Journal 2

     China Blue is an artist who is exploring how our perceptions and sensations create the world around us.  Her portfolio consists of paintings of neural networks, an interactive brainwave sculpture, and even a device that enables people to draw with their minds.  My fascination with China Blue’s work comes from the science she is focused on, neuroscience, and the technology she is incorporating in her artwork.  The other artist I stumbled across was Katie Paterson, a photographer who focuses mainly in cosmology.  Again, my admiration of this artist stems from the topic they cover.  Also, Paterson uses a haiku-esque type of poetry to get her ideas across to the audience.  And me, being a long time fan of poetry, has never seen anyone write poetry that is connected to science

 

Journal 3

     For me, the grandeur of scientific images comes from the physical scale at which the images are captured at.  For example, there exist organism so small that the human eye can’t register them (the worms in the Medusa image) and galaxies so vast that we can’t see and grasp the full scope of their monumental presence.  Also, most scientific images are shrouded with an aura of mystery that causes me to think about how the technology involved was created and, additionally, the implications of what I’m seeing.  These two points are what drives my attraction to this form of art.  They are informative and grant real images that my mind could only fantasize about.

My desire, moving forward into unraveling the field of science-art, is to learn more about the technologies involved in the creation of this type of art.  But also, more importantly, what human elements are involved in the creation of science-art.  Many of us are familiar with pictures of the Eagle Nebula or other distant celestial formations but, what lots of us are unaware of is, scientists are in charge of assigning the colors we see to the images.  The colors aren’t there until we put them there.  Even though the pictures are products of science, there is still a creative component.  A trademark of this category of art.

 

Journal 4

     In my opinion, schools are failing to teach students the fundamental and overarching skills that will cause them to be successful in almost all areas of life.  This would include things like critical thinking, self-criticism, organization, ability to socialize and network, along with a plethora of other skills.  Instead, we, the students, are crammed with facts.  And there is some research to back up my own thoughts.  A study conducted by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa found that 45% of students did not improve upon any broad-based skills.  Although, students did gain proficiency in the knowledge of their major.

This is where I think using art-practice can be an effective means of teaching broad-based skills.  In the article, the authors make the point that purpose driven art engages the imagination and the intellect.  It’s also a form of open-ended inquiry where emotional or “physical” knowledge can be gained.  When creating a piece, no matter how aesthetically pleasing it is, you are engaged in a creative process and using other conceptual skills.  Art is also, in my belief, one of the few things that separates us from artificial intelligence.  While humans will never be able to match the ability to memorize and store information or solve math problems like a computer can, we have the edge when it comes to imagination.  Humans have the ability to draw conclusions and parallels from the abstract, a capability I think computers will never have.  Which I why I think art and other skills that promote the broad-based skills are so important in an education.

 

Journal 5

     My two biggest takeaways from class on Tuesday were how effective mindfulness meditation is for me and how important it is to understand meta-cognition.  Meditation is something I get around to rarely, if ever.  But, the moment when you are only focused on your immediate-self and everything around you fades away is bliss to me.  Throughout this term, when I am either engaged in a lengthy read or writing session, I want to attempt a few mindfulness meditation techniques.  The other thing I thought was of vital importance was understanding and thinking about how your perceptions shape the way you view things.  Understanding the inherent biases you have is fundamental to being a critical thinker.  Because all of us see the world differently.  And, if we are able to examine the world through someone else’s view, then even better.  Moving forward in my research project, I want to view the information from a variety of angles.

Journal 7

     I’m still in my preliminary brainstorming for ideas on the visual component to my project.  Although, the map of the white dwarf stars has caught my interest quite a bit and if making me learn towards making an astrology based piece.  Research wise there is so much more to look at.  From the nitty-grttiy details of nanotechnology to continuing exploring the vast expanse of the universe, I will have plenty of material too work with.  It also helps that the artist I am focusing on has such a close tie-in with her work and science.  The big questions that remain for me are how did she organize the map of the stars (techniques, software, etc) and what the specifics of carving objects at the nano-level are.  All in all, I am feeling good about the work/research I have done but, most importantly, and enjoying the artist/field I have selected.

