DESMA 9

This week, Professor Vesna provided insights on how medicine and technology have influenced art. I found the origins of human dissection particularly fascinating. I was originally unaware that it was used by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. I was further unaware that it inspired artists, specifically those who worked on anatomical drawings. Leonardo Da Vinci, for example, dissected human bodies and created detailed, lifelike, anatomical drawings. In addition, Henry Gray’s book, “Anatomy,” has been used as a resource by numerous artists working with the human body for decades. Emily Watson is an example of an artist in today’s society who also draws inspiration from the human body. Some of her work can be seen here: In 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today known as X-rays. For this discovery, Rontgen won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. Obviously, the invention of the X-ray has an immense impact on medicine,...

For my first event of the quarter, I attended Biomimicry in the Botanical Garden. When I first arrived, I did not know what to expect; I had never been to the Botanical Garden nor did I know what Biomimicry was. However, once the event started, I was pleasantly intrigued. The first speaker of the night was Nestor R Gonzalez, MD, MSCR. While Dr. Gonzalez is a Professor of Neurosurgery at Geffen and a surgeon, he explained that his real passion is research. As a surgeon, he operates on the arteries and veins of the brain. He noticed that many of his stroke patients were having different responses to the surgeries he was performing. While some would respond well, others would not. As a result, Dr. Gonzalez started to spend more of his time researching this issue and began to focus his life on answering the question: How can blood vessel growth be promoted to increase blood flow to the brain? The Botanical Garden is a place that Dr. Gonzalez visited often during hi...

This week, Professor Vesna provided insights on how robotics and science influenced art. She explained how the idea of the robot came from theater as a response to the mechanization of labor and brought up examples of many of Charlie Chaplin's movies, including Modern Times and Metropolis. One example referenced in the lecture that I found captivating was Blade Runner. Reason  being, I have seen the original as well as the remake released in 2017. I did not realize until Professor Vesna pointed it out, that theater really did inspire robotics through the limitless power of imagination. In the case of Blade Runner, the movie depicted replicants (bio-engineered humans) which are essentially cyborgs - a combination of human and robotic parts as seen here: Through Blade Runner as well as other movies set in the future, one can see the advancement of technology (as portrayed in movies) as having a negative affect on mankind. This can be seen through the dark, mysterious, and omi...

This week, Professor Vesna provided insights on how mathematics and science has influenced art. I found the Vanishing Point, developed by Brunellesci, particularly interesting since it relates mathematics to the real world. As a Math major, I have been taught that any pair of parallel lines never intersect and any pair of nonparallel lines always intersect. The Vanishing Point Theorem provides a unique perspective to the previous statement by applying it to the real world. Essentially, it explains that a pair (or more) of parallel lines in the real world are not necessarily parallel in the picture plane, and for that reason, they share a point of intersection in the picture plane called a vanishing point. This picture provides an example of a vanishing point: I also learned that the golden ratio appears in many forms of art, including paintings, sculptures, as well as architecture. One of the most world renown polymaths, Leonardo Da Vinci, used the ...