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I can remember when I first started drawing I was obsessed with precision and making thing proportional when sketching a person.   I no long wanted to draw eyes too far up on the head like I did when I was a kid.   In my early 20s I discovered a book called “ Artistic Anatomy ” by Paul Marie Louis Pierre Richer (originally published in 1889) hoping to study it to become better at sketching the human form.   The book went into the particulars of the human body and it followed the same practices that da Vinci did when he merged artistic and scientific observation (Irving).   The artistic eye was used to further medical research as it did required great attention to detail.   Body Code is a collection of biomedical animation displayed in galleries to gain public interest in scientific knowledge.   The detail of the cellular phenomenon can be quite a vision when magnified from its molecular scale. In recent times, we have s...

The industrial revolution changed the way in which goods were produced and the way people worked.   The emphasis on efficiency was considered counterintuitive to the rules of nature.  For example, the film Modern Times (1936) showed Charlie Chaplin so focused on his task on the assembly line that he lost perception of what his socket wrench could be used on.  He began to see human body parts as nuts that needed tightening.   Although, this was a comedic play on the difference between the mechanical and the natural, the film Metropolis (1927) had a bit of a darker take of this phenomenon.  The scene called “Maria’s Transformation,” was an eerie view of how mechanization can completely void an individual of their humanity.  The concern with the lack of authenticity was explored in Walter Benjamin’s essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936).   His criticism focused on the film industry as the r...

This week’s lesson reaffirmed something that I had known for a long time: math is art.   Vensa draws connections to mathematical principles and how artist have been able to employ them creatively.   For instance, Vensa discussed Brunellensci’s development of the vanishing point back in 1413.   The vanishing point is the point of a picture in which all parallel lines converge.   This particular way of viewing his painting subject allowed for him to establish an onlooker’s perception of a piece, which can drastically effect audience engagement and interpretation.   The technique is so widely recognized that is being taught to this day to art students like in Frantz’s lesson on vanishing points and its close resemblance to trigonometric formulas.    Another way in which math was used as a form of art was through the reading, Flatland.   This novel used differing polygons to associate people to the respective class status. ...

Kevin Kelley argues the conflicting framework between art and science are two cultures colliding. He articulates in his essay, The Third Culture , that "[t] he purpose of science is to pursue the truth of the universe [and] the aim of the arts is to express the human condition." The notion of truth and human condition can often work against one another but Kelley argues that the competing foundations have birthed a new culture that embraces the rigor of the scientific method and the arbitrary nature of the creative community.  This third culture can concern itself with the the dynamics of pop culture while use technology as a medium to engage it.   For instance, back in 2014, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival used hologram technology to "resurrect" one of hip hop's most influential figures, Tupac, for a "performance".  Hologram tech was not intended for this purpose but the third culture saw it's potential to be used in this manner.  ...