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Week 8: Nanotech + Art In this week's lecture, professor Vesna discusses how nanotechnology is sparking the 21st century's paradigm shift. In the previous weeks, the focus seemed to help artists understand humanity on a deeper level through each specific method—biotech, neuroscience, etc—which helped them create more intellectual art. However, with nanotech, this is now inspiring artists to reshape art and even science itself. Richard Feynman (Father of  nanotechnology) One thing professor Vesna talked about is how nanotechnology is beginning to develop into the third culture we talked about in week one. Because nanotech allows scientists to manipulate molecules at an atomic level, this is causing a paradigm shift in what our society is used to. One downfall of nanotechnology is the fact that it is done at a such a minute scale that it is not visible naturally by the human eye. The changes in atoms are measured with the help of technology, which allows scientists to rec

Week 7: Neuroscience + Art In the image below, artist Eli Joteva used this to represent the human brain at work. This depiction is relative to this week's topic because it deals with consciousness. If artists are able to create these types of images of the human mind, can they serve as a blueprint to pioneer something as advanced as artificial intelligence? Much like how artists studied the human body and created drawings of it to help understand its functionality on a deeper level, perhaps this same method can be used to understand the mind. Eli Joveta's Future Representation Carl Jung, Giovanni Frazzetto, and Suzanne Anker all discuss neuroscience as well as this new concept of "neuroculture." In Frazzetto and Anker's piece, they discuss how the topic of neuroscience is becoming a part of our daily lives, making it a part of humanity's culture. This is causing artists to make their own renditions that capture the essence of what they believe neurosci

Event #2: Hammer Museum For my second event I decided to take a trip to the Hammer Museum. Although I've passed by the museum multiple times, this was my first time going inside and exploring. Despite only two galleries being open today, I wandered around the entire museum just observing the people and things going on. Me standing at the entrance of the museum One of the pieces I'd like to talk about is the Unspeakable: Atlas, Kruger, Walker; Hammer Contemporary collection. This particular exhibition was very interesting, it was very pleasing to see all of the sunsets pieced together on the screen. The real-time sunsets combined with the clock counting down until it got dark was a very refreshing thing to see. Sometimes when I think of art I think of a painting or picture just hanging on a wall, but when I saw this, it made me realize that art is not just that, it can practically be anything.  Unspeakable Art Exhibit information This exhibit showed beauty and

Week 6 Blog: BioTech + Art The combination of biotech and art is interesting because biotech itself is quite a controversial subject. As professor Vesna explains, biotech deals with many issues that deal heavily with humans and nature. Whether it be combining two animals species together or analyzing the food we put in our body, biotech presents issues that are prevalent in modern society. Professor Vesna also mentions how we are in a new generation of art that has allowed artists to enter into laboratories and work directly with biologists, nanotechnologists, geneticists, and neuroscientists to understand the human body at the cellular level. Regardless of how scientists use this advanced technology, the use biotech and art together is beginning to concern the livelihood of animals, questioning if there needs to be a line drawn in regards to the nature and livelihood of wild animals.  James Watson When concerning the need for a set of specific "standards," it seems t

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Week 4 Blog: Medicine + Technology + Art As professor Vesna discusses in her first lecture, human dissection was practiced during the Renaissance era in order to understand the human body on a much deeper and detailed level. During this time, doctors and artists were able to collaborate together in order to further their knowledge about the human body. The human anatomy has always been a fascinating subject to study and even today doctors are finding new methods to help benefit humanity in various ways. It has also helped us to understand life on a cellular/molecular level, giving us the basic building blocks of what us humans are built upon.                                                Book explaining anatomy and dissection. Professor Vesna continues by saying how the evolution in technology has changed how we look at our own anatomy. X–rays, CAT scans, and MRIs are just a few examples that have helped doctors to further understand each individual function of all  parts of th