VincentPeng_DESMA9

  To be honest, this week’s topic of medicinal technology was a lot more interesting to me in the technological aspect than the artistic implications. I’ve never personally studied anatomical structure and such myself, and as a result didn’t pay as much attention to the parts about the sliced person and the history of dissections. However, I was fascinated by the idea of the chip implants, particularly Kevin Warwick’s implants that allowed him to control his computer with his nerve impulses. My grandfather has Parkinson’s, and I remember in part three of the lecture that the nanochip technology could be utilized to help patients suffering from mental illness. Professor Vesna’s inclusion about Stephen Hawking at the end of the lecture reminded me of how technology can improve our daily lives in miraculous ways. I wonder how different life could be for patients suffering mental illnesses if they could be able to control their surroundings with their thoughts as well. At the sam...

For this week’s blog, I would like to take a closer look at the automatization of industry, as well as the impacts of such industrial advances on art and the new world. For as long as civilization has existed, humankind has pushed for efficiency in their work. The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440 was only the initiation of manufacturing’s transition to the increasingly automated, repetitive, and robotic systems of production that we now see today.  Printing Press As our world becomes more and more automated, with everything now identically mass produced down to the finest specifics, the value of art has diminished with the increasing abundance of nearly identical replicas. Benjamin Walter stressed this idea in his book “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”: “Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art”(XII). Walter then proceeds to detail how artworks themselves can have their values changed as a direc...

From this week’s lecture and material, I gained a lot of insight towards the importance of mathematical models in the real world, as well as the world of art. I learned about the historical precedent surrounding art and maths, such as the basis behind the Vitruvian Man, as well as the mathematically structured things in nature. I learned of the real world applications of mathematics in the field of arts. The TED talks in particular were fascinating to me, showing how complex artworks can be boiled down to the basic mathematical principles that make up their foundations. Vitruvian Man Robert Lang’s TED talk on origami was especially interesting to me. Origami was a pretty big part of my childhood, but I never had a good grasp on the deeper implications of mathematically designed Origami. One vivid memory from my youth is of an origami book I had, Genuine Origami by Jun Maekawa. In it, Maekawa details many formulas involved in his folding processes, as well as the rationale behind them....

  T hough I have yet to experience the division between the two cultures of humanities versus sciences on campus firsthand, the differences between students in the two fields of study are blatantly evident even when perceived digitally. With UCLA in mind, I couldn’t help but remember some Facebook posts I’d seen with North/South campus students displaying their beliefs; some posts showed solidarity, and some attacked the other side. Even someone like me can understand that this divide is not a matter isolated to any particular campus or environment. Reading Professor Vesna’s paper “Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between”, however, I could see how the dissimilar viewpoints of artists and scientists can be brought together to construct a bridge over the chasm that has kept them apart. South campus solidarity South campus dude raging at North campus Professor Vesna’s article based on C.P. Snow’s idea of “Two Cultures” comes from the perspective of an artist and educator, leaning int...