DMA 9 FINAL PROJECT
AN OUTER BODY EXPERIENCE
https://docs.google.com/a/g.ucla.edu/file/d/0B0nwJSJO9cxVSHlLLUtWUzkzMkE/edit
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Boyhood | Event 4
Before I start this blog post, I just want to say that Boyhood was one of the best (if not the best) movie I've ever watched. It is absolutely unparalleled in its capture of real emotions and true growth, an ideal that is often sought after in film but rarely ever achieved.
I saw the trailer for Boyhood back in early-July and was immediately intrigued by its concept in relation to this class. As background information, the director of Boyhood, Richard Linklater, cast Ellar Coltrane when he was 6 years old and filmed the entire cast every year from 2002-2013 to create an epic movie that spans an actual 12 years through a fictional plotline. Movies spanning years or even lifetimes (i.e. Benjamin Button) are not a new concept, but Boyhood is the first movie to utilize the same actors over such a long period of time, to an extent where you watch Ellar grow from a baby 6-year old with immature social skills to an 18-year old entering college and pondering the state of his humanism and existence.
This results in an intriguing concept that conflicts with a preconceived notion of the arts. Commonly (or at least from my perspective before watching this movie), art seems to capture one concept in one moment of time. In viewing art from a historical perspective, we often ask "how does this work of art reflect the ideologies of the time in which it was produced". Instead of focusing on just capturing a moment in time like photographs or paintings, cinema + Linklater's unique concept creates a unique, overlapping relationship with time, in which the character growth in the fictional plotline is made so much more realistic through the physical passing of time that you witness on screen (that can't be replicated as realistically using different sets of actors).
This sentiment is best represented as quoted in Slate, "Among the arts, cinema has a unique relationship with time. Like photography, film captures a moment in permanent, reproducible form; but like music and dance, it also moves through time itself, requiring the listener or viewer to invest some portion of her allotted hours on Earth in accompanying its unspooling. Film can’t help but show time passing; that might be thought of as its most irreducible function, whether the object in frame is the Empire State Building in Andy Warhol’s Empire or Alida Valli striding coldly up the boulevard past Joseph Cotten at the end of The Third Man. Something (or in Warhol’s case, nothing) happened; a camera was there to record it; and though you can rewatch that past moment as often as you like, it will never take place again."
From yet another perspective, in watching a "timeless" piece of art evolve through the passage of time, you can also learn about societies. For example, tracking the Mona Lisa from its humble beginnings, to its ascent in becoming the most recognized work of art in the world, you can learn much about how time has affected the painting and society's perception of the painting, if you look at the world from the eyes of Mona Lisa and how she has 'withstood the test of time'. It would be an interesting concept to personify these famous paintings and look at the world from "behind the painting". Imagine yourself as the Mona Lisa -- imagine what interesting things you see every day, as thousands of people from around the world flock to the Lourve daily just to see you! It would be an unparalleled and extremely interesting perspective on the diversity (and commonalities) present in the human condition.
I saw the trailer for Boyhood back in early-July and was immediately intrigued by its concept in relation to this class. As background information, the director of Boyhood, Richard Linklater, cast Ellar Coltrane when he was 6 years old and filmed the entire cast every year from 2002-2013 to create an epic movie that spans an actual 12 years through a fictional plotline. Movies spanning years or even lifetimes (i.e. Benjamin Button) are not a new concept, but Boyhood is the first movie to utilize the same actors over such a long period of time, to an extent where you watch Ellar grow from a baby 6-year old with immature social skills to an 18-year old entering college and pondering the state of his humanism and existence.This results in an intriguing concept that conflicts with a preconceived notion of the arts. Commonly (or at least from my perspective before watching this movie), art seems to capture one concept in one moment of time. In viewing art from a historical perspective, we often ask "how does this work of art reflect the ideologies of the time in which it was produced". Instead of focusing on just capturing a moment in time like photographs or paintings, cinema + Linklater's unique concept creates a unique, overlapping relationship with time, in which the character growth in the fictional plotline is made so much more realistic through the physical passing of time that you witness on screen (that can't be replicated as realistically using different sets of actors).
