Week 9: Space and Art

This week we end our class with the topic of space and art. In my opinion, space is one of the most fascinating areas of human explorations and our knowledge of space is still limited. The topic of space and art is very complicated, as Professor Vesna noted in lecture that it combines all of our previous topics into the perfect conclusion of the course.

We started to explore the universe thousands of years ago. One of the most famous scientists was Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus is a mathematician and also an astronaut. He was the first person who introduced that it is the sun, rather than earth, at the center of the solar system and used mathematical details to prove it.

People began their explorations of space thousands of years ago and got great breakthroughs in recent decades. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first satellite Sputnik into space, beginning what is known as the “Space race”. In responding to the “race”, NASA invented the series of Apolo. However the Soviet Union still took the lead. After successfully launching a living dog and chimpanzees into space, the Soviet Union began to try to send humans into space and Yuri Gagarin became the first human to be launched into space. People’s interest in space also increased when the “Space race” started. More and more materials related to space were added into our classes.The “Space race” also accelerated the development of space technology and nowadays more and more countries are able to launch their own satellites and even send living humans to ramble in space. On December 3, 2013 China will launch “Chang’e 3” which has a robotic lander and a rover into space and it will land on Moon to begin its lunar exploration mission.

Space has also inspired the world of entertainment and science fiction plays a huge role in the intersection of art and space. The movie ET was one of the first films to address the idea of alien lives and audiences showed great responses to the science fiction movies related to space. Now we have more and more space movies like Star Trek and Gravity and they still intrigue people of all ages.

With the development of space technology, more and more interesting new stuff in space will be discovered and maybe one day we will find that things that happened in Star Trek and ET really exist!

Citations:

1.Austin, Alex. "Happy Birthday Copernicus!." . N.p., E-mail. <http://alexautindotcom.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/happy-birthday-copernicus/>.

2."Sputnik 1." . N.p., Online Posting to Image of the Day Gallery. E-mail. <http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/201353main_rs_image_feature_924_946x710.jpg>.

3."Yuri Gagarin." . N.p., Online Posting to Inyourposcker. E-mail. <http://www.inyourpocket.com/russia/Moscow/Yuri-Gagarin_72055f>.

4.Winner, Derek. "E.T." . N.p., E-mail. <http://derekwinnert.com/e-t-the-extra-terrestrial-classic-film-review-303/>.

5."The space race." . N.p., Online Posting to History. E-mail. <http://www.history.com/topics/space-race>.

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Week 8: Nanotechnology and Art

Nanotechnology is a term I often heard but didn't realized what exactly it is. Through this week’s lecture Dr. Gimzewski gave us a deep explanation of nanotechnology from its history and applications. Nanotechnology has been revolutionizing the world of  art and technology for many years and it’s much more present in our lives than we are aware of it. Many of our clothes , electronic products and even food contain some elements of nanotechnology.

The silver nanoparticles can destroy the bacteria effectively so it has a variety of applications. For example, many sportwears like socks and underpants contain silver nanoparticles that have an antimicrobial effect so you can wear them for a long time without smelling bad. It can also be used in food packaging bag and other antibacterial products.

silver nanoparticles

One famous example of applications of nanotechnology in our lives is Donna Srgo. Donna surge is an Australian designer who created dresses with Morphotex fabric, an Nanotech-engineered material. This material is structured to mimic the properties of Blue morpho butterfly wings. Instead of getting its color by the pigment, this material gets its color through its internal structure alone, resulting in pure color which will never fade. It replaces the use of toxic dyes and will be better for our environment and the human health.

We have found many applications of nanotechnology in the modern society, but actually nanotechnology is not an entirely new technology emerging in recent several decades. We can also find nanoparticles in some ancient artistic works. The Lycurgus Cup from the Roman era of 400 AD appears jade green when you look at the cup in daylight and appears red if you illuminate it from inside. This mystery puzzled scientists for decades and wasn't solved until 1990. When scientists scrutinized broken fragments under a microscope and discovered that the Roman artisans used particles of silver and gold and grounded down them until they were as small as 50 nanometers in diameter. When metal such as gold and silver are broken down into nanoparticles, their optical properties change because the way in which the particle absorbs light wavelengths changes. Roman artisans are actually the nanotechnology pioneers. The mysterious beauty of The Lycurgus Cup is a perfect example of combining art and nanotechnology.

