Desma 9 Extra Credit Event #2 Mary Reid Kelly at Hammer Museum

Desma 9 Extra Credit Event #2 Mary Reid Kelly at Hammer Museum

I visited Hammer Museum for Mary Reid Kelly's art exhibition a few days ago, Mary Reid Kelly's art exhibition at the Hammer Museum consists of three short videos made by herself. In the videos, the characters art "models" made by Mary Reid Kelly, with the shape of human but looks like artificial models.

The gallery where the videos were played was very dark and I have to admit that I was scared by the combination of the darkness and bizarre looking of the characters made by Mary Reid Kelly, their eyes were unnatural and the combination of white eyeballs and a not moving black pupil was scary.

In the videos, the human shape figures created by Mary Reid Kelly were presenting short plays directed by Mary Reid Kelly. Their lines were obscure and a little bit rhythmic so I took a pamphlet carrying the lines and read it afterward to help me understand about the plays.

Mary Reid Kelly's short plays was based on ancient greek times and discussed about family, fate, and one's choices. She acted as each and every characters and used her paintings as the looking of the characters. And she also focused on women characters, all the characters told stories based on women's perspective. I think it is a very interesting form of art representation and being there really expanded my understanding on forms of artistic expression and I recommend my classmates also go and watch this intriguing and interesting exhibition.

It was very dark inside so I could not take pictures of myself within the gallery, so I took pictures of myself outside the gallery.

My picture with a Hammer Museum staff

Desma 9 Extra Credit Event Blog #1 Joseph Holtzman at Hammer Museum

Desma 9 Extra Credit Event Blog #1 Joseph Holtzman at Hammer Museum

I visited the Hammer Museum for Joseph Holtzman's paintings exhibition a few days ago on a afternoon. Hammer Museum locates in the Occidental Petroleum Corporate Building on Wilshire Boulevard and was founded by the founding chairman of the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Hammer.

Hammer Museum had this beautiful and comfortable center patio with bamboos.

The gallery for Joseph Holtzman's artworks have the beautiful green background.

Joseph Holtzman's artwork, as the one in the above picture, involves lots of basic patterns from geometry, he adds vivid colors and liquid effect, fluid effect to them, make them look like a distortion to the geometric patterns such as rectangular or circle. I learned that Mr. Holtzman was interested in interior spaces, and the combination of color and patterns. And his artworks greatly demonstrated this.

I think his artworks have some connection to our class materials, for example, the geometry patterns and their combinations with different colors make people easily think of geometry and math. And his artworks can be considered as related to our topic on math and art.

Moreover, what I like most about his artworks and paintings is the sense of fluid he demonstrated from those distorted geometrical patterns, it makes think of human brain activities and it feels like the demonstration of our mind at work, and it feels like a stream of thoughts to me on those paintings.

I believe great artworks should be provoking and fascinating, looking at his paintings made me feel like there was a massive stream of thoughts generating in my mind and made me fell peace and comfortable. I also find it was easy for me to sort out all the things in my mind when I was looking at his paintings.

And I believe that is what art should feel like, a free stream and continuous demonstration of the artist's mind. It is my favorite type of art and I suggest my classmates to visit.

Me with a Hammer Museum staff at Joseph Holtzman's exhibition

Event #3 Reflecting Culture: The Francis E. Fowler, Jr. Collection of Silver

Event #3 Reflecting Culture: The Francis E. Fowler, Jr. Collection of Silver

At the Fowler Museum, I was attracted by this silver collection exhibition with beautiful green wall as background. The exhibition is a collection of silver by Francis E. Fowler, Jr. It includes silver garments and products from 16th to 19th century, from United States to Europe. All the silver collections inside the exhibition was beautiful and stunning, well kept and was created by well known workshops at that time.

There were all things made of silver: from cups to bowls, from ship with wheels to goblets and bowls. And it is a recent history of human usage on silver, a precious and beautiful material.

This made me think that from far old times in oriental palaces and royal courts, there were chopsticks made of silver. Servants of the royal family would use these silver chopsticks to taste each and every dish before the royal family can have their meal. This was to make sure that the dishes were not poisoned because silver would become black color if it make contact with certain kind of poisons.

