Space + Art

Space is yet another example of the powerful effect of the world of the arts. Allow me to explain myself. While Space could easily represent, at least in the collective imagination, the ultimate limit of what we know and therefore understand, the arts have made this frontier accessible to everybody. Different artistic cultures, in fact, can be credited a lot with bringing a fusion of art and science to the general public [1]. Through various forms and artworks, from television and theater to drawings and paintings, we can confidently say that the Space Age was possible because for centuries the cultural imagination was fed by artists, writers and musicians who dreamed of human activities in space [2]. The interaction and final connection between Space and Art was nothing but the result of all the sciences we have met throughout this class. 

Georges Méliès' Voyage Dans la Lune

Space is the ultimate frontier where all comes together and we are now able to conquer this frontier only after having used all the scientific tools we have studied so far [3]. Space perfectly embodies the last stage of our journey, a journey in which the Two Cultures have mutually influenced each other. Once again this can be proven in this week’s topic, as the race for Space changed profoundly popular culture [4]. As we want to reach new limits we seek to get acclimated even in cold and detached environments such as a Space station. 

Cosmonaut Alexander Polischuk and the Cosmic Dancer

One way of achieving this objective would be, once again, through art. This is where Arthur Woods’ artwork comes into play. In 1993, his sculpture, Cosmic Dancer, was launched to the Russian Mir space station on a Progress rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Cosmic Dancer - a painted geometric form made out of welded aluminum tubing measuring approximately 35 x 35 x 40 centimeters and weighing exactly one kilogram - was the first three-dimensional artwork to be specifically conceived for and officially realized in a space habitat. The purpose of the project was to investigate the properties of sculpture in weightlessness and to evaluate the integration of art into the human space program [5]. But most importantly the sculpture gave pleasure, mitigating the coldness of Space. 

In conclusion, while space might represent the end of our journey, it is truthfully only one more stage in the merging of the Two Cultures, as the role of artists and writers is again crucial in defining our future vision -- and will once again be instrumental in incorporating the facts and discoveries of the space age into the cultural imagination [2].

Cosmonaut Gennadi Manakov and the Cosmic Dancer

References: 

[1] Vesna, Victoria. “Part 6.” Space and Art. May 2022, Los Angeles, UCLA. 

[2] Malina, Roger. “The Leonardo Space Art Project Working Group.” MIT Press, 1996.

[3] Vesna, Victoria. “Introduction.” Space and Art. May 2022, Los Angeles, UCLA. 

[4] Vesna, Victoria. “Part 2.” Space and Art. May 2022, Los Angeles, UCLA. 

 

[5] Woods, Arthur. Cosmic Dancer. Arthur Woods’ Website, 1993. https://www.cosmicdancer.com/introduction.php

NanoTech + Art

Dealing with the Two Cultures entails a continuous effort in trying to radically change underlying beliefs or theories of our society. Depending on the different sciences and arts involved, this quest for a paradigm shift is carried out at different rates. While focusing on this week’s lectures, I realized why nanotechnologies represent “what is going to push over the edge into the future” [1]. Nanotechnologies are stimulating scientific innovations able to walk us into a “new generation of materials that are stronger, smaller, cleaner, and smarter than anything we've ever seen” [2]. 

Scanning Tunneling Microscope

Although the domain that comes with nanotechnologies might seem out of reach and complicated, “nanotechnology is more common than one may think - from the food we eat to the clothes we wear, nanotechnology is already all around us, we simply are not aware of it” [3]. 

Nanomandala 

Aside from nanotechnology’s presence in our every day lives, its applications in the world of arts are as remarkable, as they represent the latest attempt to bridge the Two Cultures. In the context of the artistic applications of nanotechnologies, I was particularly struck by Victoria Vesna’s and James Gimszewkski’s Nanomandala [4]. Nanomandala consists of a 15min video projected onto a disk of sand, 8 feet in diameter. Visitors touch the sand as oscillating images of the molecular structure of a single grain of sand obtained via a scanning electron microscope (SEM). These images are projected to reveal the recognizable image of the complete mandala, and then back again. This coming together of art, science and technology is a modern interpretation of an ancient tradition that consecrates the planet and its inhabitants to bring about purification and healing.

Possibly the Third Culture

This installation was a further proof that Nanoscale Science and Media 

Art are powerful synergies that can promulgate the 21st century emergence of a new Third Culture, “embracing biologically inspired shifts, new aesthetics and definitions” [5]. 

References: 

[1] Vesna, Victoria. “Introduction.” Nanotechnology and Art. May 2022, Los Angeles, UCLA. 

[2] Pogue, David. “Nova: Making Things Smaller.” PBS. January 26, 2011.

