Week 4 | Medicine + Technology + Art | Blog Assignment

Week 4 | Medicine + Technology + Art | Blog Assignment

This week’s topic basically focusing on two aspects, namely medical to art and art to medical.  I primarily focused on the lectures of this week to summarize and express my feelings and thoughts derived from those videos along with assigned readings.  Medical industry is by far one of the most advanced technical field and the most arresting criteria.  The importance of the medical needs no more emphasizing, as human, we need medicines to cure disease which is the most basic human needs.  Moreover, as media and technology kicks in, “art” is performed by using of medical technology.  

From medical technology to art, start with the era of “micro” in medical industry, scientists used varies technology which could help curing disease.  For instance, the microscope, which enlarges cells and help scientists better understanding the behavior of specific cells.  Art pieces are however created as scientists are increasingly able to manipulate cells motion, certain scientists who embrace the nature of art deep down creates paintings made of cells.  

http://www.artvalue.com/auctionresult--eckart-christian-1959-canada-detail-painting-513-1261067.htm

From art to medical technology, stimulated by helping people with disability or enjury which causes the damage to body, plastic surgery has now been highly developed.  It’s human nature to adore beautiful things, especially beautiful men and women.  However, as human beings, no one is perfect and therefore lead to great development of plastic surgery.  The combination of art with medical technology accurately defines how medical technology is emphasized by using of art.  Also, a tremendous number of television channels and web pages have established to promote medical education or knowledge.  The interaction between people and media, such as internet and television created perfect condition for better merge of medical technology and media.  

http://www.network54.com/Forum/151453/message/1265070831/Plastic+Surgery+-+cartoon

http://health.discovery.com

References:

"Plastic surgery". Aman Garg. Citelighter. Retrieved 15 January 2013.

Dwivedi, Girish & Dwivedi, Shridhar (2007). History of Medicine: Sushruta – the Clinician – Teacher par Excellence. National Informatics Centre (Government of India).

Maniglia A.J. (1989), Reconstructive rhinoplasty, The Laryngoscope, 99(8), page 865.

"Introduction". American Board of Plastic Surgery. 2013. Retrieved 4 April 2013.

Wolfgang H. Vogel, Andreas Berke (2009). "Brief History of Vision and Ocular Medicine". Kugler Publications. p.97. ISBN 90-6299-220-X

Week 3 | Robotics + Art | Blog Assignment

Week 3 | Robotics + Art | Blog Assignment

As the society moves forward, it’s inevitable to connect art and technologies together.  Especially after second industrialization, the advantages of mass production enhanced necessity of robotics in art industry.  In the era of which time is everything, people quickly digest information and perceive “data” as much as possible; under such circumstances, information and data are aggressively produced.  One of the most central idea of information here is art, the form of information system that most effectively and directly communicate author’s idea with others.  

Walter Benjamin, as one of the most well known phycologist and sociologist in 1900s from German, clearly and accurately defined the term of “aura”.  There are four basic characteristics of the word “aura”, namely mystery, obscurity, uniqueness and distance perception.  Benjamin demonstrates that “original” art delivers the methodology and idea of the author at the moment of creating the very art piece.  Art pieces could impress you, make you feel the way the author feels and made one lost in thought.  Due to the nature of original art that creates immediately and once only by the creator, it embraces all the phycological conflicts and complexity during the creating process, and that’s the base of uniqueness of art pieces.  Also, people could only experience the originality of the art piece by keeping an appropriate distance from rational feeling and the object itself.  Rational feeling help viewers correctly and objectively perceive the meaning deep down in the art piece.  However, the mass production of art piece although is more convenient to communicate and manipulate as well as reproduction.  And the way of delivery art varies along the way stick together with technology advances.  Overall, the aura of art is lost during the process of reproduction.  

http://www.favillephoto.com/artwork-reproduction-example.jpg

http://www.favillephoto.com/reproduce-your-original-artwork-as-prints.html

http://www.sunshinecompany.co.za/index.php/blog/comments/artwork-reproduction/

References:

Duden Aussprachewörterbuch (6 ed.). Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG. 2006.

Witte, Bernd (1991). Walter Benjamin: An Intellectual Biography (English translation). Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. p. 9. ISBN 0-8143-2018-X.

