Kaushik_Naresh_DESMA9

Interest in space exploration and the developments surrounding it has always played a role in artistic expression. Whether it is literature, film, or music, space has always served as an inspiration sonically and visually. Professor Vesna highlighted some examples of this in lecture, such as Star Trek and Star Wars ¹. Further examples of the influence on space include music, where heavy orchestration of wide sounds and stretched synths in addition to effects like reverb and echo are used to sonically induce the idea of space. A great example of this is the outro to the song “Highest In The Room” by Travis Scott. Travis Scott, the artist behind "Astroworld" has several songs that evoke the idea of space, with this song being one such example It was also interesting to learn about how the space race influenced life and society in the United States. As Professor Vesna mentioned in lecture, the space race led to an increase in focus on the study of science and engineering related...

The concept of self-organization/self-assembly which Dr. Gimzewski covered in lecture was definitely what stood out to me the most. The examples he provided, which ranged from snowflakes to flocking birds definitely illustrated how widespread and effective this concept can be. This occurrence in reaction-diffusion chemical systems is also pretty fascinating, and is yet another example of the artistic value of scientific processes. Some scientists were able to obtain such samples by creating a suspension of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) and tartaric acid (TA), which due to solvent evaporation, created fascinating patterns via self-organization. Polarizing Optical Microscopy of CNC, TA, and CNC/TA films. Example of Self-Organization The ability of nanoparticles to result in different colors based on their size was also pretty interesting to learn about, and the idea of quantum dots, which Dr. Gimzewski explored, provided an insight into how quantum physics concepts can be used in real lif...

This week’s content was pretty interesting to learn about as it touched on what I feel is the most important part of any creative output: the mind. As a fan of hip hop music, the mind is something that very few hip hop artists touch upon, and this made hearing about the dealings with one’s mind and consciousness pretty rare. One of the most popular has to be Kanye West’s dealing with his mental health, and the album that he released in 2018, called ‘Ye’. This album touched upon his mental health struggles, how he feels about it, and also let the audience understand how it might fuel his creative process. On the song “Yikes” he claims that his experience with bipolar disorder is his “superpower”. He also touches upon the use of mind-altering substances, for instance “tweaking, tweaking off that 2CB”. This is something that was reflected in lecture, as Professor Vesna went over the role that cocaine might have played in Freud’s theories, and also the role that LSD played in society, as s...

I attended the Ecology + Art event by Jessica Irish on the 12th of May. We had the opportunity to watch her short film, “This Mortal Plastik”, how she developed the project, and what drove her towards working on this project. The film provided a great insight into the role that plastics play in society today, considering the various shapes and forms that it can take, and also briefly explained how they rose to prominence in society. The link between plastics and whales, which was driven by Jessica’s personal reasons to make the film, helped add another perspective that further highlighted the issues that plastics pose in today’s society. Registration Confirmation Email The tying in of whales to the creation of plastic, as well as our methods of disposing of plastics stood out to me the most. The cycle starts with the extraction of petroleum, which is derived from fossil fuels deep beneath the ocean that are composed of living things that have been decomposed for many years. This petrol...

When thinking of BioTech and Art, the first ideas that popped into my head were extensions of what we covered in the Medicine, Tech, and Art topics. For instance, I immediately thought of ways that human modifications involving machines, such as robotic arms, could be approached from an artistic angle. However, it was interesting to see the wide variety of topics that we covered in this week’s content. What stood out to me the most was the work done by Joe Davis, which Professor Vesna covered in lecture. This was especially because of the way in which Davis mixed art with something as low level as genetics and bacterial organisms. The fact that someone could come up with the idea to work on such a project is fascinating, and makes one wonder how much more we can learn about our world by altering the perspectives that we approach problems with. Apart from this, Davis’ “Bacterial Radio” project was also fascinating to learn about, as it uses genetically modified microbes and an electrica...