[3] Gimzewski, James K. “Part 6.” Nanotechnology and Art. May 2022, Los Angeles, UCLA. 

[4] J. Gimzewski and V. Vesna. Nanomandala. Department of Design|Media Arts, November 16, 2004.

[5] J. Gimzewski and V. Vesna. “The Nanomeme Syndrome: Blurring of fact and fiction in the construction of new science.” Technoetic Arts, vol.1, pp.2-17, 2003.

Neuroscience + Art

“Neuroscientific knowledge is not solely constrained within laboratories, but readily captures the attention of the public at large” [1]. I wanted to start off with this extract from the article “Neuroculture” because it perfectly encapsulates the shared thesis that ideas, concepts and images in neuroscience widely circulate in culture and are portrayed in literature, film, artworks, the mass media and commercial products, therefore shaping social values and consumer practices. The writers of “Neuroculture", Frazzetta and Anker, are also responsible for the foundation go the Neuroculture Project [2]. The latter aims at examining how modern brain science has penetrated popular culture, eventually leading to Christopher Decharms affirmation that our generation will be the pioneers of inner space. In other words, the next frontier of research and voyage is already within us [3]. 

Since the arts go concurrently with the sciences, scientific researches constitute artworks by definition. Brainbow embodies precisely this: a scientific method that is intrinsically considered art. Brainbow is the process by which individual neurons in the brain can be distinguished from neighboring neurons using fluorescent proteins. The result is a colorful palette of neurons that has been a major contribution to the field of connectonics, aka the study of neural connections in the brain. 

Brainbow

Another example of the empirical collaboration between neuroscience and art is Victoria Vesna’s Octopus Brainstorming. In 2016, artist Victoria Vesna collaborated with scientist Mark S. Cohen on staging Octopus Brainstorming, a performative installation based on electroencephalography (EEG) technology. The work explores a long-lasting philosophical dilemma concerning humans’ ability to envision the experience of other sentient beings. Two participants wore octopus-shaped crowns with dangling arms while their brainwave rhythms were made visible to the audience through colored lights and sounds. When participants entered a meditative state, the visual and acoustic signals synchronized to indicate mental attunement [4]. 

Victoria Vesna's Octopus Brainstorming 

Finally, as the American rock band, The Amygdaloids, suggests in the lyrics of the song Fearing, art is a way of expressing and exposing the secret of neuroscience in order to escape the “full psychic assault” of our minds [5]. By rendering visible invisible phenomena, such as thought and consciousness, art is connected to neuroscience, in yet another example of the merging of the Two Cultures. 

The Amygdaloids

References 

[1] Frazzetta, Giovanni & Anker, Suzanne. “Neuroculture”, Macmillan Publishers, Volume 10, 815-819, 2009. 

[2] Vesna, Victoria. “Part 1.” Neuroscience and Art. Biotechnology and Art, May 2022, Los Angeles, UCLA.

[3] Decharms, Christopher. “A look inside the brain in real time”, TedTalk, 03.33, 2008. 

[4] Albu, Cristina. “Planetary Re-Enchantment: Human-Animal Entanglements in Victoria Vesna’s Octopus Brainstorming”, Simon Fraser University, 2016. https://www.sfu.ca/cmajournal/issues/issue-ten--enchantment--disenchantment--reenchantment/cristina-albu.html?fbclid=IwAR1twyrqbeKqNrJSUXSihLVGvX_D9ARndxDv3USnw2pTENE_iXHJtIo8v54

[5] The Amygdaloids. Fearing, 2010. 

Poetic Realities

Today I attended the MFA Annual Exhibition, Poetic Realities. Although I truthfully had little no knowledge of the reasoning behind some of the artworks exposed, I was able to fully immerse myself in the context of the exhibition with intangible effort. Poetic Realities brings together the work of 10 emerging new media artists working across immersive 3D, video, sculpture and sound. The means of the exhibition are meant for guests to become one with the art, reminding Marshall McLuhan’s concept of the “medium being the message” [1]. Poetic Realities perfectly embodies the archetype of the intersection between technology and the arts. 

Gilma Berit @ MFA Annual Exhibition, Poetic Realities

Among the artists who collaborated to enhance the exhibition, I had a brief talk with Gilma Berit, whose piece, “The Planet Mars, 1 Million Years in The Future”, struck me particularly. Gilma Berit’s work is an attempt “to collapse time and space to engage with a target of utmost remoteness: The Planet Mars, 1 million years in the future” [2]. This piece references a real event that took place in 1984 when CIA asked a remote viewer to have a conversation with an ancient Martian. Similarly, this new work uses psychic travel to explore not the past but the future on Mars.