This sentiment is best represented as quoted in Slate, "Among the arts, cinema has a unique relationship with time. Like photography, film captures a moment in permanent, reproducible form; but like music and dance, it also moves through time itself, requiring the listener or viewer to invest some portion of her allotted hours on Earth in accompanying its unspooling. Film can’t help but show time passing; that might be thought of as its most irreducible function, whether the object in frame is the Empire State Building in Andy Warhol’s Empire or Alida Valli striding coldly up the boulevard past Joseph Cotten at the end of The Third Man. Something (or in Warhol’s case, nothing) happened; a camera was there to record it; and though you can rewatch that past moment as often as you like, it will never take place again."
The concept of time itself as a major factor in art is not something that I seriously considered before this movie. As quoted by Sophia.org:
"Art exists in time as well as space. Time implies change and movement; movement implies the passage of time. Movement and time, whether actual or an illusion, are crucial elements in art although we may not be aware of it. An art work may incorporate actual motion; that is, the artwork itself moves in some way. Or it may incorporate the illusion of, or implied movement."
It's then interesting to revise the perspective I illustrated above. Even in still artwork, artists can convey the passage of time, just as they can convey emotions and lessons through still work. With the increasing technology we have in representations of art, interactive displays and moving works of art such as cinema can now traverse and physically represent the passage of time as a vector in which to convey the overall emotion and concept of their artwork. This idea extends even further than just physical artwork -- In PBS' documentary, Time, Charles Atlas opens with a tap performance, illustrating how tap dance is an impression of time itself.
Thinking big scale about the concept of art + time, if you look at all of art in the history of time, you can thus also track the movements of cultures and ideologies through the perspective of art. Art thus visualizes the passage of time in a meaningful, representative way that can't often be conveyed simply through the words or text of a historical source.
From yet another perspective, in watching a "timeless" piece of art evolve through the passage of time, you can also learn about societies. For example, tracking the Mona Lisa from its humble beginnings, to its ascent in becoming the most recognized work of art in the world, you can learn much about how time has affected the painting and society's perception of the painting, if you look at the world from the eyes of Mona Lisa and how she has 'withstood the test of time'. It would be an interesting concept to personify these famous paintings and look at the world from "behind the painting". Imagine yourself as the Mona Lisa -- imagine what interesting things you see every day, as thousands of people from around the world flock to the Lourve daily just to see you! It would be an unparalleled and extremely interesting perspective on the diversity (and commonalities) present in the human condition.
Sources:
"Elements of Art: Movement and Time." Sophia. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Aug. 2014. <http://www.sophia.org/tutorials/elements-of-art-movement-and-time>.
"Time." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 2 Aug. 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/art21/films/time>.
"Sundance: Boyhood and Richard Linklater's 4,207-Day Shoot." Vulture. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Aug. 2014. <http://www.vulture.com/2014/01/sundance-boyhood-richard-linklater-12-years.html>.
Cantwell, Lucy. "Art and Time." Artwrit. N.p., 1 Jan. 2011. Web. 2 Aug. 2014. <http://www.artwrit.com/article/art-and-time/>.
Stevenson, Seth. "Boyhood Reveals What Richard Linklater’s True Subject Has Been All Along." Slate Magazine. Slate, n.d. Web. 2 Aug. 2014. <http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/07/boyhood_review_richard_linklater_movie_highlights_his_true_subject_as_a.html>.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Joel Ong Lecture | Event 3
Joel Ong: Sound | Art
Joel Ong is an artist who has most recently completed a graduate Biological Arts degree at SymbioticA, University of Western Australia. According to Exhibition Road, "he is primarily interested in the definitions of listening that are developed from interdisciplinary research, extending scientific explorations of physical resonance and vibrations, to the psychological, anthropological and imaginative premise of sound and embodiment. He is also a musician who perhaps devotes too much time to his instruments and his guitar-dissonant melodies."
