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This weekend, I attended the final part of From Forces to Forms, Episode 3 titled "Repairing Nature.” Presented at the Pratt Institute’s Manhattan Gallery, this episode focused on nature and fighting climate change, which is a very relevant and growing problem in our world (Vesna). Professor Vesna actually presented her own project, titled “Noise Aquarium,” a project that stressed the importance of Earth’s oceans, showing there is a lot of noise and life under the water’s surface. Chotai, Vivek. Screenshot of Victoria Vesna's Noise Aquarium . Manhattan, 16 Apr. 2022. One of the projects, created by Maria Antonia Valerio, focused on the depiction of the phylogenetic tree of corn. Her project focused on how the genetics of corn was manipulated in order to produce modified corn seeds that were thought to be better for farming. Valerio is actually a philosopher, having graduated from the University of Mexico, where she now teaches, so specifically her project explores the idea of ...

This week Professor Vesna focused on evaluating the effect of industrialization, and the attitude towards robots throughout history. As industrialization progressed, there were different perspectives on this automation during different times (Vesna). Sala, Riccardo. Art, Aura and the Doomed Search for the Perfect Selfie , Guardian News & Media, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/22/art-aura-doomed-search-perfect-selfie.  For example, in the 1930s, philosopher Walter Benjamin disapproved of the production of technology that would be able to mass produce products of art (Benjamin). He argued that mass producing products would make each product lose its uniqueness, which he referred to as “aura.” Warhol, Andy. “Marilyn Diptych.” ARTHISTORYOFTHEDAY , WORDPRESS.COM, 1962, https://arthistoryoftheday.wordpress.com/tag/mass-production/. This opinion was not shared by all, especially after World War II, where the advancement of technology was now associated with power. I...

This weekend, I attended the virtual event “From Forces to Form: Episode 2: ‘Morphogenesis’” presented at the Pratt Institute’s Manhattan Gallery. This was the second part of the “From Forces to Form” exhibition, and a continuation of the event I attended last weekend. Since I had also attended the first part last weekend, I was familiar with how the format of the meeting would be. Different artists took turns explaining their scientific projects one by one, describing the process and reasoning they went through in order to create their art. The projects chosen for this exhibition were all related to natural forces being depicted through art (Levy). Chotai, Vivek. Screenshot of Ellen Levy's introduction to the exhibition . Manhattan, 9 Apr. 2022. One of the projects used gravity as a paintbrush. Artist Haresh Lalwani used 3D simulations and worked with hammering steel to create sculptures that represent the motion of gravity. One of his sculptures, titled GR Flora, studied the effe...

Math and art have been closely related throughout history. Before this week's materials, I did not think these fields were related because art and life are unpredictable, whereas math is all about being able to predict and understand the world we live in. Anyone can make art the way they want to, but anyone cannot solve a math problem and get  the correct answer the way they want to. However, there are some examples referenced from the lecture that make me consider otherwise.  For example, there are a lot of patterns in life that we can deduce from relating back to math, such as geometric beadwork. Geometric beadwork uses tiny beads that are in the same shape to create an overall picture, often in a different shape than the beads themselves ( McKinnon) . By using shapes to create pictures, we are using math and art together. Beningfield, Karen. “/Petal-Triangle-Growth-1.” CONTEMPORARY GEOMETRIC BEADWORK,                https://beadm...

This weekend I attended the virtual event “From Forces to Form” presented at the Pratt Institute’s Manhattan Gallery. This exhibition focused on recognizing scientific practices are often taken for granted and under appreciated, by representation through art. The projects shown were cleverly designed and required a lot of effort. Chotai, Vivek. Screenshot of an introduction to the exhibition . Manhattan, 2 Apr. 2022. One project looked at the wave patterns of Earth, titled “1.8” to represent the 1.8 microseconds that Earth shifted because of the Japan 2011 earthquake and tsunami. This project was created by Janet Echelman, and became so popular that it was put into the Smithsonian museum in Washington DC, even seen by former first lady Michelle Obama ( Echelman) .  Chotai, Vivek. Screenshot of Janet Echelman's "1.8" . Manhattan, 2 Apr. 2022. Another project, by Adam Brown and Robert Root-Bernsteir, focused on representing the origin of life (“ReBioGeneSys – Origins of Li...

  C.P. Snow’s idea of two cultures needing to be more intertwined is a thought I’ve been pondering over this week ("This Month in Physics History"). As a molecular biology major, I empathize more with the scientific side of the argument, since I would prefer to think practically. On the other hand, when I question the purpose of art, I realize I would not be able to learn science without art! For example, this week, I learned about the polarity of water molecules through animations (Wallace). Having this visual resource helped me understand the material better. Water-Elpot-Transparent-3D-Balls.png, Wikimedia, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Water-elpot-transparent-3D-balls.png.   Then I started noticing that there’s more art in my scientific life than I had imagined. When walking through the engineering building at UCLA, I noticed a painting in the hallway: Chotai, Vivek. Musée D'Orsay Paris . 2022. I was surprised by this. Referring back to Professor Vesna’s sec...