Medicine + Art

Medicine is a form of art. Technology & Art, gives people tools to examine and study the world and help understand it. Technological advances such as glasses, braces, prosthetic limbs, all those tools help humans progress positively in everyday life. During the Ted Talk Virgil states that his ailing mother made this claim while discussing art with him in the hospital,“Medicine helps us live longer lives, but art is about why we live” (Ted Talk). Artists and Doctors are synonymous and both help progress the quality of human life.

Art as medicine poster from JHU Magazine

The trailer for Steven Spielberg’s Al, depicts that a Robot child, is capable of love. His purpose of being built was to be given to a childless couple. Once again art, technology and medicine intertwine to give us life and help improve our quality of life as well. In this case, potentially filling the missing void of a child, to a couple. Although this movie is fictional, and there are no robot children, the movie captures how technology can aid in helping fill an emotional void. This is all helping me to respect the arts and realize that the arts are just as important to sustaining human life, then medicine is.

Medicine is a positive form of technological advance that has truly helped the human race evolve. However, Art also gives humans purpose. This weeks’ videos and pictures in class is teaching me that medicine can be art, and artists should be respected just as much as doctors are. It is also helping me to see that both combine in a way that help balance the other, which gives many people purposeful lives.

The movie trailers about modern technology are a combination of art, technology and theatre within itself. The medicine is used to heal humans in the movies, or like in robo-cop, the technology gives a glimpse into the future and possible human/robot interactions. While movies can be considered art, and provide entertainment to an audience. 

Robo cop from the movie

Sources:

Taylor, Don.  The Island of Doctor Moreau 1977. YouTube, 26 May 2010.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kONqJoTMlk.

Verhoeven, Paul. Robocop.  Youtube.  1 November, 2007  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mLmHUbC240.

Wong, Virgil. Ted Talk Medical Avatar. 24, March 2011. http://virgilwong.com/virgils-ted-talk-the-medical-avatar/

Spielberg, Steven. Artificial Intelligence Trailer. 29 August, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECGnWoQgz6Q

Driessens, Erwin & Verstappen, Maria. Not not collection. n.d. https://notnot.home.xs4all.nl

Robotics + Art

Robotics + Art is a relationship that has created an entire genre of movies that have forever combined the two subjects. This relationship starting with industrialization and mass production.

In lecture, Professor Vesna mentioned mass production begins with the printing press. The printing press is the beginning of the assembly line production. Then there is the second industrial revolution, where the idea of the robot came out of the theatre as a response to mechanization of labor. Thus once again combining the arts and technology. Moving into the new era where machines blend in with biology. Invention of a movable type helped revolutionize the way people saw and describe the world people live in. Printing press helped make possible the rapid distribution of knowledge. Which can be argued as, to be a foundation for science fiction novels and movies to be popularized. A movie, I feel, provides a platform for futuristic art and technology is one such as back to the future. While a couple of the inventions in the movie were predecessors, there are many that represent technological advances today. Movies as a whole, that feature robotics, can arguably give glimpses into the future relationships between humans and technological advances.

List of predictions from Back to the future

In his piece, Walter Benjamin discusses a shift in perception and its affects in the wake of the advent of film and photography in the twentieth century. He wrote that the sense changes within humanity’s entire mode of existence, the way we look and see the visual work of art is different now and its consequences remain to be determined. He tries to make something specific about the modern age/ of the effects of modernity of the work of art in particular. Which in context, relates to films with Robotics. Typically there is a consequence/malfunction of the technology, that ultimately results in consequences for the humans. 

Walter Benjamin

I believe that both robotics/technology and art/films influence each other. First shown when mass assembly has given rise to great science fiction movies and plots. Next, inventions in technological advances could arguably be inspired by what is portrayed in films. As technological advances has truly defined the twenty first century, advances in technology displayed in films, both progressively aid in the advancement of the human-technology relationship. 

list of popular robots from movies/films


Sources: Pictures
www.relatably.com
walterbenjaminportbou.cat
comicvine.gamespot.com
Sources:

Vesna,Victoria. “Lecture Part 2.” Robots + Art. 14 April. 2016. Lecture.
Vesna, Victoria. "Lecture Part 1." Robots + Art. 14 April. 2106. Lecture.
Vesna, Victoria. "Lecture Part 3." Robots + Art. 14 April. 2016. Lecture.

Vesna, Victoria. “CoLE.” CoLE. N.p.. Web. 18 Oct 2012. <https://cole.uconline.edu/~UCLA-201209-16S-DESMA-9-1

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Marxists. N.p.. Web. 14 April 2016. 

Math + Art

This week I essentially learned there is math in art. When I think of art I would’ve never previously associated math with art. Especially because art is a form of expression, and in math there are strict rules and formulas. After this week I learned there are several ways artists implement the two, to create more realistic art.

The rule that really amazed me was the vanishing point rule Brunelleschi in 1413. Before him artists just overlap objects to show position but Brunelleschi demonstrated a geometric method of perspective. Vanishing point is basically where it looks like parallel lines converge. It essentially gives a cool 3d look to a painting or photograph. 

Example of vanishing point in a painting 

As well as the African Fractal piece, I realized there is math even within patterns. Fractals are defined as “a pattern that repeats itself at different scales.” This technique helps create realistic nature models and I learned that Africans use the technique to create sculptures, hairstyles, and so many things that influence culture today! 

How Africans use fractals to create hairstyles, a hair style I am currently wearing.

I would explain the juxtaposition of math, art, and science, as all different forms of one another. There is math in art, math can arguably be an art form. Science and math have always been related, but it definitely influences art. This dichotomy between the arts and the sciences is a common misconception that separates two things that are forever intertwined.

A visual of my last sentence, that the three subjects of math art and science are combined. 

Sources:

http://www.ccd.rpi.edu/Eglash/csdt/african/African_Fractals/homepage.html. (Fractals)

http://www.cs.ucf.edu/courses/cap6938-02/refs/VanishingPoints.pdf. (Vanishing Points)

Smith, B. Sidney. "The Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher." Platonic Realms Minitexts. Platonic Realms, 13 Mar 2014. Web. 13 Mar 2014. <http://platonicrealms.com/> (Math in Art Insight)

Pictures:

http://www.vertice.ca/index.php/2012/sonic-vanishing-points/

www.theacademylb.com

www.throughart.org

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