Last Thursday, I went to listen to Joel Ong's lecture on sound art! It was interesting to learn about how he processes sound -- he spent most of the lecture laying the groundwork for sound terminology and explaining how sound processing works (and how it differs based on perspective and form person-to-person). He first showed us Mr. Foley (video seen above), which centers around the fact that sound is always all around us, and shows a man trying to escape a band following him around "soundtracking" his life. After showing us the video, Ong explained his interest in how we listen to sound and the different theories that come out of it.
What is Sound?
Ong then went into a basic description of sound, first asking the age-old question "If a tree falls in a forest...". This led into a discussion of sound as a relationship between the listener and the environment, a relationship that is always changing depending on how you move your head and position yourself. At one end, the perspective is grounded in mathematical ratios and acoustic, from the frequency and the wavelength to the sound. At the other, perspectives are grounded in your psychosocial perception of sound and how you individually process the melding of different pitches together. Pythagoras (570-495BC) was interested in these harmonies, in listening intently to sounds, and using different-sized objects to create a multitude of different pitches. He was a pioneer of the Musica Universalis (Music of the Spheres), a proposition that all celestial bodies produce a unique hum, stemming from their orbital resonance. It was funny to learn that Earth's hum is actually pretty dissonant compared to that of other planets!
What is Sound?
Ong then went into a basic description of sound, first asking the age-old question "If a tree falls in a forest...". This led into a discussion of sound as a relationship between the listener and the environment, a relationship that is always changing depending on how you move your head and position yourself. At one end, the perspective is grounded in mathematical ratios and acoustic, from the frequency and the wavelength to the sound. At the other, perspectives are grounded in your psychosocial perception of sound and how you individually process the melding of different pitches together. Pythagoras (570-495BC) was interested in these harmonies, in listening intently to sounds, and using different-sized objects to create a multitude of different pitches. He was a pioneer of the Musica Universalis (Music of the Spheres), a proposition that all celestial bodies produce a unique hum, stemming from their orbital resonance. It was funny to learn that Earth's hum is actually pretty dissonant compared to that of other planets!
Acoustics: sound – sound is our perception of sensation created by a vibrating source, that disturbs molecules of liquid, gas, or solid, within certain range of frequencies
Cynatics
We then watched an interesting TED Talk: Making Sound Visible through Cynatics (Evan Grant). This talk further delved into the objective and perceptual sides to sound. What I found most interesting about the discussion of this portion in sound is that sound surrounds us constantly. There is never a waking (or sleeping) moment where you aren't surrounded by the hums of the earth, the whirrs of a computer, or the rushes of flowing water. Sound is so omnipresent that it becomes easy to block out sound and have your brain discard this input as background, irrelevant stimuli.
We then watched an interesting TED Talk: Making Sound Visible through Cynatics (Evan Grant). This talk further delved into the objective and perceptual sides to sound. What I found most interesting about the discussion of this portion in sound is that sound surrounds us constantly. There is never a waking (or sleeping) moment where you aren't surrounded by the hums of the earth, the whirrs of a computer, or the rushes of flowing water. Sound is so omnipresent that it becomes easy to block out sound and have your brain discard this input as background, irrelevant stimuli.
What is Listening?
The above realization about sound thus made the concept of listening all the more important. Ong posed the question -- "Removing other senses, what is the best way to listen?" and referenced a multitude of other projects that focused participants on directed listening. I thought the most interesting was the Anechoic Chamber, where there is no echoing of sound from external sources (picture seen above). I'm very interested in experiencing UCLA's Anechoic Chamber!
Ong then spent a significant portion of his lecture discussing John Cage (1912-1992), who famously stated "Until I die, there will be sounds". Even in the anechoic chamber, Cage heard two sounds, the sound of his nervous system operating (high), and the sound of his blood circulating (low). He pondered whether or not we can experience true silence while we were alive, and implemented many performance pieces focusing listening to silence and the lack of noise rather than listening to jarring or composed sounds. The most famous of such performances is 4'33", where a composer sits on stage with a full orchestra and conducts a 4'33" long piece of silence. It's a very interesting concept -- even when we watched it in class I became much more cognizant of "background" noise like shuffling of feet, coughing, etc.
