Week 4: Medtech + Art

This week, I was introduced to new connections between medicine, technology, and art. From the Renaissance era of human dissections to the modern world-famous Body Worlds exhibition, artists have slowly moved from using paper to using the human body as the canvas for one’s work. The improvement of technology over the course of the last century has led many artists to use their own bodies as their canvas. Notably, Orlan held exhibitions where viewers would watch her receive plastic surgery to emulate many famous artworks throughout history. This idea that artists would go so far as to manipulate their own bodies to blur the lines between art and medicine is shocking.

Orlan in one of her performances.

Orlan's and Katz's operations on themselves reminded me of a man named Josiah Zayner, who is taking the supposedly multimillion dollar experiments involving gene therapy and performing them on himself to show that they can be cheap and accessible to everyone. He live-streams this gene-editing, or as he calls it: biohacking, process on his blog “Science, Art, Beauty.” His work is fascinating because not only is what he is doing a statement against big medicine corporations, but its also an attempt to help the general public with people who suffer from gene-related diseases. In this way, one could compare his motivation to that of Diane Gromala, who also seeks to help those with diseases that cause chronic pain. Below is a video of Zayner giving a presentation and delivering to himself gene therapy to ideally improve muscle gain.

Another thing these body-modifying artists reminded me of a body modification trend pioneered in Canada, but dominant in Japan a few years ago called bagel head. It involves a saline injection to the forehead to create a temporary bagel-shaped swelling. This body modification art scene was sensationalized by international media outlets and fetishized by the underground Japanese community. This 21st century temporary body modification brought something that was purely medical in the past, saline injections, and brought it to the world of physical aesthetic.

Bagel heads that can be injected in one or two locations on the
forehead of patients. They usually last between 6-24 hours

As medical technology improves, it seems there is no limit to which individuals and artists will employ the new technologies as a medium of self-expression and exploring new art forms. I look forward to what new medical technologies await and how these technologies will be employed in creating artwork to make the world around us a more fascinating place to be alive.


References

Gromala, Diane. “TEDxAmericanRiviera - Diane Gromala - Curative Powers of Wet, Raw Beauty.” YouTube, TEDx Talks, 7 Dec. 2011, youtu.be/cRdarMz--Pw.

McCall, Rosie. “This Biohacker Became The First Person To Edit His Own DNA.” IFLScience, IFLScience, 20 Nov. 2017, www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/this-biohacker-became-the-first-person-to-edit-his-own-dna/.

Misener, Jessica. “WATCH: 'Bagel Heads' Are Asia's New Beauty Trend.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 26 Sept. 2012, www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/bagel-head-forehead-injections-japan-saline_n_1916188.html.

Rosenberg-Carlson, Marissa, et al. “Controversial Performance Artist ORLAN Transforms Herself at the Alianza Francesa.” Bubblear.com, 12 June 2017, www.thebubble.com/controversial-performance-artist-orlan-transforms-herself-at-the-alianza-francesa/.

Sinclair, Alexis. “Bagel Head Saline Forehead Injections: Japan's Weird Body Art.” Smash.com, 11 Apr. 2018, www.smash.com/bagel-head-saline-forehead-injections/.

Vesna, Victoria. “Medicine pt1.” YouTube, Uconlineprogram, 21 Apr. 2012, youtu.be/Ep0M2bOM9Tk.

Vesna, Victoria. “Medicine pt2.” YouTube, Uconlineprogram, 21 Apr. 2012, youtu.be/psjnQarHOqQ.

Vesna, Victoria. “Medicine pt3.” YouTube, Uconlineprogram, 22 Apr. 2012, youtu.be/FIX-9mXd3Y4.

Zayner, Josiah. “Science, Art, Beauty.” Science, Art, Beauty, 13 Oct. 2017, www.ifyoudontknownowyaknow.com/.

Event Blog 1: Acoustical Visions

My head upon arriving to the presentation.

