a true space station that models space stations we have today. In science fiction, I often think inventions coming out of the work as novel, such as recreations of the DeLorean car from Back to the Future. However, this material has proved that art can actually fuel science as well! A space station being built in 2006. The DeLorean car from the movie Back to the Future Another example of art as a catalyst for space exploration comes from Chelsey Bonestell, an artist who was known as the "father of space art." His paintings

I attended the final MFA showcase of the graduating class of 2018 called "Weak or No Signal." This showcase will help me with thinking of my final project by inspiring me in new ways the integration of technology and art. I saw tremendous cross-roads of technology and art at the showcase: from utilizing custom computer programs to VR headsets, there was no shortage of inspiration at this showcase. From this visit, I know I want to focus on digital technologies for my final project. The first piece that caught my eye was Eric Fanghanel's  C [&]   A  [&]   S  [&]   A  as it really reminded me of the work we saw in class of M.C. Escher. Specifically his pieces  Regular Division of the Plane with Birds  and  Development I  as the  tessellations in Escher's work looked similar to the tessellations in Fanghanel's work. I enjoyed Fanghanel's work more as I really enjoyed the movements the tessellations had on the screen. Eric Fanghanel's  C [&am

There truly is beauty in the tiny. From this week's material the topic that interested me most was how nanotechnology is challenging the way people perceive the world, like in  Nano_essence, and how nanotechnology is being challenged, in the case of ETC Group.  In Nano_essence, we  analyze  a single skin cell under an Atomic Force Microscope to "explore the comparisons between life and death."  Nanotechnology  is challenging when life begins, a question that can be answered many different ways. From a different perspective, nanotechnologies  are  being challenged in their safety, with the ETC Group's site stating that " new nanomaterials potentially [threaten] raw material economies of the south and [pose] new health risks to workers and the public at large." ("Nanotechnology") Nanotechnology both brings up controversial questions in its subjects and is controversial in itself.  Atomic Force Microscope ETC Group staff/board members

We evaluated two different takes on the overlap between neuroscience and art: neurochemical reactions (such as using drugs to stimulate the brain and the brain serving as inspiration and art itself. Drugs were often used to stimulate the brain. Timothy Leary, a Harvard professor that was a strong supporter of LSD, spread the drug to the college campus where people began to take it recreationally. In a sense, the neurochemical reactions taking place in user's brains were art. This idea is also shown in Damein Hirst's work,  Lullaby Spring , where pills are displayed as "delicate pieces of scientific craft." (Hirst) I also interpreted this piece of work as the pills, that can make us hallucinate and have wild dreams, as the art themselves. American Psychologist Timothy Leary, psychedelic drug advocate Damien Hirst's Lullaby Spring The brain serving as inspiration or art itself is displayed in the work of Jonathon Keats, when auctioned off his brain as a s

A fluorescent bunny sounds awesome doesn't it?  Eduardo Kac created a bunny that glowed fluorescent due to injection of jellyfish genes into its system. However interesting this project may have  been , it incited lots of controversy. Animal activists deemed it unethical and scientists did agree that the project was "silly." I agree with animal activists; for the sake of art, mutilating another species is unethical. I feel the same way about Marta de Menezes' work; she manipulated a butterfly's wings to the point where it had holes in them. Animals develop certain traits that make their survival more  likely , but through manipulations such as the ones done from de Menezes and Kac, could harm their well-being even if they were never meant to live in the wild.  Kathy  High's Transgenic Rats is where  the  line gets blurry for me; her work  isn't  just for art but serves as research for  decoding "physiological processes and cure diseased metabolisms.&q