Other cool sound art projects:
The above realization about sound thus made the concept of listening all the more important. Ong posed the question -- "Removing other senses, what is the best way to listen?" and referenced a multitude of other projects that focused participants on directed listening. I thought the most interesting was the Anechoic Chamber, where there is no echoing of sound from external sources (picture seen above). I'm very interested in experiencing UCLA's Anechoic Chamber!
Ong then spent a significant portion of his lecture discussing John Cage (1912-1992), who famously stated "Until I die, there will be sounds". Even in the anechoic chamber, Cage heard two sounds, the sound of his nervous system operating (high), and the sound of his blood circulating (low). He pondered whether or not we can experience true silence while we were alive, and implemented many performance pieces focusing listening to silence and the lack of noise rather than listening to jarring or composed sounds. The most famous of such performances is 4'33", where a composer sits on stage with a full orchestra and conducts a 4'33" long piece of silence. It's a very interesting concept -- even when we watched it in class I became much more cognizant of "background" noise like shuffling of feet, coughing, etc.
Other cool sound art projects:
- Bernard Parmegiani – De Natura Sonorum sound artist
- Max Neuhaus – Water Whistle Series (listen while underwater)
- Can your ears blink?
- Carrie Ann Simpson: “Noise Cancellation: Disrupting Audio Perception”
Sources:
"Exhibition Road | Ong, Joel." Exhibition Road Joel Ong Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://www.exhibitionroad.com/6601/joel-ong>.
"John Cage - About the Composer." PBS. PBS, 1 Aug. 2001. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/john-cage/about-the-composer/471/>.
Ahern, Mike, and Enda Loughman. "Mr. Foley." Vimeo. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://vimeo.com/20606655>.
Cox, Trevor. "Does an anechoic chamber cause hallucinations?." The Sound Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://acousticengineering.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/does-an-anechoic-chamber-cause-hallucinations/>.
Ong, Joel. "Sound | Art." . N.p., n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://www.arkfrequencies.com>.
Joel Ong Lecture Notes | Event 3
Joel Ong: Sound Art
-
Interested in how we listen to sound and the
different theories that come out of it
-
Mr. Foley: talks about the presence of sound all
around us
What is Sound?
-
If a tree falls in a forest…
-
Sound with reference to a listener vs. the environment
-
Modern philosophy: sound is always a
relationship (depending on how you move your head, position yourself,
relationship is always changing)
-
Keywords: Tuning, Resonance, Feedback,
Environment
-
Pythatgoras: 570BC to 495BC – phythagorial
theorem
o Interested
in harmony, listening intently to sounds, mathematical ratios, and geometry.
Realized that hitting different-sized objects creates different pitches
o Musica
Universalis – Harmony/Music of the Spheres
§
Pythagoras proposed that all celestial bodies
all produce a unique hum based on their orbital resonance
§
Earth actually sounds pretty dissonant compared
to other planets
-
Acoustics: sound – sound is our perception of
sensation created by a vibrating source, that disturbs molecules of liquid,
gas, or solid, within certain range of frequencies
Cynatics
-
Cynatics: TED Talk: Making Sound Visible through
Cynatics (Evan Grant)
-
Objective and perceptual sides to sound
-
Acoustic: frequency, amplitude, spectrum,
duration, velocity
-
Perceptual: pitch
What is Listening?
-
Removing other senses, what is the best way to
listen?
-
Bernard Parmegiani – De Natura Sonorum sound
artist
-
Max Neuhaus – Water Whistle Series (listen while
underwater)
-
Can your ears blink?