I had the pleasure of attending Bill Fontana’s talk on Acoustical Visions. It was on campus in the Broad art center, a building I’ve been to several times throughout college to support my friends’ works over the years. This particular afternoon, the room hosted Bill Fontana, a sound sculptures pioneer. He was always fascinated by sound and began to take special notice in the act of listening. It was this attentiveness that allowed him to develop the idea that sound is a physical medium that can change and redefine relationships to spaces. Just like clay is the medium for a sculptor, sound is Fontana’s medium.

Fontana focused on bringing landscapes, things that would otherwise be purely visual media, to life by giving them an element of auralization. One example he gave was his work with foghorns in the Bay. He collected sound samples from different foghorns throughout the region and relayed their audio to a single location. By doing this he reduced the real space between the noises, adding a time structure to his art. Another example was his work with the desert, which he said sounded very similar to the ocean. He thought that it was interesting that the ocean once existed over this desert, stating that perhaps he is hearing the ghost of the ocean. 

What he spent a lot of his talk on was his work with the iconic 25 de Abril Bridge in Lisbon. The final piece, entitled “Shadow Soundings” was a compilation of video footage and audio samples from different locations all over the bridge. He said he explored the geometry of structure of the bridge to try and gather different sounds to create an overall immersive and enervating experience for the viewer. 

"Shadow Soundings"

His art, however, would not be possible without the technological innovations of film and seismic accelerometers. He opened the talk with a “sound sample” taken from a sculpture from the UCLA’s sculpture garden. However, sculptures don’t make sound, so he gathered this “sound” by placing a seismic accelerometer on the surface of the sculpture, allowing him to record the sculpture’s microvibrations as a result of the ambient sound present in the sculpture garden that morning. He continued to use this method of sound collection, essentially delivering to his audiences what sculptures and structures “hear” themselves. I thought this was a brilliant use for something typically used to just measure the vibrations of Earth to detect earthquakes. Fontana utilizes accelerometers to bring earth and man-made structures to life. This collaboration between technology and art is exactly the type of connection we strive to discover in this course.

A typical accelerometer that Fontana might use when collecting audio samples.

Extra: Fontana's Favorite Sounds is a link with a video containing some of Fontana's favorite sounds that I found fascinating.

References:

Ahmed, Afshan. “Bill Fontana on Making the Sand Sing.” The National, The National, 17 Mar. 2014, www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/art/bill-fontana-on-making-the-sand-sing-1.309447.

Furtado, Will. “Bill Fontana: Making Music From Lisbon's Most Famous Bridge.” Sleek Mag, 8 Nov. 2017, www.sleek-mag.com/2017/11/07/bill-fontana-shadow-soundings-bridge-art/.

Gadanho, Pedro. “BILL FONTANA. SHADOW SOUNDINGS.” MAAT, www.maat.pt/en/exhibitions/bill-fontana-shadow-soundings.

“High Sensitivity Accelerometers.” High Sensitivity Accelerometers, www.mmf.de/seismic_accelerometers.htm.

Whiting, Sam. “Artist Bill Fontana Is of Sound Mind.” San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, 14 Aug. 2017, www.sfchronicle.com/art/article/Artist-Bill-Fontana-is-of-sound-mind-11818413.php.

Week 3: Robotics + Art

Technology mimics film when Apple released the iPhone 4 in
2010 with Startrek-inspired Facetime.

This week, I found the connection between the speed of dispersion for a particular media and how this affects the perception of the beholder. In his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin compared a painting to a film. The beholder of a painting may sit and contemplate its existence, progressively developing a meaning unique to the mind of the beholder. On the other end of this spectrum is film, where each scene is on screen for only a few seconds before a new scene is introduced, giving the beholder an opportunity to experience only a reactionary response.

I will return to the influence of film, but this week I also enjoyed how art was assigned some sort of role. Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press gave art and literature a chance to rapidly reach a wider audience than ever before. This led to a regression in art’s dependence on the ritual and allowed art to have a social role. Initially, films were the only form of video media to be available to the mass public. The advent of the internet and smartphones gave the means for film-making and distributing those films to the general public—creating viral videos. To illustrate how video media can so easily shape culture, Woolshed Co. put together six fake viral videos that have been watched over 205 million times around the world, fooling many of its viewers, so much so that their works have been on several news stations as real stories.

