Event 5: LASER Symposium

Before the presentations started. 

            I attended the LASER Symposium, which consisted of around ten speakers and each one spoke about his or her in art and science.  This event gave me exposure to many different areas.  The following are a few of my favorite speakers. 

            Misha Rabinovich and Caitlin Foley are interdisciplinary artists.  One of the projects they spoke about was pink noise.  The idea behind Pink Noise is that it occurs often in nature, and they made the distinction between pink and white noise.  White noise is the sound of all frequencies at maximum energy, whereas pink noise has an inverse relationship between frequency and volume.  In their Pink Noise Salon, they had people listen to the ocean using seashells and listen to their own heartbeat; both of these sounds are pink noise.  

Misha Rabinovich and Caitlin Foley describing pink noise. 

            Tamira Elul is a neurobiologist and artist at the Touro University.  I was particularly interested in her projects because they were all related to biology.  In one research project, she showed that forms in paintings by Sam Francis were statistically similar to biological tissues.  Elul and her collaborators used morphometric measurements commonly used in cell biology in order to make these comparisons.  Elul really took the connection of science and art to the next level by using scientific practices to analyze works of art!

Tamira Elul comparing the paintings and biological images. 

Event 4: Jane Mi Installation

I went to the installation by Jane Mi.  The installation consists of a small inlet in a gallery.  The walls had a few photos displayed and a video playing, and the ground was covered in small, black stones.  Stepping from the gallery floor and into the rocks in the installation, I had a feeling that I was entering an entirely new environment. 

            The pieces in the installation were a mix of Antarctica and Hawaii.  For instance, there was a copy of the Antarctic Treaty in the Hawaiian translation.  The treaty states that Antarctica will be only used for scientific research and is banned from all military activity.  Interestingly, the Unites States colonized Hawaii and began scientific colonization.  Perhaps the artist is trying to warn us of the potential colonization of the currently barren landscape of Antarctica. 

Black Ice animation 

            My favorite part of the exhibit was the animation of iceberg tracking.  The animation was projected from the ceiling onto the ground.  I enjoyed how an animation from NASA and the National Science Foundation ended up in an art installation.  The multimedia aspect really added to the experience as well as the fact that it was unconventionally projected onto the ground. 

            Overall, I enjoyed how the artist gave a sense of stepping into Antarctica and another world with the set up of this installation.  It was interesting to see scientific research being brought up in art because we have not talked about it in this class; however, I believe it is an important topic in art and science.    

Event 3: Crocker Art Museum

While visiting family in Northern California, I went to the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento.  The Crocker was full of lots of different types of art, and even the building is half a historic building and half modern architecture. 

One of my favorites was entitled KN-1725 by the American artist Andreas Nottebohm.  The piece was made from aluminum, and as you viewed it from different angles, the dimensions appeared to change drastically.  This was supposed to give the viewer a spiritual sense of infinity.  As it turns out, the artist was inspired by the science and exploration of the universe with regards to its origin, shape, and fate.  The piece almost reminded of an optical illusion as you would move and continue to look at it, and it truly did give a sense of infinity. 

KN-1725

When I saw this next piece, I immediately was reminded of the neuroscience section of this class!  And as it turns out, the piece is from artist Beverly Rayner’s collection on surveillance where she imagines surveillance devices as living organisms that communicate with each other.   This is just like neurons in the nervous system communication with one another!  The “eyes” would be comparable to dendrites in a neuron because they are both receiving information from the outside. 

Beverly Rayner's piece. 

Event 2: Infinity Structures: Paradoxical Spaces by Robert Gero

            I went the exhibition Infinity Structures: Paradoxical Spaces by Robert Gero.  Gero holds his MFA in sculpture, and for this exhibit, he constructed a structure in a room in the California Nanosytems Institute at UCLA.  The exhibition included the Styrofoam-like structure with the lights dimmed and a video projection by Benjamin Lein playing. 

            Upon entering this exhibition, I knew this was noting like I had ever experienced before.  The artist described the work as an infinity structure, or one that “there is a stable exterior and an infinitely expanding interior.”  Here is where the paradox arises with the interior having an infinite interior.  Gero also said such a structure transforms a static space into a dynamic space. 

            I can see why Professor Vesna recommended this event to us.  I enjoyed the immersion of the intersection between mathematics and art.  The inside of the structure in particular felt infinite because you could see the white bars going in so many different ways in the three dimensional space.  I have always thought of infinity as such an abstract mathematical concept and a concept that I never thought about outside of my math courses.  Robert Gero opened my eyes to the beauty and intrigue of something that I once thought of as so dull.    

Event 1: Fowler Museum

I decided to attend the Making Strange exhibit in UCLA’s Fowler Museum.  The exhibit consisted of two bodies of work (Gagawaka and Postmortem) from the Indian artist Vivan Sundaram.  As a graduating senior, I’m glad I was able to finally make it to the museum for the first time to see such an interesting exhibit!   

          

  The pieces from Gagawaka included pieces of wearable garments that were made from various recycled materials.  The materials ranged from orthopedic braces to bras to tampons to packaging from medications.  These pieces juxtaposed high fashion with items seen as trash or otherwise not fashion.  From afar the outfits looked like something that could be seen in a high fashion magazine or a runway.  I enjoyed the use of the recycled materials in the industrialized world that we live in today. 

            The other body of work, Postmortem, used mannequins and various anatomical models in its displays.  The influence of the biological sciences was very apparent here!  The thing that drew me to this exhibit was the piece of an opened mannequin torso to reveal a vertebral column (pictured below); it certainly gave a unique perspective of the human body.  Throughout this course, Professor Vesna has told us about the connection between art and science, and I enjoyed being able to see this on my own in a museum. 

            The most enjoyable aspect of visiting this exhibit was being able to be the pieces up close.  I had seen photos of this exhibit before, but it was much more rewarding being able to see the use of different materials up close.