-
Carrie Ann Simpson: “Noise Cancellation:
Disrupting Audio Perception”
-
Anechoic Chamber – whatever is in the chamber,
does not echo, there is no external sound source
-
John Cage (1912-1992) – “Until I die, there will
be sounds”
o Went
to an anechoic chamber and still heard two sounds- high = nervous system, low =
blood circulation
o Notion
of silence: can we experience it while we are alive?
o 4’33”
– performance piece with no sound, each person’s perception is different
§
My experience: watching it on an edited video is
much different than experiencing it in real life
o Also
composed with plants – amplified cacti, chess boards, tennis rackets, etc.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Christopher O'Leary Lecture | Event 2
Black Hole Simulation
Christopher worked with physicists at the University of Montana to study black holes. From a photographer's prospective, he wanted to emphasize the spiral nature of black holes that interact with each other. Thus, he worked with physicists descriptions, and through algorithmically generated code, created a visual representation of black holes. He emphasized that combining art and science was a learning process, from understanding the different languages and numbers of science, to balancing the push-and-pull between being numerically accurate while also creating an immersive aesthetic experience. The final product was displayed as a giant projection, which was awesome to see.
Black Hole Animation from Christopher O'Leary on Vimeo.
Another project Christopher is working on is the Griffith Observatory Cloud Chamber. The Cloud Chamber is a relatively simple device invented in the 20th century -- it is a plexiglass box full of supercooled vapor. Cosmic rays and particles from the sun, along with background radiation from the environment, magnetizes this cooled vapor, rendering particles within the continuous stream of gas within the box. As such, the lines that you see transiently pop up in the vapor are the result from stars and other planetary forces! In completing this project, O'Leary aims to visualize the invisible through innovative mediums, and as Dr. Ed Krupp of the Griffith Observatory stated, "This isn't education this is spectacle -- putting your body in relationship with galactic scale."
O'Leary also took a trip to Occidental College to view their dark matter detector, known as the "Time Projection Device". This device attempts to physically capture dark matter through fine threads of steel. When dark matter hits a single nucleus, a single electron will bounce off and be detected by these thin steel wires. He said that this rare event only is projected once very few years!! The machine itself was beautiful, and contained a silky metallic sheet within the steel wires, which we learned is actually a solar sail (light pushes the sail to create energy!)SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
The final project that Christopher told us about was a photography series he shot of SETI. SETI was a research institution founded at Berkeley, and was the world's first crowdsourcing platform. These huge satellites slowly turn in arcs and listen to different patches of the galaxy. The 'noise' that they collect is translated into picture data that looks like fuzz. Thousands of people are part of the SETI project, looking through these data jpgs to find patterns that may indicate extraterrestrial communication. Interestingly enough, when these "fuzz" images are overlayed, they will slowly begin to form stars! Additionally, O'Leary brought up the point that the fuzz is maybe we can't understand because we are looking for human-based communication -- perhaps the fuzz itself is a form of communication that we cannot understand. Professor Vesna then brought up an equally interesting observation that SETI members are studying sound, but instead of listening to this sound, they are asked to look at this visual representation.
Overall Lessons
I loved O'Leary's mission to visualize the invisible principles that surround and affect our daily lives. It was very interesting to see that much of his artwork is rooted in mathematics and the coding of algorithms, reinforcing to me that math is just like spoken word language in its ability to convey concepts. The way that O'Leary described how he tweaks his codes and algorithms to enact small changes in the artwork was a great parallel to artists mixing in paint to create slightly different shades of color, or writers adding in adjectives to give extra weight to a certain sentence. Regardless of the medium of communication, all are masterpieces in their own right!
Sources:
"Christopher O'Leary." Christopher O'Leary. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 July 2014. <http://cargocollective.com/chrisoleary>.
"SETI 101." SETI Institute. SETI Institute, n.d. Web. 29 July 2014. <http://www.seti.org/node/662>.
O'Leary, Christopher. "Black Hole Animation." Vimeo. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 July 2014. <http://vimeo.com/64747163>.
O'Leary, Christopher. "Griffith Observatory Cloud Chamber." Vimeo. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 July 2014. <http://vimeo.com/97283293>.
Snowden-Ifft, Daniel. "Searching for Dark Matter." Daniel Snowden-Ifft. Occidental College, n.d. Web. 29 July 2014. <https://www.oxy.edu/faculty/daniel-snowden-ifft>.