Another thing I found fascinating was Machiko Kusahara’s analysis on the difference between Japan’s and the West’s view on robots. The first robot depiction in media came from Czech playwright Karel Capek. Since then, Japan’s development of robots has been driven by humanoids designed to help and coexist with people. While a google on robots in the U.S. brings results describing military robotic technology development or American fear of robots. I think that people need to understand that new machines will always be “technically sweet” as J. Robert Oppenheimer put it, and that we should “argue about what to do about it only after [we’ve] had [our] technical success.” In the end, robots will be designed to ease everyday life. The example I always return to is a future of automated, flying cars that everyone wants, but everyone is too afraid to allow to develop.

Honda's world famous humanoid.

References:

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.
“Honda ASIMO 1/8 Scale Figure Robot.” Japan Trend Shop, www.japantrendshop.com/honda-asimo-18-scale-figure-robot-p-455.html.

Hui, Mary. “You've Been Punked: Company Boasts of Experimenting on Us with Fake Viral Videos.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 12 July 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/12/company-fooled-world-with-fake-viral-videos/?noredirect=on.

O'Connor, Tom. “U.S. Replaces Soldiers with Robots in First Training of Its Kind.” Newsweek, 9 Apr. 2018, www.newsweek.com/us-military-replaces-soldiers-robots-first-its-kind-training-exercise-877635.

Oppenheimer, J. Robert. “J. Robert Oppenheimer Quotes.” BrainyQuote, Xplore, www.brainyquote.com/quotes/j_robert_oppenheimer_159316.

Pascale, Anthony. “Steve Jobs Invokes Star Trek (Again) While Unveiling 4th Gen IPhone – But Where Is Star Trek Mobile Video Chat?” TrekMovie.com, 7 June 2010, trekmovie.com/2010/06/07/steve-jobs-invokes-star-trek-again-while-unveiling-4th-gen-iphone/.

Solon, Olivia. “More than 70% of US Fears Robots Taking over Our Lives, Survey Finds.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 4 Oct. 2017, www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/04/robots-artificial-intelligence-machines-us-survey.

The Woolshed Company. “The Viral Experiment.” YouTube, YouTube, 7 July 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccENfRThXOk.

Vesna, Victoria. “Robotics MachikoKusahara 1.” YouTube, YouTube, 14 Apr. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQZ_sy-mdEU.

Vesna, Victoria. “Robotics pt1.” YouTube, 15 Apr. 2012, youtu.be/cRw9_v6w0ew.


Vesna, Victoria. “Robotics pt2.” YouTube, YouTube, 15 Apr. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAZ8bo9T_Pk.

Week 2: Math + Art

This week, I learned a lot about the history of art and its undeniable contributions to the field of mathematics. I really enjoyed Dr. Vesna’s explanation of the golden rectangle, as I had no idea that it was what the Parthenon was based upon. Abbott’s “Flatland” provided a new perspective on how I view my own reality in “Spaceland.” He took our reality as we know it and projected it onto the 2D plane. It made me curious how a 4th or 5th dimensional being might describe life in a 3D world like ours.

Egyptian paintings

Another thing that I found incredibly interesting was Giotti’s implementation of depth in his works. I was appalled that up until the 13th century there had been no depiction of depth in art. My mind immediately went to the instantly recognizable Egyptian paintings, which notoriously lack depth. One could argue that our models for 3D rendering/modelling today, a technology utilized in both art and engineering fields, stemmed from Giotti’s and Brunelleschi’s understanding of perspective and a single vanishing point. These equations formed the foundation for future generations of artists to improve the depiction of reality onto 2D planes.