Nowadays, there are more extensive use of silver. Some of the applications of silver happens at the nanotechnology level. And silver was one of the first materials that are being studied and used at the nanotechnology level.

From oriental palaces in hundreds of years ago to beautiful garments and products made in Europe a few centuries ago, human beings created beautiful artworks with silver, but have only utilized this precious material at a level can be seen by our eyes.

However, nanotechnology today have made usage of silver at a whole new level even cannot be seen by human eyes and normal microscopes. Human being have been creating stunning artworks for tens of centuries and now we are creating artworks at a scale we cannot see, using nanotechnology. 

The exhibition of Reflecting Culture of collection of silver products from old times made me think of the art we are creating today.

In the past days, we utilized silver at a level can be seen and created beautiful artworks and now we are utilizing it at a level we cannot see.

Nowadays, nano silver particles are being used as antiseptic material coated on products we use every day, and nano silver particles are being used as high efficiency catalyst in chemical and industrial production. The nanoparticle of silver is proved to have effective antiseptic properties. In medical aspect, nano particles have been used to enhance the healing of wounds, shorten the process and improve the look of the wound cosmetically. This also relates to the medical technology and art topic we introduced in week 4.

It is artistic minds and advance in nanotechnology together made these applications available at the nanotechnology level. I believe the fact that our nanotechnology application of silver is benefiting human beings at a level cannot be seen by us is a form of art.

I would highly recommend this event to my classmates because it provokes thinking of a material and art and technology at a perspective that crosses history. I also believe that a exhibition combining silver artworks from the past and contemporary artworks and applications with silver and nanotechnology with a historical perspective would stunning and fascinating!

Me at the Reflecting Culture Exhibition

Me with Fowler Museum Reception Staff

* I asked every staff in the exhibition to take a photo with me, but they said they had issues with this photo-taking before and only the staff at the reception can do that, so I took pictures of myself at different events and a photo of me and the reception staff.

Citations: 

1 Deardroff, Julie. "Some Antibacterials Come with Worrisome Silver Lining." Chicago Turbine, 16 Feb. 2014. Web. 7 June 2015. <http%3A%2F%2Farticles.chicagotribune.com%2F2014-02-16%2Fhealth%2Fct-nanosilver-met-20140216_1_consumer-products-other-antibiotic-drugs-germs>. 2 Fowler, Francis E., Jr. Reflecting Culture: The Francis E. Fowler, Jr. Collection of Silver. 6 June 2015. Fowler Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles. 

3 "Silver in Nanotechnology." Silver Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. <https%3A%2F%2Fwww.silverinstitute.org%2Fsite%2Fsilver-in-technology%2Fsilver-in-nanotechnology%2F>.

Event #2 Singular Spaces

Event #2 Singular Spaces

I visited the Fowler Museum on a Saturday, I was looking for the exhibition Singular Spaces for a while until I noticed that the is was in the hallway of the Fowler Museum, it starts from the entrance and continues on four sides of the walls and looked great with the sunlight came in from the central patio open space of the Fowler Museum.

The art exhibition Singular Spaces is a photography collection by artist Jo Farb Hernandez on realistic artworks created by eight Spanish artists on their own house, or in their own yard. An important point for all these artworks is their incongruous juxtapositions, and that is one of the main reasons that made them artwork. All those eight artists created artworks on their own space or even their own house, and of course their artworks are obviously in contrast with the other ordinary houses around them.

The other important feature of these artworks is that they are improvisational, without plans or blue prints like building a modern house and they were built following the heart of those artists.

 I would like to introduce this artwork in the photo above, it is the house of artist Julio Basanta Lopez, which he himself calls it the House of God. However, actually there are sculptures of demons on it. He had the idea from the miseries he suffered, including the death of his brother and son and being abandoned by his father. The demons he put on his house were colorful and in different gestures. He incorporated art in his own house and his own life: his daughter was scary of the demons on their house and did not want to live inside it.

 The other artwork that drew my attention was this green monstrous face on the ground. I am fascinated by the fact that the artist who created this artwork, Peter Buch from Frankfurt, has already created hundreds artworks like these and have turned 8.6 acres of land in Spain to some kind of artistic wonderland with his artwork scattered in it.

