bella's desma blog

This week we learned about a subject that humans have always been fascinated by: space. Ancient astronomers trying to make sense of everything a named every planet, each planet also had its own meaning. Carl Sagan in his video "The Pale Blue Dot" was instrumental in bringing information of the cosmos to the public eye. In the 17th century astronomers finally created a telescope which began a whole new era for studies. Now when we talk about astronomy it is both on the macro and micro scale, from here we see nanotechnology playing a role in space exploration. In the lecture Professor Vesna discusses the importance of animals in cosmic science. After all they were the first ones to go to space. Russia sent a stray 13 pound mutt up into space and from that they monitored her to see how the body may react differently in space. Although the dog only survived for 6 days and ended up dying after a system failure. It is interesting to me how willing they were to send an animal

This week we learned about Nanotechnology and art. This topic introduces an entire new realm of things we have never seen before even bypassing scientific findings. Nanotechnology is where we see the major shift into the collaboration of the two cultures that have previously been so divided. Dr. Gimzewski in the lectures explains to us the impact of such a small scale concept. Richard Feynman is known to have created the origins of nanotechnology. He won the nobel prize and was one of the first to see just how far this could advance in technology and medicine. Nanoparticles have been around since ancient times. An example of this can be found in a cup that is on display in a British museum. The Lycargus cup is from 400 BC and when you look at it in the light it appears to be green but when you light it from the inside it appears to be red. This is because the Romans found a way to incorporate gold nanoparticles. These gold nanoparticles have very specific properties that the Roman

In this weeks lecture videos professor Vesna describes the fairly new fascination of artists with the brain. She explores the idea of the conscious and unconscious and how our brains behave differently in each of these states. Scientists have been intrigued by the thought of consciousness and how long we as humans have been living a conscious life. Ramon Y. Cajal and Franz Joseph Gall were critical in showing us how the brain looked. Gall created the idea of phrenology and that the shape of someone skull indicated which part of your brain was working the hardest. The idea was later disproven but did provide a basis for future studies. Joseph Gall was credited with understanding the microscopic nature of investigation of the transmission of neural signals and of neuronal degeneration and regeneration. The tree like connection patterns he found are not only beautiful but are also extremely important. 95% of what we dream is forgotten, you dream every single night yet only some nig

For my second event I attended the Getty Museum not far from here at UCLA. It was my first time ever going to the Getty and I was surprised by how beautiful it was. Not only was the art inside of it amazing but also the building architecture itself. It has views of LA where you can see for miles and beautiful geometric patterns in the garden. Although I walked through almost all the exhibits i'm going to focus on one in this blog post. The exhibit focuses on five photographers that over the past few decades have used photography to survey specific geographic spaces. These artists all wanted to create a personal vision language, drifting away from traditional landscape photography and its concern with scientific accuracy and aesthetic concerns.  Above is Robert Kinmont's  "My Favorite Dirt Roads" which depicts unpaved roads leading to Bishop, California. These photos capture the mostly empty landscape with the few occasional power lines suggesting some civiliz

In this weeks lecture we learned about biotechnology and the hybrid that scientists are creating between animals. I found this week to be extremely interesting as I had taken a biotechnology class in high school. My class focused on the scientific aspect rather than the art aspect and I never considered the two to be connected. With biotechnology there comes a lot of issues including the debate of morals and ethics. There is a large controversy over artists using animals as test subjects and genetically modifying them.  Artists have entered into these laboratories and work directly with biologists, neuroscientists, geneticists and nanotechnologists to create their own type of artwork. Joe Davis walked into a laboratory of MIT in 1982 and immediately made an impact in the world of bioart. He already had an idea of how genomes could contribute to art he just needed someone to teach him how to synthesize DNA in order to modify organisms on a molecular level. He was almost immediately

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1E4SxT61HhyRyLFL1dReJYoMvmxSofhcBK-IFkreTL4Y/edit?usp=sharing