Giotto's Scenes from the Life of Mary
Magdalene- Mary Magdalene's Voyage to Marseilles 1320

Art and mathematics weren’t separate as art progressed. Most of the artists were also the mathematicians that discovered these characteristic formulas to better depict reality in art. This goes back to last week’s theme of the two cultures; finding a skilled artist that is also a brilliant mathematician in 2018 seems farfetched. When the two cultures began to diverge, both took formulas with them and continued to deepen humans’ understanding of mathematics. Now we grow up in a world where at the age of 5, I learned how to depict depth in a drawing for the first time by drawing a cube. Something I thought that both mathematicians and artists would find interesting is the Möbius strip: a surface with only one side, which ironically can easily be made from a strip of paper with two sides.

A Möbius strip: Note how you can trace from any point
on the surface and continue along the loop and arrive back
at the same position you began at while traversing every
part of the surface.

When comparing mathematics, art, and science, it’s difficult to imagine any of them without the other. Their developments are inextricably linked: mathematics and science have influenced new frontiers in art, and art has led to the development of new questions for mathematics and science to explore.

References:

Abbott, Edwin. “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions.” N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2012. <https://cole.uconline.edu/content>.

Byrne, Stephen. “Egyptian Painting.” Ancient Egyptian Painting Facts for Kids, www.historyforkids.net/egyptian-painting.html.

Dowell, Michael. “Secrets of the Cube.” How to Draw - Lesson 02 - Secrets of the Cube, www.drawingpower.org/drawing-lesson-02-secrets-of-the-cube.htm.

“Giotto Di Bondone.” Giotto Di Bondone - The Complete Works, www.giottodibondone.org/.

“Möbius Strip.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Apr. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6bius_strip.

Vesna, Victoria. “Mathematics-pt1-ZeroPerspectiveGoldenMean.mov.” Cole UC online. Youtube, 9 April 2012. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMmq5B1LKDg&feature=player_embedded

Week 1: Two Cultures

My sister and I at my great grandfather's name on Ellis Island

The presence of two cultures is something I experienced within my personal life growing up. As a halfie or hapa – terms colloquially used to describe a person of mixed ethnic heritage – I grew up in a household of mixed culture and traditions. My mother, who is Taiwanese, pushed for me to learn Mandarin, go to temple, and embrace Chinese culture. My father is German and pushed for me to go out for soccer, attend church, and recognize the his grandfather’s struggles as a refugee. This cultural split was very stark in my early years, but as I aged, the two cultures became less immiscible, and I created my own culture that I feel like accurately defines who I am.

A drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci in his study
of human proportions

I chose to pursue bioengineering as my major, which I prefer to view as the unification of life and machine. This is why I want to be part of the transhumanism movement. After this week, I think using technology to augment human life is no longer purely an engineering feat, but a movement that can readily embrace artists and literary intellectuals as participants as well.

Vesna describes the separation of science from the humanities, implying that the two cultures did, at some point, coexist. Many famous scientists/literary intellectuals, or to use a more encompassing term: polymaths, like Leonardo Da Vinci, who embodied this coexistence.

My personal experiences and this past coexistence is why I have mixed feelings about C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures: A Second Look.” I would argue that instead of a third culture to incorporate aspects of both cultures, we should seek a reunification of the current two cultures. Misunderstandings between the scientific community and humanities cannot be explained directly from one party to the other. The third culture must be the emergence of polymaths who have an in depth understanding of both cultures. They shall guide the unification of the two cultures. A unification of the arts and sciences that comes to mind is the depiction of the black hole in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.

Sir Ken Robinson cites a study where all children are capable of divergent thinking and explains how the education system robs us of this intrinsic ability. A new culture of divergent thinkers must be born, but for now, society is now a mix of linear and lateral thinkers, and we must collaborate to see a better future for all of us.

References

Snow, C. P. “Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.” Reading. 1959. New York: Cambridge UP, 1961. Print.

theRSAorg. “RSA ANIMATE: Changing Education Paradigms.” YouTube, YouTube, 14 Oct. 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U.

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

“Vitruvian Man.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Apr. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man.

warnerbrosuktrailers. “Interstellar – Building A Black Hole – Official Warner Bros.” YouTube, YouTube, 24 Oct. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfGfZwQ_qaY.