Final Blog and Reflections

I almost forgot to do the last blog! I was trying to fall asleep Sunday night, and suddenly for some reason thought, “wait, did I ever to my final blog for DESMA?” I jumped out of bed and now I am typing.

Anyways, this quarter has been pretty awesome. I enrolled in this class, because honestly, it fit perfectly with my schedule, and sounded a little cool. But I am so happy that I took this class because it was so great and amazing. In the beginning I was very skeptical about this class. I didn’t understand how Art, Science, and Technology could be related. I now know just how wrong I was. Everything is related, and one cannot exist without the other, as a matter of fact, the compliment each other. How could we make scientific advancements without the right technology? And how can we make technological advancements without applying art?

My favorite topic that we learned about was nanotechnology. Not because it was the most interesting, but rather because I have heard about it so much, but never really understood what it is and how it can be applied.  By far my favorite day of lecture would have to be when we had the special Math Rock performance. To be honest, there were sometimes of the performance where I felt like it was really annoying, but for the most part, I found it really cool and awesome.  I kept thinking he was going to finish, but he kept on going and going.  It’s really amazing how he improvises like that. Because of this class I am able to appreciate things like Math Rock much more. Before, I probably would have just dismissed it as annoying music. But now I realize that it is art; a paradigm shift. I enjoyed the final presentations a lot as well. It’s pretty amazing to see how within these parameters, students could come up with so many different ideas – all of which are creative and applicable to the real world.

This was a great class that I not only learned a lot from, but also enjoyed. I will highly recommend it to my friends. I hope there are more classes like this at UCLA! Thanks for a great quarter.

10

ten

Final Blog! -Jennie Wong

I definitely like how for the final projects we were required to relate them to a certain element.  In general the presentations were a lot more interesting because everyone had a certain guideline to follow. It was especially cool to see how a bunch of different people would treat the same element differently.  It just goes to show that with creativity and human imagination you really can go far and wide. I would love to see one or two of these projects actually created, as Professor Vesna seeks to do.  That would just be a testament to the idea of dreaming big to create new innovations.

I think that that is certainly one of the main things I will take away from this class- that many of the ideas we come up with actually have the possibility of becoming something bigger than “just an idea”.  It has amazed me to see speaker after speaker with crazy ideas they’ve come up with and actualized.  Same goes for all the artists and scientists introduced in lecture.  Who would haev thought of a green bunny? Who would have thought of baking bread that looks like body parts? Who would have thought of tracked the sounds of dance? Incredible…I’ve also been inspired by what people closer to home, so to speak, have done.  Namely, our professor and TA’s.  It’s been really neat to see what they’ve achieved, from Professor Vesna’s oil/water experiment in Spain to Gil’s one string guitars. What’s especially unique about the department of design and media arts is how it encourages projects like this. Most everywhere else, you’re just given a bunch of info and told to memorize it and there is a right and a wrong answer. Here, it is all about thinking outside the box to come up with new information. It’s different, but I like it.

Patty Durongwong. Week 10. On Imagination.

Although the final projects had the same concept and outline of the midterm, I noticed a difference in ideas and presentation. I noticed that the midterm ideas were concentrated around human improvement but the final presentations had more substance to it. Perhaps it was the “Earth, Wind, and Fire” prompt that detoured us from choosing ideas that would help us improve. That brings me to another rather interesting revelation. When asked to think of anything – no boundaries, no set rules or limitation – many students came up with ways to move faster, to replace arms, to make us stronger, or to make humans less human-like and more god-like. It seems the inevitable selfishness is instilled in our very minds and what we really want is not world peace or a green earth, but a super human that will allow us as individuals to pull ahead past the rest of the meekly humans. I felt that having an outline for the final really forced us to pick and choose what we find important aside from our hidden agendas.  A project that I specifically remember for whatever reason is the Air freshener flower pot. Although a rather simple and materialistic idea, I was intrigued by its simplicity and direct practicality. Here i was, thinking of ways to improve the environment or educate others of pollution and what not – and I forgot about the beauty of life. The Air Freshener Flower Pot seemed to also be one of the most attainable and accomplished. Many of us had grand ideas to build domes and structures but the concept of the flower pot was tangible. (I know I would buy one…)  On entering the Design and Media Arts 9, I didn’t really know what to expect. Would it be a class that introduces Media Arts or Design? I had no idea. However, I leave with an enormous amount of respect for the class. Having taken a very similar class in high school titled Theory Of Knowledge, I realized how important it is to open our minds. This class, much like the class in high school, taught me to look at concepts in a new outlook and different perspective. On another note, I would also like to applaud these blogs. They really allowed me to express how i felt and reflect on the class in an informal but very in depth manner.  