170, "The Reconciliation of Myth: Benjamin's Homage to Bachofen". Mali, Joseph. Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 60, No. 1. (January 1999) pp. 165-87

Leslie, Esther (2000). "Benjamin's Finale". Walter Benjamin: Overpowering Conformism. Modern European Thinkers. Pluto Press. p. 215. ISBN 978-0-7453-1568-3. Retrieved August 28, 2009.

Jay, Martin The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research 1923–1950.

Week 2 | Math + Art | Blog Assignment

Week 2 Math + Art Blog Assignment

The lectures and readings of this week primarily focused on the relationship between math and art, the interaction between these two criteria and the coexistence of art and science on one personality.  Both readings and lectures elaborated how artists used art as a tool to portray their understanding of world and space in terms of mathematics.  After reading sources and learning from the lecture, I started reconsidering the meaning of the art from artists.  For most of the time, surrealism and abstract paintings are nonsense to me, I couldn’t understand their point of view just as I thought they couldn’t understand nothing about science.  However, along with this week’s materials, all the paintings has a meaning to me.  All of them appreciates some kind of idea from the artists’ mind.  There are three pieces of art which provided me the insight:

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/most-iconic-surrealist-paintings

www.charnine.com

Zhuangzidreamer.wordpress.com

The first painting is a masterpiece from Salvador Dali, namely The Persistence of Memory.  The painting consists of 3 “curved” or “melted” hanging clock.  The background of this painting illustrated a desolation scene, along with these 3 clocks, the image presented a feel that time is the only thing that lasts.  Also, the “curved” clock could be interpreted as a distorted understanding of space and time, which could be linked to the theory of fourth dimension.  The painting impressed me because the artist applied the mathematics based theory of time and space to his creative work in a direct way.  The way of painting is highly appreciated in terms of communicating science in the words of art.  

The juxtaposition of math, art and science could be interpreted as following: every subject are co-related, there is common sense in between each other, the only difference lies in the way of communicating; it’s the diversity of presenting the commonly appreciated method that determined the varsity of subjects.  

References:

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/most-iconic-surrealist-paintings

Zhuangzidreamer.wordpress.com

www.charnine.com

Breton, "Vaché is surrealist in me", in Surrealist Manifesto.

 "Manifesto of Surrealism". Tcf.ua.edu. 1924-06-08. Retrieved 2012-12-06.

Week 1 | Two Cultures | Blog Assignment

The writers of the articles explained the pros and cons of the so called “Third Culture” or the bridging between science and art in detail.  The writer believes that there is no absolute correct answer or perspective for this problem.  The emergence of bridging or third culture is two-sided; on the one hand, if applied appropriately, it will definitely play the role of merging gaps between science and art which in turn producing effective communication between these two groups; on the other hand, the linkage between these two groups or the ability of middleman is fragile and may cause deeper gap.  

Based on my opinions, these two cultures are naturally connected together, both the appearance of third culture or the middleman are catalyst of minimizing and closing of gap.  To start with, most of people contain both sides of the two cultures.  One of my classmate was originally majored in Engineering and later transfered to Design, which he did excellent in both.  Also, engineering professors are more likely to use attracting powerpoint to educate students.  Both situation explains that each person has the spirit of both science and art, it’s just a matter of tendency.  Some are more “art” based, and others are more “science” originated.  

After reading the articles, I started thinking that there actually no need for bridging or third culture.  Each individual, including those regarded as middleman, is able to communicate with both science and art, because that’s the nature of human beings.  Eventually, with the improvement of society and reliability on technology, the gap will disappear by itself.  And it’s becoming even clear to me that thinking analytically with poetic mind is the best way to understand or learn something throughly.  

Reference:

1. ^ Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott (1980). A Greek-English Lexicon (Abridged Edition). United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-910207-4.
2. Jump up
   ^ For ex., George Crabb, Universal Technological Dictionary, or Familiar Explanation of the Terms Used in All Arts and Sciences, Containing Definitions Drawn From the Original Writers, (London: Baldwin, Cradock and Joy, 1823), s.v. "technology."
3. Jump up
   ^ Julius Adams Stratton and Loretta H. Mannix, Mind and Hand: The Birth of MIT (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005), 190-92. ISBN 0262195240.
4. Jump up
   ^ Eric Schatzberg, "Technik Comes to America: Changing Meanings of Technology Before 1930," Technology and Culture 47 (July 2006): 486-512.
5. Jump up
   ^ Read Bain, "Technology and State Government," American Sociological Review 2 (December 1937): 860.

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