All of these artworks by eight artists stays in their own space, while contrasting with its surrounding environment, they are a blend of the artist's houses and even their own life with art. And moreover, they are about space and art, they stays in their own spaces while they are being juxtapositioned in their surrounding environments. For some of the houses in these photographs, they are artwork partially because their own design and presence, and partially because they contrast with their ordinary environment. The house in the above picture contrasts strongly with its surrounding full of ordinary Spanish traditional buildings.

Pictures of me at the Event Singular Spaces and with Fowler Museum staff at the reception.

* I asked every staff in the exhibition to take a photo with me, but they said they had issues with this photo-taking before and only the staff at the reception can do that, so I took pictures of myself at different events and a photo of me and the reception staff.

Citations:
1 Hernandez, Jo Farb. Singular Spaces. 6 June 2015. From Eccentric To The Extraordinary. Fowler Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles.

Event #1 Making Strange: Gagawaka+Postmortem by Vivan Sundaram

Event #1 Making Strange: Gagawaka+Postmortem by Vivan Sundaram

I went to the Fowler Museum at UCLA on a sunny Friday afternoon and visited this Making Strange eventby Indian artist Vivan Sundaram along with two other events there. Entering this event, my first impression was that there are extensive use on human organs and bodies made by fiber glass and lots of medical elements that would normally appear in a hospital.

This Making Strange event is strongly connected with our topic in week 4 which is medical technology and art, and it also connects with the week 6 topic biotech and art, so I would recommend my classmates to attend this event. Because it is shocking and provoking to see artificial human organs and body parts as a part of art exhibition and it will enhance our understanding in medical technology and biotech topics.

While walking around this exhibition, I noticed that there seems to be another theme, not all of the artwork involves body parts. After consulting the museum staff, I knew that there is another theme, which is an fictional fashion brand. Vivan Sundaram fictioned his own fashion brand and part of the exhibition is like the display area in a fashion brand boutique store. For example, there is a artificial model wearing clothes made of oxygen mask and someone wearing clothes made of something like medical antiseptic gauze.

The mannequins in the left is wearing clothes made of medical gauze.

The art work by Vivan Sundaram in this picture is showing a display of human body organ. 

The shelf of displaying human body organs shocked me when I saw it. Lots of artworks in this exhibition displays human anatomy, with different human organs and fragmented parts of human body.

By placing mannequins wearing fashion brand clothes made of medical supplies and human organs and anatomy body parts, a very strong artistic contrast is made to viewers. Each viewer will have different thoughts on this contrast. I think that it artistically reminds us the vulnerability of human body and the close connection between mannequins wearing fashion clothes and human body parts, organs and anatomy.

In an artist's way, the art exhibition Making Strange created a contrast between fashion wearing mannequins and human body organs and parts, made me aware of the close relationship between them. If you stand further from the artworks, you can see artworks of the two themes at the same time.

Placed together, a strange contrast emerges between two themes Gagawaka and Postmortem, and I think that's why the whole exhibition, consisted of the two parts Gagawaka and Postmortem, is called Making Strange.

* I asked every staff in the exhibition to take a photo with me, but they said they had issues with this photo-taking before and only the staff at the reception can do that, so I took pictures of myself at different events and a photo of me and the reception staff.

Citations and References:

1 Sundaram, Vivan. MAKING STRANGE. 6 June 2015. GAGAWAKA+POSTMORTEM. Fowler Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles. All photos were taken by myself at the event

Desma 9 Week 2 Blog Math+Art

Math and Art

Math and art, from lots of people's perspective, are from two absolutely different worlds and they cannot be integrated together. However, there are obvious relationships between them and each of them relies on the other.

The study of mathematics involves a lot of art perspectives. For example, the idea of "zero". We all know that 1, 2, 3 are obviously numbers, but how about the notion of zero, is zero a number like one or not? What does it represent? This is a question that involves art thinking.

Also, the golden ratio is a good example of the fascinating interrelationship between art and mathematics. At the golden ratio of 0.618, the ratio of width and length of a rectangular is most beautiful to human's eyes.

Ancient Greek Architecture showed the golden ratio, http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/

Golden Ratio from Da Vinci's famous painting the Last Supper www.goldennumber.net

It is also a fascinating fact that in the Fibonacci series of numbers, the next number is the sum of the previous two numbers, for example, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc... With the Fibonacci series of numbers involving, the numbers get larger and larger and the ratio of the previous number to the current number is getting infinitely closer to 0.618, which is the golden ratio.