I am very surprised that we are currently exposed to a lot of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology has so many great features that fascinated me and I believe it will surely bring a lot of more benefits to humans.

Citations:

1. "Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles." . N.p., Online Posting toFuture Chemistry. E-mail. <http://www.futurechemistry.com/standaard.php?id=2351>.

2. Merali, Zeeya. "This 1,600-Year-Old Goblet Shows that the Romans Were Nanotechnology Pioneers." Sep 2013. N.p., E-mail. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/This-1600-Year-Old-Goblet-Shows-that-the-Romans-Were-Nanotechnology-Pioneers-220563661.html>.

3. "Cambridge University wants to take its flexible opals to market." . N.p., Online Posting to Frogheart. E-mail. <http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=10235http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=10235>.

4. Malik Chua, Jasmin. "“Morphotex” Dress Mimics Butterfly Wing Shimmer—Without Any Dyes." . N.p., E-mail. <http://www.ecouterre.com/morphotex-dress-mimics-butterfly-wing-shimmer-without-any-dyes/>.

5. Soutter, Will. "Nanotechnology in Clothing." . N.p., E-mail. <http://www.azonano.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=3129>.

Event 2 : Dow Jones: A Solfège Economy

On October 31, I went to the Art|Sic Gallery in CNSI and attended the event “Dow Jones: A Solfege Economy”. When I walked into the dark room I was completely confused. There’re only three big TV screens and people in the video clips were just repeatedly singing a single tone. I didn’t understand the meaning of each tone at all. Probably seeing the confusions from everyone's face, Gareth began to introduce himself and this exhibit 15 minutes later.

Gareth Walsh is a lecturer at UCLA and interested in creating artwork that questions the boundaries of perceived reality and focusing on the illusionary properties developed through the manipulation and recombination of its parts. The Dow Jones index is a real-time index that shows how 30 large publicly owned companies based in the United States have traded during a standard trading session in the stock market. Gareth’s exhibit vocalized the Dow Jones: The change of the index is updated in real-time and the magnitude and direction of the change are combined together and corresponding to the musical scale “Do re mi fa so la ti,” where 0 is a little higher than “fa”, “ti” means a major increase and “do” means a major decrease. As Gareth explained his exhibit, I began to understand the insight of each single tone which seemed to be meaningless to me at the beginning. It was so impressive that the Dow Jones index was updated in real-time and the tones were also updated corresponding to the change of Dow Jones Index. Writing a song by using stock index sounds pretty interesting and combines the art and science.

After many years of study of economics and finance, we haven’t found an effective way to predict the stock market for a short period and we can only predict the general trend of the stock market. The visualization of data may provide us with a new approach and Gareth’s Dow Jones exhibit is a good example. Data visualization is not only a tool to communicate with non-experts more clearly and effectively through graphical or vocal means. It should also provide an entirely new point of view of data we have and thus inspire researchers to find different way and approaches.

I really enjoyed Gareth’s exhibit. It combines the art and science well and is also interesting and educational. I hope through data visualization we can find new approaches and make break through in many different areas. 

Citations:

1. "Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti." . N.p., Online Posting toSongwriting Unlimited. E-mail. <http://www.songwriting-unlimited.com/do-re-mi.html

2. "Journalism in the age of data." . N.p., Online Posting toStanfordedu. E-mail. <http://datajournalism.stanford.edu/

3. Walsh, Gareth. "GARETH WALSH." . N.p., Online Posting toUCLA Design Media Arts. E-mail. <http://dma.ucla.edu/faculty/profiles/?ID=84>.

4. Image by self at event 2013

5. "Datawatch (DWCH): More Value Creation." 03 10 2013. N.p., Online Posting to gurufocus. E-mail. <http://www.gurufocus.com/news/230504/datawatch-dwch-more-value-creation>.

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