 

"The Planet Mars, 1 Million Years in The Future"

The mean through which this work allows us access to the future is Remote Viewing, aka Extra Sensory Perception (ESP), in other words “the ability of human being to perceive information and imagery of remote geographical targets” [3]. Using the CIA protocol, a professional remote viewer, Henry Gilroy, psychically receives information of a future-artifact on Mars that is mediated into materiality. Aside from blurring the lines “between art and science, reality and fiction, psychic phenomena and technology”, I personally see more in this piece than a quest into the past and future of humanity. After having briefly chatted with the artist I started to consider her work as her attempt to find herself, looking and seeking where nobody has ever dared to. I see myself mirrored into this idea as I’m still exploring eager to grasp what I really want to do. I might be completely off with my interpretation, but I must say that if anything this work helped me, Pietro, to have a little less blurred direction. 

MFA Annual Exhibition, Poetic Realities

Citations:

 

[1] McLuhan, Marshall Herbert. Understanding the Media. The Extensions of Men. McGraw-Hill,(1964), page 7.

[2] Berit, Gilma Gwendolyn. The Planet Mars, 1 Million Years in The Future. 2022 - http://projects.dma.ucla.edu/exhibitions/mfa2022/

[3] Srinivasan, Malur Ramasamy. “Clairvoyant Remote Viewing: The US Sponsored Psychic Spying.” Strategic Analysis: A Monthly Journal of the IDSA. Jan-Mar 2002 (Vol. XXVI No. 1), 2002. 

BioTech + Art

I would not be able to encapsulate this week’s topics and discussion points, about the intricate relationship between BioTech and Arts, without mentioning Ellen K. Levy. Through the reading of her work Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications, I was then able to access the weekly lectures with a different prospective. When it comes to the fusion between BioTech and Art, the understanding of the latter as a sort of panacea is, in my opinion, fundamental. Allow me to further explain myself. As Levy mentions “art, in its broadest sense, has always been a way to acclimatize the public to new scientific discoveries and new technologies”,  as a result it bridges the gap between the Two Cultures [2]. 

Adam Zarestky 

In the specific case of BioTech and Arts, this bridging action is carried out by what Eduardo Kac defines as “transgenic art”. Transgenic Art is a new art form based on the use of genetic engineering and biotechnologies to create unique living beings that constitute works of art [2]. Although I was initially really skeptical about the bio-art discourse, Adam Zalestky persuaded me to give a second chance to this field of arts by reinforcing the concept that the learning of biotechnologies is an artistic pursuit, because it displays aesthetic choices [3]. Zalestky is an artist for Symbiotica, a groundbreaking experimental group that was established in 2000 with the goal of contributing to the continuous evolution of bio-art. Similarly, Katy High, another artist who previously associated herself with Symbiotica, offers a different take on this topic. By founding the Vampire Study Group, an interdisciplinary conceptual art project, High presents a dystopic view of the future of human species, ultimately connecting her thesis with Steve Kurtz’s idea that the “human body is going to be obsolete” [4][5]. 

Transgenic Art - GFP Bunny

Personally I was blown away by this week’s topic. Digging deeper in the contents offered on Canvas I came across Mel Chin’s Revival Field project, and it struck me. The initial experiment, located at Pig’s Eye Landfill, a State Superfund site in St. Paul, Minnesota, was a replicated field test using special hyperaccumulator plants to extract heavy metals from contaminated soil. Scientific analysis of biomass samples from this field confirmed the potential of “Green Remediation” as an on-site, low-tech alternative to current costly and unsatisfactory remediation methods. Despite soil conditions adverse to metal uptake, a variety of Thlaspi, the test plant with the highest capacity for hyperaccumulation, was found to have significant concentration of cadmium in its leaves and stems [6]. This project not only has scientific and artistic value, but it also has a positive environmental effect, which might be the reason why I was fascinated by it. 

Mel Chin's Revival Field

Citations: 

[1] Levy, K. Ellen. Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications, Bristol and University of Chicago Press, 1-22, 2011. 

[2] Vesna, Victoria. “Part 1.” Biotechnology and Art. Biotechnology and Art, 3 May 2022, Los Angeles, UCLA.

[3] Vesna, Victoria. “Part 2.” Biotechnology and Art. Biotechnology and Art, 3 May 2022, Los Angeles, UCLA.

[4] Vesna, Victoria. “Part 3.” Biotechnology and Art. Biotechnology and Art, 3 May 2022, Los Angeles, UCLA.

[5] Vesna, Victoria. “Part 4.” Biotechnology and Art. Biotechnology and Art, 3 May 2022, Los Angeles, UCLA.

[6] Chin, Mel. Revival Field Project. 1991 - ongoing. http://melchin.org/oeuvre/revival-field/