In stock trading, the prices of a stock hit resistance and support levels and a counter direction price movement will occur. It has been demonstrated that support and resistance price levels often lies on the Fibonacci percentages of the distance between a past high and a past low.

Application of Fibonacci series retracement is stock trading www.investopedia.com

From another perspective, according to Professor Vesna's lecture, modern art design usually requires the use of computing techniques. And the computing technique heavily involves math. The subject of mathematics can be considered as a fundamental subject for scientific subjects and it demonstrated a lot of interesting art characteristics, so we believe that there are lots of interrelationships between science and art which we can discover.

Citations:
1 "Golden Ratio in Art Composition and Design." Phi 1618 The Golden Number. 4 May 2014. Web. 4 June 2015.
2 Kuepper, Justin. "Fibonacci And The Golden Ratio." Investopedia. 24 Mar. 2004. Web. 4 June 2015.
3 "Math Forum: Ask Dr. Math FAQ: Golden Ratio, Fibonacci Sequence." Math Forum: Ask Dr. Math FAQ: Golden Ratio, Fibonacci Sequence. Web. 4 June 2015.
4 "Nature, The Golden Ratio, and Fibonacci Too ..." Nature, The Golden Ratio and Fibonacci Numbers. Web. 4 June 2015.
5 Math and Art lectures, Professor Vesna, V.
6 "TITLE." Golden Section in Art and Architecture. Web. 4 June 2015.

DESMA 9 WEEK 9 BLOG SPACE AND ART

Space and Art

Professor Vesna introduced us the human exploration of space from the past times and into the future.

I learned about Capernacus's story in primary school, I learned that he was cruelly burned to death by the religious authorities at that time because his theories were believed to be false and have bad influence to the people at that time.  When I heard about that, I first thought was that are there any theories that we believe aren't possible today will be discovered as truth after a few hundred years?

Capernacus, from www.biography.com

When the topic of art comes to space, a very important and intrinsically interesting topic within space is time, and it has also been a popular topic with art. An interesting fact is for that the planets and stars we can see at very far distance through telescopes, we are not seeing their current image, we are only seeing their past image. If they are ten lightyears from us, then we are seeing its picture from 10 years ago.

The time machine from H.G.Wells's novel The Time Machine in 1895. www.flavorwire.com

There has always been a huge fascination in real world and in the movies about time machines, but apparently no one has succeeded yet. And the idea of gravity, black hole has also been popular. Some scientists think that gravity will cause curvature in space and time. Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time introduced this theory. And that is a great example of cutting edge science work can be in a form of art.

The curvature of space, time. www.tgdaily.com

From nanotechnology to space, we are experience a tremendous increase in measurements of objects from ten's power of negative fourteen to ten's power of positive twenty or thirty. Maybe the structures and concepts at the smallest level of our recognition have some connections with the structures and concepts at the largest level? When human beings are reaching the limit of our recognition of the world, lots of art presentations arise, representing our imaginations of the unknown. I think that the space and time is an extremely suitable topic for art and art associated of space have been familiar with us in life from paintings to movies.

On Space Time Foam, an interesting art expression of gravity, curvature of space time. www.weburbanist.com, citation #3

References and citations
1 Taylor, Kate. "Scientists Show How to Scrunch up Space-time." TG Daily. Web. 1 June 2015. .
2 Meier, Allison. "Art in the Outer Limits: A Look at NASA's Space Art Program." Hyperallergic RSS. 29 Aug. 2013. Web. 1 June 2015.
3 "On Space Time Foam: Surreal Billowing Art Installation." WebUrbanist RSS. 11 Dec. 2012. Web. 1 June 2015.
4 "Temple, Emily. "The 10 Best Time Machines In Movies." Web. 1 June 2015.
5 Tenner, Edward. "Controlling the Space-Time Continuum, With Art." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 8 Oct. 2013. Web. 1 June 2015.
6 Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. Toronto: Bantam, 1988. Print.

Desma 9 Week 8 Blog Nanotech and Art

Nanotech and Art: Cutting Edge in both Technology and Art

The combination of nanotech and art should possibly be the most fascinating topic of art we can enjoy today. And it is indeed cutting edge in both technology field and art field. The "best" and coolest hybrid of technology and art.