jack kutilek week 9 nanotech and IBM technology and art and lecture and science

BLOG TIME A LITTLE BIT LATE
lets reflect on last week
all i remember was gimzewskis(?) lecture on nanotechnology. it was pretty chill i guess i was really able to listen to it because he made it entertaining to just listen to him talk. or maybe it was that i am secretly interested in nanotechnology and i just dont know it. actually that might have something to do with it; i did find it pretty interesting regardless. ONWARD TO SCIENCE. what was really most interesting to me was that we have to ability to paint with atoms. like that ucla thing. or any of the other ones i forget if he showed us any other ones. I really just think it’s amazing that we can do that. I guess thats the digs. because we cant really do any special art with it, its just really really small. but its the same stuff you know. just putting colors on a surface or canvas.
Ah, a quick look at the internet and we’ve got an article that talks about IBM and painting with atoms. and also what other things they can do with atoms, like store data apparently. SO SAYS http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20712521/. ah yes they spelled IBM in atoms. but they also made the worlds smallest art piece: it is a picture of the sun made of 20000 gold atoms on a silicon wafer. its pretty spectacular i guess but the article doesnt show a PIC of it. i had to look elswhere:

but the science is pretty astonishing too. its not all art these days. IBM is saying if they place nanowires correctly, they can get some high performance machinery! ho ho ho santa’s come early this year! they can also potentially make very small arrays to test for small traces of diseases. pretty impressive, IBM.
Now let me think about all this. In terms of the future, I mean. Excuse me. But i think this stuff will play a large part in the future. I mean they have so many ideas already of what they can do with it. Imagine what people will come up with when we really know how to work with it all. We are talking about flying cars here people. actually not, that was unfounded. but probably our lives are going to get better.

Cassi Padgett- Week 9/10- Two topics

Last week I thought the speaker was very interesting. Often times a speaker may have a very interesting topic to discuss, but their personality may not be quite as interesting. Last week’s speaker, however, definitely kept the attention of the audience. He along with funny and energetic speakers like him, should be invited back to lecture to future classes.

The persentations that were presented on Monday were very interesting. However, I felt as though I was seeing the same presentation over and over again. Most of the presentations dealing with water were about how to lessen water pollution or how to demonstrate to the common public the different states of water. All of the presentations were very interesting, however I think the midterms that were presented offered much more diversity and, in turn, sparked muh more interest in the class than are the finals thus far. My partner and I have yet to present our presentation in the category of Earth. At the time, our project was seemingly innovative, however after seeing how similar the projects have been thus far, it certainly makes me nervous that our project will to be repeated.

This class has not only been informative, but Professor Vesna and the TAs made it fun and exciting. Although I don’t intend to major in Design and Media Arts, this has certainly been my most informative and fun class that I have taken.

Here’s more info on James Gimzewski:

http://www.chem.ucla.edu/dept/Faculty/gimzewski/

9

nine

A Reflection – Chris Brackert

            So, it is the last week of class.  How did it all go?  Well, in my opinion, it was all a huge success.  We managed to educate in the path of the third culture.  North campus and South campus majors alike enjoyed the class (I think).  Personally, this has been one of my favorite classes at UCLA. 

To me, art is such a special thing.  It takes real guts to be an artist.  You have to go out into the world and present yourself and your ideas to be judged.  Judgment about artists and their art comes from all sorts of people, so in the end, you are guaranteed to have some negative feedback.  This is a harsh world.  A lot of luck goes into making it big in the art world.  A lot of luck and a lot of hard work.  I am a firm believer that a good, successful artist must put much time and energy into getting known in the art community and beyond.  For this, I have always been jealous.