Christopher O'Leary Lecture Notes | Event 2
Christopher O’Leary- Worked with physicists at University of Montana to study
black holes- Jets that fire out superheated materials from
either side-
Zoom role orbit – bizarre spiral of two black
holes circling each other-
Rendering physicists desciptions through
algorithmically generated code-
Generating forces that are science accurate,
from gravitational waves recorded in space-
Photographer combining code and wavesounds
generated by the spirals-
Artist instinct push and pull with physicist’s
ideas – balance between being accurate and being an aesthetic experience-
5gb text file of sheer numbers-
Installation- giant projection of the baby
crawling around the spiral
Experience motivated him to craft his art- Inspired by Richard Feynman lectures, Feynman diagrams- Light paint a Feynman diagram of his studio- Some representation of science, using the surface of the image, and the figure is there- Had been working on project for years and didn’t know it
Griffith Observatory Cloud Chamber- Current project in the basement of the Griffith Obsevatory- Device invented in the early 20th century, a plexiglass box full of supercooled vapor- Cosmic rays and particles from the sun, combined with background radiation, magnetizes the vapor, which renders particles in the gas- Lines that you see within the vapor comes from stars and other planetary forces, renders something that is always present but never visible- Interested in ways to visualize the invisible through imagery- Relatively easy to make!- Met with director of Griffith (Dr. Krum?), who researches archaea-astronomy, studying ancient people’s understanding of the universe- Is there a cultural context of this in the 20th century? How do we come to understand these things from a culture perspective.- This isn’t education, this is spectacle – putting your body in the relationship with galactic scale- Metaphor for his project – rendering the invisible (theme of his work!) Other Inspirations-
Rendering of a cloud chamber onto an audio
record-
Instructions of how to make something in the
gallery, done by other people, much like code or generative animation-
Trevor Paglan – interested in surveillance,
figures out where spy satellites are in the sky, positions himself, and
photographs it zipping through the sky (uncovering things in the landscape)-
Alan Seccula – documentation of labor and
commerce – documentary/video following shipping company moving around the world-
All of these are interesting to him because
science and cosmology interact with the landscape in really interesting ways
To The Future- Dark matter detector (Occidental College)o Physically attempting to capture dark mattero Device Name: Time Projection Device (science fiction come to life!)o Ultimately will be deployed in a mine deep underground in England- Close-up photograph – you can see fine lines that are threads of steel that the scientists weave themselves (detection devices)- Maybe once in a few years, a reaction will happen – dark matter will hit a nucleus and an electron will bounce off and be detected by the steel- Shiny silky metallic in the middle – solar sail where light pushes the sail- Use code to rip apart the image and mark it from that perspective – you’re visualizing the flow of the galaxy rather than viewing a static image- SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence)o Research institution founded in Berkeley, crowdsourcing platform, first crowdsourcing ever!o Understanding the priorities of these is important to O’Learyo Slowly turn in arcs and listen to different patches of the galaxyo Taking data from these things (noise), combing through the “fuzz” to create a giant panorama – visual representation of jpg fuzzo Interested in overlaying them and it’ll slowly turn into starso Interesting that it is sound, but people are not asked to listen, they are asked to look.o Fuzz is maybe information that we can’t understand, we are seeking signals from our perspective when those signals might not actually exist- Buckminster Fuller – The most amazing poetry of the 20th century is e=mc^2
Experience motivated him to craft his art- Inspired by Richard Feynman lectures, Feynman diagrams- Light paint a Feynman diagram of his studio- Some representation of science, using the surface of the image, and the figure is there- Had been working on project for years and didn’t know it
Griffith Observatory Cloud Chamber- Current project in the basement of the Griffith Obsevatory- Device invented in the early 20th century, a plexiglass box full of supercooled vapor- Cosmic rays and particles from the sun, combined with background radiation, magnetizes the vapor, which renders particles in the gas- Lines that you see within the vapor comes from stars and other planetary forces, renders something that is always present but never visible- Interested in ways to visualize the invisible through imagery- Relatively easy to make!- Met with director of Griffith (Dr. Krum?), who researches archaea-astronomy, studying ancient people’s understanding of the universe- Is there a cultural context of this in the 20th century? How do we come to understand these things from a culture perspective.- This isn’t education, this is spectacle – putting your body in the relationship with galactic scale- Metaphor for his project – rendering the invisible (theme of his work!)