A C60 Molecule created by nanotech, photo credit to MSU

Dr.Zimgewski's lectures inspired me a lot on nanotechnology and I have understood that the most important and shocking, game-changing feature of the nanotechnology and nano materials is that the physical features of the material changes significantly at the nanotech level. According to Dr.Zimgewski, at nano level, the traditional physics laws, especially those on forces, can be dominated by other mechanisms such as surface tension thus change the characteristic of a material.

The above is a picture of a nano sculpture "Trust" by Jonty Hurwitz, in the sculpture, the women is dancing on a piece of human hair, the application of nanotechnology and art of sculpture is combined on this tiny sculptured women which cannot be seen by human eye.

nano gear by Eric Drexler, photo credit to IMM, Institution of Molecular Manufacturing

The nano gear designed by Eric Drexler is also fascinating, is involves the concept of molecular manufacturing, and engineering with atoms and molecules. That is a whole new ground of engineering and can be used in medicines and micro robots to conduct precise operations on our infected and disfunction body parts with no pain.

References and Citations
 "A Molecular Differential Gear." Institute for Molecular Manufacturing RSS. Web. 25 May 2015. .http://www.imm.org/research/parts/gear/
"C60 Isomers." C60 Isomers. Web. 25 May 2015. .http://www.nanotube.msu.edu/fullerene/fullerene.php?C=60
Feder, Barnaby. "The Art of Nanotech." Bits The Art of Nanotech Comments. 25 Jan. 2008. Web. 25 May 2015. .http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/the-art-of-nanotech/?_r=0
Hurwitz, Jonty. "Nano Sculptures by Jonty Hurwitz." Web. 25 May 2015. .http://www.jontyhurwitz.com/nano/
Lovgren, Stefan. "Can Art Make Nanotechnology Easier to Understand?" National Geographic. National Geographic Society. Web. 25 May 2015. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/12/1223_031223_nanotechnology.html

Desma 9 Week 7 Blog

Neuroscience and Art

This week Professor Vesna introduced the connection between neuroscience and art. For centuries, human minds have been exploring the physical world surrounding us and have created great and fascinating arts in all categories of study and presences of world.
For now, our explorations have come to its starting point: the neurons which "created" our minds, the starting points of our mind are now a fascinating topic art creations done by our mind.
Professor Vesna introduced us the famous "Brainbow" project conducted by two Harvard professors.

Photo credit to Sanes Lab, Harvard University

By lighting up neurons with fluorescence, beautiful, colorful and clear images of the neurons and their connections in brain can be created. Because neuron cells have a large, round body and a long "tail" to connect with other neuron cells, lighting them up with different colors can help us visualize their "tails" clearly and thus have a visualized understanding of their connections between each other.
Not only a scientific project, the "Brainbow" itself is beautiful and stunning enough to be considered as an artwork.
Dreams is also an very interesting topic in arts, I have read Freud's book Interpretation of Dreams when I was young. It was one of the first scientific books I have read. In the book he stated that sex was the major drive for almost all human activities and mind activities. And he stated the idea of the importance of childhood in a person's mind development.

(Greg Dunn)"Gold Cortex 2" by Greg Dunn, photo credit to Greg Dunn

Neurons are popular element in artworks because of its exotic presence.

Cover of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, photo from google books.

Dreams have always been fascinating, especially the idea of multi layer dreams. I first learned this idea in the movie Inception. The movie basically introduced a mutual multi layer dream by a group of people and greatly presented the combination of dream, neuroscience and art.

Inception poster, photo from imdb.com

Citation and Reference

"'Brainbow,' Version 2.0." Harvard Gazette. Web. 18 May 2015. .

  Freud, Sigmund, and Joyce Crick. The Interpretation of Dreams. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. Print. 

Lewis, Tanya. "Dazzling Images of the Brain Created by Neuroscientist-Artist." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 10 Dec. 2014. Web. 18 May 2015. .

"Molecular & Cellular Biology - Harvard University." Molecular & Cellular Biology - Harvard University. Web. 18 May 2015. .

Inception. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. :, 2010. Film. 