Being a computer Science Major, I tend to find myself spending much of my time at a computer.  I really want to learn about the artsy world around me and explore my artistic side.  (OK, I do happen to spend a heck of a lot time playing music with my band, but not as much as I would like).  I feel like I am trapped in my South campus bubble, and have no ability to explore elsewhere.

This class has opened my eyes and increased my hope that I can pursue an art career as well as stick with my Engineering major.  I had never previously thought about the idea that things I have been learning in my classes could possibly be applied to art.  Now, I believe the complete opposite.  In fact, in some ways, my scientific background could potentially help me create art that someone without that knowledge could have never even dreamed of.  All of this excites me very much and I hope to continue learning about the things that we have only touched the surface of in this class.

Thank you to Victoria, the TAs, and all the guest lecturers (even that crazy green bunny guy).

WEEK 9 – Frank Nicholas- The End

I really liked the speaker today. I think he was a good lecturer and was funny, and I think it was good to get to see a different perspective on everything. Not only form a professor form a different field, but from someone from and whole different country. Nano technology is so interesting to me because there is no way to look at any art of it without machines and microscopes and such. I thought what he said about the makeup industry being a lot of nano technology was really interesting. No one would every think that makeup was such a science. And this just show how there is so much more to things than one thinks, and only those who make it or develop it really knows what goes into a product.So we got through half of the presentations and I think they are going really well.  Everyone had such good ideas, and even though there were a lot that were similar, like water pollution, no one had the same exact projects.  With this class coming to an end I think that it was a really fun and interesting class and I would recommend it to my friends.  I’m looking forward to the other half of the presentations tomorrow.

Connections- Tiffany Leung

Having James Gimzewski as our last guest lecturer of the class was a very good choice. As opposed to the last guest lectures who gave sort of ordinary, or such structured lectures, Gimzewski’s was much more enjoyable because he lectured in a way that kept us interested throughout, I think, because of how light hearted and numerous he was about his work, colleagues, and about science in general. I felt like before him, scientists I’ve usually heard talk about their work have always been very serious and a bit intimidating, so it was a little harder to follow their lectures. Gimzewski’s work with nanotechnology is definitely a great breakthrough for the world of science and it was fascinating to learn about the developments that are happening at this very second on OUR campus! I love UCLA! After looking up about more of the work that Gimzewski is involved in, the most recent is the discovery of a distinguishing texture of cancer cells and normal cells. http://www.chem.ucla.edu/dept/Faculty/gimzewski/ Work like this has a great potential to do wonders for the future treatment of cancer patients, and its very interesting to see where this will go throughout our lifetime. His other works, like the project about trying to record the sounds of a butterfly cocoon, really exemplifies the work that scientists do that also involve the arts. The meshing of Gimzewski’s work and Professor Vesna’s work shows just how much science and art correlate and how much they depend on each other for all sorts of projects now.

Another part of our lectures that week, which I found to be interesting as well, was the Mandela project that Professor Vesna had worked on with the Tibetan Monks. It is really intriguing to see the connection between religious practices and art. Even though art has always been a huge part of religion, seeing the ceremonies and practices that are linked to the creation of these mandalas shows how precise it all must be. The making of these mandalas also incorporates the use of technology, especially when we saw slides of large production it required to showcase these works of art. When we learn how monks, artists (Prf. Vesna), and scientists (Gimzewski), work together to create this nanomandala, we can really appreciate the relationship between those studies. I just found a few sites that had information of the project like this one, http://nano.arts.ucla.edu/mandala/mandala.php . I really wish we could have seen the video that Professor Vesna wanted to show us of the really cool zoom-out of the mandala because I haven’t been able to find it on the internet either.

For this week, the first half of the final presentations have been really cool since none of them overlapped too much. Even though the topic of water seems like there would not be that many things to talk about, the possibilities now seem limitless. I am looking forward to seeing what earth presentations will be about on Wednesday.