week 2

This week’s lecture was enlightening because, first of all, I had no idea perspective was influenced by math. Al-Haytham and Book of Optics influencing Renaissance painters to use perspective hundreds of years after publication is amazing. To harness the ideas of someone in a completely different field than your own to influence your work is inspiring. I also had never heard of a vanishing point before Dr. Vesna’s lecture, though I have seen it in action and used it in my own doodles and drawings before. A vanishing point lets the viewer feel they are inside the art, as the foreground seems big enough to inhabit while the point where the lines converge seem to end the image as well as suggest it may go on forever.

Through the link to Robert Lang’s TED Talk, I learned that origami nowadays is a direct result of mathematics used to unlock the power of folding one sheet of paper over and over again. Lang even uses a computer program to design his origami pieces before he ever even touches paper, based on the basic four rules of the art. This allows for precise and limitless work.

Assyrian Bull, opus 493 by Robert Lang

When I think of math and art, my mind immediately jumps to Frank Lloyd Wright. The prolific architect used math, such as the Golden Ratio, to create his sleek designs of iconic buildings such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

The Guggenheim Museum by Frank Lloyd Wright

FLW also used math to create gorgeous geometric stained glass windows. As you can see in the images below, FLW utilized the Golden Rectangle to create clean lines and visually stimulating space within his windows. Comparing FLW’s work to the other (more boring) buildings and stained glass windows illustrates how critical math is to creating aesthetically pleasing art that stands out in a crowd.

 

Frank Lloyd Wright's Tree of Life window from his Darwin D. Martin house.

Through this week’s lecture, I learned that art isn’t just something you can jump into without a breadth of knowledge and expect to make an impact. The artists featured in Dr. Vesna’s lecture are all people who had interest, experience, and knowledge in math and who were able to use numbers to their advantage.

Assyrian Bull, opus 493 by Robert Lang: http://www.langorigami.com/art/gallery/gallery.php?tag=mythical&name=assyrian_bull

Dent, Huntley. "Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward - Guggenheim Museum, New York, May 15–August 23, 2009 - New York Arts." New York Arts. New York Arts, 15 July 2009. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. <http://newyorkarts.net/2009/07/frank-lloyd-wright-from-within-outward-guggenheim-museum-new-york/>.

Robert Lang: The Math and Magic of Origami. Perf. Robert Land. TED, 2008. Film.

"Studio Colombia 3 The Vanishing Points." Walk the Arts Living through the Arts. 24 Feb. 2013. Web. 7 Apr. 2015 <https://walkthearts.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/studio-colombia-3-the-vanishing-points/>.

Tree of Life by Frank Lloyd Wright: http://ketubah-arts.com/founders-hall-ketubah/

Vesna, Victoria. "Math + Art." UCLA, Los Angeles. 4 Apr. 2015. Lecture.

week 1

Starting the quarter with Two Cultures couldn’t be more perfect for me. As a Filipino and white woman, the relationship between the two cultures I have always straddled is something I think about often. Recently, I have realized the space I occupy as a mixed race person of color is in entirely liminal – I exist in the inbetweeness of inbetweeness. I have explored this aspect of my identity, and how others react to my ambiguous racial identity, through a piece I performed last spring on Bruin Walk. I chose to exploit the way my phenotype is scrutinized by strangers on a daily basis by making my race even more of a performance than it already is and having people guess my race to win a prize. 

Connecting cultures is critical to my existence, but being critical of binaries is difficult when it’s so engrained in our day to day lives. Even as students at UCLA, as mentioned by Professor Vesna in the lecture, we are divided by North and South Campus majors, as if the sciences and humanities exist as opposites of one another. Binaries like this are so common because they are much more simple to push onto people then a nuanced ways of viewing things. News media very often reduces complex issues down to a question of something being either “good” or “bad.”

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

Those who embark on what John Brockman calls the Third Culture work outside of this binary system. Rather than focus on simply work in the arts or in science, they bridge the gap in efforts to end the gap. By doing so, artists and scientists are able to, as Kuhn says, “shift the paradigm” of the current dichotomy that is art versus science.

As Professor Vesna noted, the idea of Left Brain and Right Brain is problematic.

Now, the question is, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Graham-Rowe, Duncan. "John Brockman: Matchmaking with Science and Art (Wired UK)." Wired UK. Wired UK, 3 Feb. 2011. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.

Stewart, Jon. "October 29, 2013." The Daily Show. Comedy Central. New York, New York, 29 Oct. 2013. Television.

Vesna, Victoria. "Two Cultures." UCLA, Los Angeles. 30 Mar. 2015. Lecture.

Graham-Rowe
Guess Martina's Race Photo: my personal archive
Left Brain, Right Brain photo: http://claritics.com/claritics-to-host-a-panel-on-the-art-vs-science-of-game-design-at-gdc/