 "Greg Dunn Design | Visual Art | Neuroscience Art | Gold Leaf Painting." Greg Dunn Design. Web. 18 May 2015.  

Desma 9 Week 1 Bolg

Two Cultures

In the lecture this week regarding two cultures, Professor Vesna introduced a famous British philosopher and novelist C.P.Snow and his statements. C.P.Snow was famous for his thoughts on two cultures. In his famous book, the Two Cultures and the scientific Revolution, he argued that the divergence between Science and art has been a major roadblock in the development of human civilization, including both art and science.

C.P.Snow and two cultures, photo credit to Matt Collins (citation2)

C.P.Snow (citation3)

He stated that because both science and art requires hard working in a specific field, they merely had time to explore the materials and thoughts in the other area. So after years of separation, both science and art will be limited in a narrow field of study without the panoramic view of the future of the human being as a specie.

I agreed with C.P.Snow's point of view and also believe that no matter whether you are a scientist or an artist, only knowing or at least superficially understanding the ideas in other field will lead you to real success and real achievements on exploration valuable to human beings.

I also have personal experience on this, in China, students are being divided to "letters" and "science" since high school and are divided since then, they merely study knowledge from the other side. And there are currently more and more examples of student who is focused in one field showing inability even in his specialized field due to knowing nothing in the other field.

In China, students will be divided to letters and science or art and science since high school with minimal knowledge in other field, this has been proven to be a bad policy(citation1)

Citations and Bibliography

1 Gu, Steven. "A World Outside the SATs: Meet the Gaokao from China." The Prospect. 28 Mar. 2013. Web. 11 May 2015. .

2  Krauss, Lawrence. "An Update on C. P. Snow's "Two Cultures"" Scientific American Global RSS. Web. 11 May 2015. . 

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

4  Thorpe, Vanessa. "A New Discovery for Science and Art: The Cultural Divide Is All in the Mind." The Guardian. Web. 11 May 2015. . 

5  Wu, Jenny. "The Art and Science Of..." Yale Scientific Magazine. Web. 11 May 2015.

 

Desma 9 Week 6 Blog

Biotech plus Art, Biotechnology and our living

Human being's technology has been developing since the Stone Age. However, for thousands of years, we only achieved technological advancements that have an impact on non-life objects and materials. Only until recent decades, we human beings started to have some real control over living creatures and genes within, including ourselves. 

Biotech has been a very hot topic or theme in arts as introduced by Professor in this week's lecture and materials. And we have seen many Artistic expressions combined with living animals or at the cell and even gene level. This includes interesting projects from the fluorescent rabbit to putting the image of milky way into DNA in a mouse's ear.

However, there is a reason why biotech has been a such popular topic in art expressions. The reason is that finally, our technology is so advanced that we can control or change something (gene) within a living creature, even including our selves, and many applications regarding the gene and biotech technology ring a bell to human beings' ethics. 

From cloning a sheep to modifying the gene of a baby-to-be-born in laboratories to reduce his risk of getting serious diseases, we have gone too far in the application of biological and gene technology. Are these applications and experiments ethical? Will they jeopardize our health and safety in the future eventually? Do we have the right to use, modify a living creature such as a rabbit as the object of our experiment? Is it inhumane to the animals?

Dolly, the first cloned sheep (right)(2)

I believe these applications are inhumane but all these questions have been raised as introduced in the materials.

These questions are too distant to discuss. However, our biotech advancements have also greatly influenced our way of eating. Some aspects of our food production have also become unhealthy and inhumane.

I have watched the interview with Michael Pollan on Food.Inc, and I have watched the documentary Food.Inc and have been impressed about the modern technology used to produce our food. The documentary, Food.Inc can be categorized as an artistic expression on the issue.

I have also read Michael Pollan's book, the Omnivore's Dilemma as a supplementary source to understand the issue. In the book, Michael Pollan explained the way our biotech is involved in our food production and how is this process harming the nature and our health. To uncover the industrial prints in our food production, Michael traced the footprints of oil, and corn. According to him, most of the cattles in the country are fed by heavily industrial grown corns and most of the sugar in our soda and sweets also come from corn. What is more important is that the great amount of cheap corns we have in production should all be credited to oil, it is artificial fertilizers from oil made it possible.

