Week 1: Math + Art

This week's topic is about how math impact art and science. Math, art, and science are highly sophisticated subjects that make up our world. Math is able to help artists and scientists in a variety of different ways. Perhaps, all the subjects can be used together at one time.

Audiograph - Interactive Public Art Installation - Nathan Selikoff

https://vimeo.com/144548013
The link above is a video by Nathan Selikoff that showcases an example of math, art, and science (technology) utilized at the same art. Interactive artists are speaking into a microphone that then produces an audio-graph. Sound-waves (physics) are used to produce the audio-graph through mathematic code which result in an interactive image (art). I was amazed by this phenomenal demonstration of how these three subject work together. If these three subjects start to regularly come together again, then could this be the start of a new culture?

Professor Vesna discusses that math is used with art through geometry, shapes, and formulas to measure the volume and area of artist's work. Artists use mathematical aspects to ensure their artwork to be as authentic and real as possible. She elaborates that Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man is where math meet science. Vitruvia Man uses mathematic angles to predict human proportions.

Vitruvia Man

The picture below is the form of art, origami. Immediately, you will see the geometric aspects of the artwork relating art to math. This whole art piece is based off of geometric shapes. If I wanted to be critical, I can say that science is incorporated through the physics of he bird sticking to the diamond-shaped silicon bronze.

The art piece below is made of croquet. I think it is utterly amazing how art can be created through simple materials using mathematics. Daina Taimina, a mathematician created this art piece through mathematically precise, symmetric hyperbolic planes. It is unbelievable how art and math come together to create an eccentric art piece.

I am still in awe of how mathematics, art, and science are able to work together and have endless possibilities. Before this week, it did not occur to me that these subjects to create sort of miracle. I am unsure of what this is called when subjects overlap to create many things. Artists, mathematicians, and scientists find so many ways to express their profession while incorporating other subjects at their disposal is truly amazing.

Sources

"Daina Taimina." Crochet Coral Reef. Institue For Firguring, n.d. Web. 27 June 2016. <http://crochetcoralreef.org/contributors/daina_taimina.php>.

Lang, Robert J., and Kevin Box. Artwork: Inside Out. Digital image. Lang Origami. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 June 2016. <http://www.langorigami.com/artwork/inside-out>.

Selikoff, Nathan. "Audiograph - Interactive Public Art Installation" Nathan Selikoff. 3 Nov. 2015. Web. 26 June 2012. <http://nathanselikoff.com/>

Vesna, Victoria. “Mathematics-pt1-ZeroPerspectiveGoldenMean.mov.” Cole UC online. Youtube, 26 March 2012. Web. 26 June 2012. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHiL9iskUWM>

Vitruvia Man. Digital image. Wikipedia. Wikimedia, n.d. Web. 26 June 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man>.

Week 1: Two Cultures

As a pre-political science major at UCLA, I have classes in North campus. Besides my statistics class, I do not go to the South side of campus. There is a divide between North and South campus majors. North campus involve arts and the social sciences while South campus consist of math and sciences. There is a hostility between the two a because of the lack of respect for each other, as they define the word "success" is defined differently. The word "success" has caused the divide between art and science. Success is associated with money and careers in science often result in higher income that artist careers.

Out of curiosity, I googled the word "success" on Google Images. Today's view of success is a (business) man in a suit, hypothetically standing and scanning the world below him . 

After watching the online video called "Changing Education Paradigms", I noticed the architectural differences of the buildings of North and South campus. North campus is aesthetically-pleasing while South campus is corporate-style buildings. Pictured below is North campus's beautiful sculpture garden near Broad Art Center while South Campus's mathematical sciences building is business-like with no creative aspects.

UCLA North Campus Sculpture Garden

UCLA South Campus Mathematical Sciences Building

Art and science has divided into two cultures that impacts my life and everyone around me. CP Snow believes that the education system is at fault for this divide. I agree with him because my whole life became affected by this divide. In school all the subjects that required studying are recognized as the "important" subjects that will pave the way to success. But, classes like Art 1 and Ceramics that did not require studying are undermined by the education system.


Before this week, I would never imagine that art and science were once, a culture. I always thought that art and science were completely different. Professor Vesna proclaims that "both artist and scientist are involved in the work of intuiting change in perception and materializing it for others to experience, see and ultimately change". I can see how artists and scientists work together and the importance of finding the similarities in subjects that may seem different. Since I am a freshman, I've found that college is the best time to learn and explore new things. I've never been passionate about a subject but if I take classes of various subjects and try to find the connections, then this will help evolve me into a well-rounded person.

Sources

Gallagher, Tracy. UCLA Sculpture Gardens. Digital image. Tracy Gallagher. Contact Designer L.L.C., 30 Mar. 2011. Web. 26 June 2016.

RSA Animate. "Changing Education Paradigms". Online video clip. UCOnline. 26 June 2016. Web.

Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Cambridge UP, 1959. Print.

Terzidis, Kostas. UCLA Architecture Report P.I.: Kostas Terzidis. Digital image. Oldcda Design UCLA. UCLA, n.d. Web. 26 June 2016.   

Vesna, Victoria. "Toward A Third Culture: Being In Between". Leonardo, JSTOR. Web. 26 June 2016.