WEEK 4: Unit 4

This weeks topic was especially interesting to me because technology in the medical/scientific field has changed our world completely. Because of the technologies mentioned, such as x-rays, MRIs, & ultrasounds, we have been able to alter the perception that the human body is looked at in. 

These technologies were discovered because artists wanted to know more and more about the human body in order to depict it accurately. So once again, human curiosity has been the basis of phenomenal discoveries. Anatomy is a form of art because the diagrams have to be made properly for people to learn from as a visual. These diagrams include full body sculptures of muscles and organs as well as detailed drawings.

I have personally used x-Rays, MRIs and ultra sound equipment in my life. I can not imagine the healthcare system without it. Having access to these types of machines has changed the lives of many as well as the way the human body is treated. Thanks to art, we can now learn about the body and continue learning by teaching it through art. I think it is important that people understand that art has contributed to many scientific discoveries.

Works Cited

“CTheory.net.” CTheory.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2012. <http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=71>.

ELITEIMAGING. “Understanding MRIs.” YouTube. YouTube, 15 Dec. 2008. Web. 25 Oct. 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5q79R9C-mk>.

Tyson, Peter. “The Hippocratic Oath Today.” PBS. PBS, 27 Mar. 2001. Web. 25 Oct. 2012. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic-oath-today.html>.

“Usability of Electronic Medical Records.” - International Journal of Usability Studies. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2012. <http://www.upassoc.org/upa_publications/jus/2009february/smelcer5.html>.

Vesna, Victoria. “Medicine and Art: Part 2.” YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded>.

WEEK 3: Unit 3

Robotic art is defined as any artwork that contains some sort of automated technology. Nikola Tesla is best known for developing the modern alternating current and his "device was literally the birth of robotics, though he is seldom recognized for this accomplishment" ("Tesla- Life and Legacy: Race of Robotics). These human-like machines are integrated in sci-fi movies like Blade Runner where cyborgs are manufactured by giant corporations. (Blade Runner). 

The basis for robotic science was created from the works of Michael Faraday who greatly contributed to electromagnetism and electrochemistry, with robotics most applicable to his principle of induction in 1831 (Lecture). 

Industrialization has played a large role in the interactions between art and robotics. Walter Benjamin, a German-Jewish intellect of the 1930s wrote the piece The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In this he makes the effort to describe a theory of art that would be "useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art" (Benjamin). 

It makes sense that we study the history of how robotics and art came to be before we learn about it as a present day practice because Benjamin believes "the manner in which human sense perception is organized, the medium in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well" (Benjamin 214). 

 

Works Cited

"Blade Runner: The Final Cut (2007)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved April 12,2014.

"Tesla- Life and Legacy: Race of Robotics." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

Walter Benjamin (1968). Hannah Arendt, ed. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", Illuminations. London: Fontana. pp. 214–218.

WEEK 2: Unit 2

I've always thought of math as an integral part of life as we know it. Like it says in Professors lecture, math is even a building block of art. Early artists like Duccio had been using mathematical principles when painting perspectives, but it wasn't until Brunelleschi that the first correct formulation of linear perspective was established. He developed the ever-useful vanishing point, which is the point at which receding parallel lines viewed in perspective appear to converge. The correlation between math and common art was addressed by Leon Battista Alberti saying, "I will take first from the mathematicians those things with which my subject is concerned" (Lecture). Math gives art the principles of perspective and proportion. 

http://www.cbcurtis.net/benedict/Humanities%20Site/mediev_fresco.html

Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most famous mathematicians in history. He explained that perspective in a rational demonstration by which experience confirms that the images of all things are transmitted to the eye by pyramidal lines. The pyramid of lines are the series of angles and distances that come from lines being connected at a single point. These lines can be used to provide a structure and complexity to a piece of art work.  (Lecture)

http://perepelitsin.org/bipiramid%20engl.html

Mathematics and science seem to be a juxtaposition to art, but after learning about this weeks materials I've realized that they are actually highly integrated. So, for artists who think they lack any mathematical ability, they are actually smarter than they think, and for mathematicians who think they lack creativity, it is possible for them to use math to find it. This weeks material has left me with hope that I might me able to create art someday without being "artistically gifted."