The Book: the Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan (4)

In Michael Pollan's book, the Omnivores Dilemma, he introduced that in modern cattle feeding industry, the fat from beef are used in the feed for the cattle.Is that humane? (The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan)

Industrialized Cattle Feeding(1)

Some people may argue that although all of these industrial footprints in food production are unhealthy and sometimes even inhumane, they are required to feed all the people. That is true, but I believe any further involvement of gene technology in art or in food production should be halted or terminated until we really have an idea of what we are doing and have identified a clear line between humane applications and inhumane applications.

Citations and References:

1 "A Brutally Honest Look at Our Industrial Food System." PA Homepage. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2015. http://www.pahomepage.com/story/d/story/a-brutally-honest-look-at-our-industrial-food-syst/20695/iXnJR5Jo50KY8FTwbnDKew (picture 3)

2 "Dolly the Sheep 'reborn' as Four New Clones Created." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, n.d. Web. 10 May 2015. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/8169817/Dolly-the-Sheep-reborn-as-four-new-clones-created.html (picture 1)

3 Food, Inc. Dir. Robert Kenner. Movie One, 2008.

4 Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print. (picture 3)

5 "POV | Food, Inc. | Interview with Michael Pollan | PBS." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 10 May 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ty0eehT8Y4

AN JIANG DESMA 9 MIDTERM UPLOAD

https://drive.google.com/drive/my-drive

Week 4 Blog, Oriental and Western differences on Medical, Technology, Human Body and Art

Oriental and Western differences on Medical, Technology, Human Body and Art

From lectures and readings this week, I have learned that the Westerners have a great passion on the structure, the beauty and the nature of human body since hundreds of years ago.
The interest in our body and how it works is one of the most important and intrinsic interest of human beings, shared across the race, across the culture and across the history.
However, in Oriental cultures, especially in China, the view of human body and the interest in human body have a different approach than those in the Western cultures. I think that can be introduced as a great supplemental idea of our learning this week.
On contrary to the interest by the Western cultures which have great interest in anatomy, the physical structure and the physical beauty of human body. The Chinese and Oriental culture have emphasized their interest on invisible features and  specifications of human body. This includes the "chi" called by Chinese people, which means "energy flow" expressed in English.
The Chinese culture did not focus on the anatomy and structure of human body. Chinese culture classifies the human body as the dynamic combination of five elements, they are metal, wood, water, fire and earth. The Chinese culture links several organs into these elements, and believes all the disease of human body is a result of the unbalance of these five elements, and use herbs and traditional medicine or food therapy to fix, rejuvenate any single element in human body and reach balance state.

The Chinese culture and medicine also uses needle therapy, which insert needles into acupuncture points on human body to help the healthy flow of energy in our body. （It doesn't hurt at all!)

Needle Therapy



The Chinese culture's view on human body is rather "soft" than Western cultures' "hard" anatomical view on human bodies.

In my view, the Chinese culture's view on human body and the Chinese medicine and therapies have more art characteristics than the Western view.

Chinese medicine, most of them are herbs and some are food instead of medicine

Work Cited: 

The Photo 1: Needle Therapy: http://www.jzsos.com/cure/xstj/1530.htm, The editorial team

The photo 2 : http://www.bayvoice.net/gb/popular-programs/pp-bestdoctor/2015/03/03/382895.html, Discussion on Chinese medicine,BAYVOICE.NET, the editorial team

Robots have an more and more important role in our life. Their presence indicates the arrival the new era of human technology development.
Robots that have been developed can be divided into mainly two categories, ones that assist us and ones that entertains us.
The robots that entertains us has only been developed in the recent years, including the Japanese robot dog. I used to have one of them when I was young, and I have to admit, I preferred a real dog as a kid. The robotic dogs today have much more interaction features than robotics dogs at the time when I was a kid. I have to admit that I thought they were boring. Because for a kid, what makes a toy interesting is interaction with it.
For robots that are designed to assist us in production and daily life, there is always a myth that will they have their free mind sometime and develop their own mind and surpass us and took the domination of the earth someday? And that has been illustrated in many movies. I believe that when we design robots to assist us, we shall specify their roles, give each kind of robots minimum variety in their duties to limit the possibility of their developing their own free mind. And give them the Turin test every month!