Journal 8

     In our culture, we promote the idea that the right-brain people are off being artistic and the left-brain people have their noses buried in math textbooks.  They’re two completely separate groups, no crossover.  So no one would ever think that the famous American artist Jackson Pollock would have math and science be one of the appeals in his artwork?  Believe it or not, part of the reason that Pollock’s revolutionary drip paintings were so appealing was because they contained fractals, continuous patterns.  In Dr. Taylor’s article on Pollock’s fractals, she found that viewers of machine generated pictures found fractal images to be more appealing than the non-fractal images at a ratio of 113 to 7.   Dr. Taylor, along with the rest of her team, went on to test the appeal of varying levels of fractal patterns, but most of that went over my head.  In short, a team of researchers found fractals in Jackson Pollock’s artwork and found that the fractals themselves were partially responsible for the visual appeal of the images.  To me, It’s crazy to think i live in a day and age were we can use science to discover why we like art.  And, I wonder if this research will be applied to find out why we like other pieces of art too.  Lastly, will artists ever bee guided by scientific discoveries when creating their artwork so it appeals to the most amount of people?

Journal 10

     It didn’t take long to find my vague search terms (galaxies/nanotechnology) to be unusable.  There is an astounding amount of articles and books that cover the topics of cosmology and nanotechnology.  But, because white dwarfs and nano-carving are slightly more specialized topics in my artists focus area, I’m going to begin my search there.  After I gain some preliminary knowledge I can then refine my searches further.  And, I also was able to track down an email to my artist’s studio that was linked through her website.  So hopefully I can write up some questions later this week and receive a response.  Either way, I’ll be able to get relevant information, It’s just a matter of finding something and narrowing it down.

Journal 13

     Thursdays class was quite the shocking, and pleasant, experience.  Seeing the cadaver heart brought up an old memory I hadn’t thought about for years.  Back when my mom went to graduate school, she brought me to her lab where we dissected a cow heart.  At the time, I must have been six or seven and can clearly remember being in awe when I saw a real heart.  In that moment, seeing the real thing challenged my own views of what the inside of the human body looks like.  Aside from the seeing the heart in class, the discussion about sex education in school and the hesitancy to teach it got me thinking about social issues and the way they are handled.  First off, if you treat the subject (sex) and removed the taboo culture around it, then kids, and adults alike, would feel less awkward about discussing sex.  But, in our culture today, we like to tip-toe around any situation that might make us feel uncomfortable.  It’s easier to avoid the problem then to deal with it.  And I’ve been finding myself getting stuck in that mindset lately.  Not about social issues though, but with my school work as a whole.  Working, studying, and completing my mid-terms has left me exhausted, and the last thing I want to do is finish that last little bit of work I have.  But now it’s time to draw upon my reserves of motivation and get the monkey off my back.  Because once I do this, It will be a wave of relief.

Journal 14

     As a kid, I can remember pouring over atlases I had at home.  I loved to look at maps and “discover” all the landmarks and cities in countries and specific regions.  To me, maps are visually beautiful images.  Each is designed with their own little flair that makes them unique, and all contain a wealth of information in such a small space.  But, what I find to be the most fascinating characteristic of maps, is how maps act as time-capsules for the era they were created in.  For instance, old maps by European map makers depict the earth as only containing Europe and a fraction of Africa.  And other maps, created by the Chinese, have the orientation of the continents going sideways (who ever decided which way was up on a map?).  As knowledge about our planet grew, the accuracy of maps improved.  And the accuracy of our maps is still improving.  Technology has enabled us to gather all sorts of data and use that data to constructs maps.  For example, satellites orbiting the earth can map out the polar ice-caps or thickness in the ozone, the Hubble telescope gave us a better understanding of what our universe is like, and indirect measurements from seismology gave us maps of the inside of the Earth.  It seems today that anything with enough data is mappable.

Journal 17

     I was in luck that Silent Sky related to my project in almost every way.  Watching someone else’s take on astronomical discovery help clarify my own views and brought to light issues I’ve never thought about.  First off, in my project, I’ve never thought much about the scientists who make the discoveries but the play highlighted many issues around the scientific community that are still ongoing today.  Secondly, it gave me more ideas about how to present the scientific knowledge in a “user-friendly” way while still giving the full of it.  On another note, the plot of the play reminded me a lot of Rosalind Franklin’s discoveries and the credit she did not receive.  Even though about a hundred years have passed between the time period Silent Night was placed in and the time period we are in now, only very little has changed in the scientific community.