To The Future- Dark matter detector (Occidental College)o Physically attempting to capture dark mattero Device Name: Time Projection Device (science fiction come to life!)o Ultimately will be deployed in a mine deep underground in England- Close-up photograph – you can see fine lines that are threads of steel that the scientists weave themselves (detection devices)- Maybe once in a few years, a reaction will happen – dark matter will hit a nucleus and an electron will bounce off and be detected by the steel- Shiny silky metallic in the middle – solar sail where light pushes the sail- Use code to rip apart the image and mark it from that perspective – you’re visualizing the flow of the galaxy rather than viewing a static image- SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence)o Research institution founded in Berkeley, crowdsourcing platform, first crowdsourcing ever!o Understanding the priorities of these is important to O’Learyo Slowly turn in arcs and listen to different patches of the galaxyo Taking data from these things (noise), combing through the “fuzz” to create a giant panorama – visual representation of jpg fuzzo Interested in overlaying them and it’ll slowly turn into starso Interesting that it is sound, but people are not asked to listen, they are asked to look.o Fuzz is maybe information that we can’t understand, we are seeking signals from our perspective when those signals might not actually exist- Buckminster Fuller – The most amazing poetry of the 20th century is e=mc^2
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Nanotechnology + Art | Week 5
Whenever I give campus tours, one of the landmarks of UCLA I always highlight is CNSI. Audiences love hearing about how nanotechnology creates self-repairing armor, paint that doubles as a solar panel, and nanobots in nanoshells that are able to specifically target cancerous cells, while leaving healthy cells untouched. As such, it was great to hear from Jim Gimzewski and understand more behind the history and building blocks of nanotechnology.
History has always focused on the big-picture questions. In trying to find the origins of life, or the meaning of life, scientists and artists have tried to look to the heavens, or through the timeframe of billions of years, in search of answers. It is only recently that scientists are beginning to shift their scope in the opposite direction. As seen through the emergent fields of biotechnology and nanotechnology, it is evident that much can be learned from the basic, tiniest building blocks of our Earth. Such is exemplified by Richard Feynman's "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", which suggested that there is so much room to make tiny things that you don't need to always think bigger is better.
Originally coined in 1974 by Niorio Taniguchi to describe thin filaments in cells, nanotechnology now more broadly encompasses everything on the scale of nanometers (10^-9m). Dr. Gimzewski reinforced that such a tiny scale is often hard to comprehend. I think artists have been great at elucidating the concept of nanotechnology and its microcosmic scale through innovative projects that contrast nano-sized versions of typical daily objects. For example, Feynman wrote 25,000 pages of Encyclopedia Britannica on a pinhead (though a pinhead has room for 260,000,000 pages). He also offered prizes for a small cubic electric motor 0.4mm in dimension and a book page shrunk by a factor of 25,000 in each direction (100nm font size), prizes claimed very soon after. Similarly Drexler & Merckle founded the Foresight Organization, which came up with the idea of an assembly plant on a molecular scale.
Gimzewski also highlighted the changing perspective that nanotechnology provides. Because atomic physics is not bound by the rules of conventional physics, conventional laws like gravity, surface tension, size, and weight do not necessarily apply to nanoparticles. Unsurprisingly, manipulating these unique properties has translated itself into art. This is exemplified in artwork from the Romans, where a cup seems green on the outside, but if you illuminate from inside, it glows, due to coloration from nanosized gold particles. Similarly, plate glazes and stained glass windows also used nanoparticles to exhibit unique visual properties.
Much of nanotechnology, on the surface, seems strictly grounded in hard science, with no room for the interpretation of art. Much of Gimzewski's lectures focused on the technology that allows for the study of nanparticles, from ATMs to STMs, from nanotechnology in chemotherapy to nanoclay that keeps beer carbonated. These lectures also highlighted the practical applications of nanoparticles, from fighting diseases, to making our clothes, vehicles, and streets self-cleaning.
However, this knowledge helps artists to better understand and visually represent the concepts that they base their artwork around. As Gimzewski stressed, the entirety of life and natural order relies on self-organization and heirarchal structures. Such is seen in "On Growth & Form" (1945), which highlights the fractal nature of trees, snowflakes, and shells. Similar principles are also exemplified in the Blue Morpho Butterfly, whose nanoparticles create extreme flash that can be seen from a mile in the air. These butterflies have christmas tree-like structures that manipulate light on the nanoscale so that they reflect back color much more effectively than pigments can do alone. Overall, such principles can also be used in technology, possibly helping scientists self-assemble organs or tissues, but also in art, through the designing of beautiful 3D DNA crystals and micelles.
As a whole, I also think that the basic building structures of life see parallels and equivalent structures on the massive scale of globalization. NPR just wrote a beautiful article titled "When Cities Become Science, Where Does Art Fit In?" about consolidating advancing technology and efficiency with the culture of art. In the article, Dr. Ian Wilson draws the comparison between microtechnologies and massive scales of society from the perspective of imagery, stating that "the connection between art and the medical philanthropy is imagery. Street murals enhance life. Medical X-ray imagery preserves it."
Sources:
"Feynman.com - Richard Feynman Online." Feynman.com - Richard Feynman Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.feynman.com>.
"Micro & Nano Technology." Nanoparticle Formulation, Fabrication & Delivery Services. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.particlesciences.com/services/micro-nano-technology/>.
Gimzewski, J. "Nanotechnology + Art, Pt. 3." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 23 July 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzXjNbKDkYI>.
Frank, Adam. "When Cities Become Science, Where Does Art Fit In?." NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/07/26/334038347/when-cities-become-science-where-does-art-fit-in?>.
Thompson, D. On Growth and Form. 2 ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945. Print.
Gimzewski also highlighted the changing perspective that nanotechnology provides. Because atomic physics is not bound by the rules of conventional physics, conventional laws like gravity, surface tension, size, and weight do not necessarily apply to nanoparticles. Unsurprisingly, manipulating these unique properties has translated itself into art. This is exemplified in artwork from the Romans, where a cup seems green on the outside, but if you illuminate from inside, it glows, due to coloration from nanosized gold particles. Similarly, plate glazes and stained glass windows also used nanoparticles to exhibit unique visual properties.
However, this knowledge helps artists to better understand and visually represent the concepts that they base their artwork around. As Gimzewski stressed, the entirety of life and natural order relies on self-organization and heirarchal structures. Such is seen in "On Growth & Form" (1945), which highlights the fractal nature of trees, snowflakes, and shells. Similar principles are also exemplified in the Blue Morpho Butterfly, whose nanoparticles create extreme flash that can be seen from a mile in the air. These butterflies have christmas tree-like structures that manipulate light on the nanoscale so that they reflect back color much more effectively than pigments can do alone. Overall, such principles can also be used in technology, possibly helping scientists self-assemble organs or tissues, but also in art, through the designing of beautiful 3D DNA crystals and micelles.
As a whole, I also think that the basic building structures of life see parallels and equivalent structures on the massive scale of globalization. NPR just wrote a beautiful article titled "When Cities Become Science, Where Does Art Fit In?" about consolidating advancing technology and efficiency with the culture of art. In the article, Dr. Ian Wilson draws the comparison between microtechnologies and massive scales of society from the perspective of imagery, stating that "the connection between art and the medical philanthropy is imagery. Street murals enhance life. Medical X-ray imagery preserves it."
Sources:
"Feynman.com - Richard Feynman Online." Feynman.com - Richard Feynman Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.feynman.com>.
"Micro & Nano Technology." Nanoparticle Formulation, Fabrication & Delivery Services. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.particlesciences.com/services/micro-nano-technology/>.
Gimzewski, J. "Nanotechnology + Art, Pt. 3." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 23 July 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzXjNbKDkYI>.
Frank, Adam. "When Cities Become Science, Where Does Art Fit In?." NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/07/26/334038347/when-cities-become-science-where-does-art-fit-in?>.
Thompson, D. On Growth and Form. 2 ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945. Print.
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