Week 8: NanoTech + Art

Week 8: NanoTech + Art

27 May 2018

The World Beneath A Nanostructure

This week we talked about how nanotechnology is on the precipice of amazing insights into both art and science. Professor Vesna highlighted how nanotechnology research and artistic endeavors are going to “push us over the edge into the 21st century” (Vesna 2012). Jim Gimzewski is a professor at UCLA and works at one of the largest nanotechnology research locations in the world. I thought he brought up a very interesting point in his paper that most scientists try to help others understand the research being done in the field using abstract analogies. This is necessary because nanotechnology is such a complex field of study, and people need tangible comparisons, like the width of a human hair, to grasp the most basic of concepts (Grimzewski). 

Nanoscale Cell Imaging

Most images created about nanotechnology also have to be fabricated and reimagined, due to the limitations of sizing and picture quality. When viewing these microscopic recreations, you can really understand the artistry of the research being done in this field. These scientists need a keen eye and a strong imagination to make the nanoscale seem fascinating for educational and research purposes. Particular colors and designs are also highlighted on this small scale, and these choices will help highlight certain aspects of the micro-engineering being accomplished. There are also wonderful abstractions being done with micro-images. Christian Orfescu is a trained material scientist who uses nanotechnology to improve lithium batteries and also sells abstract paintings demonstrating these small concepts and designs. He develops paintings from different materials and they create beautiful differences depending on what he sees in those materials. This work really showcases the link between art and science and is just the beginning to more conceptual crossovers in the future. I hope that it will lead to a future of research and discovery in the field that will ultimately advance the fundamental understanding of life and the universe.

Christian Orfesco Art Examples

References

Design, Laguna. “Nanotechnology, Conceptual Artwork by Laguna Design.” Fine Art America, fineartamerica.com/featured/nanotechnology-conceptual-artwork-laguna-design.html.

Feder, Barnaby J. “The Art of Nanotech.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Jan. 2008, bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/the-art-of-nanotech/.

Gimzewski, Jim, and Victoria Vesna. “The Nanomeme Syndrome: Blurring of Fact & Fiction in the Construction of a New Science.” The Nanomeme Syndrome: Blurring of Fact & Fiction in the Construction of a New Science, vv.arts.ucla.edu/publications/publications/02-03/JV_nano/JV_nano_artF5VG.htm.

Gimzewski, Jim. “Nanotech Jim pt1.” YouTube, YouTube, 21 May 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=52&v=q7jM6-iqzzE.

“John Curtin Gallery.” Art.Base, art.base.co/event/2104-art-in-the-age-of-nanotechnology.

“Nanotechnology Now.” Press Release: Early Tests Find Nanoshell Therapy Effective against Brain Cancer, www.nanotech-now.com/nanotechnology-art-gallery.htm.

Vesna, Victoria. “Nanotech Intro.” YouTube, YouTube, 26 Mar. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=62&v=dZ3y6TkXJ6Y.

Week 7: Neurosci + Art

Week 7: Neurosci + Art

20 May 2018

How Colors Influence Advertisement

This week we discussed the ideas of neuroscience in relation to art. Most importantly the idea of consciousness and the mind, and if the mind could ever truly be replicated. I think its interesting how artistic colors are often used to influence the way the mind thinks and feels to different advertisements and companies. Advertisers will often use color as a means to “change our mood - the mood of potential customers” (Gadsden 2014). Different brands will influence certain moods in their customers to sell certain products. For example, a lot of medical brands will use blues in their advertisements to induce feelings of health, honesty, and sincerity, while a motorcycle company might use a red color to influence the mood towards daring and recklessness in order to sell more of their product (Ciotti 2018). 

This Blue Color Scheme Promotes Health and Sincerity

Freudian Ideas Manifested

The subconscious influence from colors really relates to the ideas that Professor Vesna brings up during her lecture. As she mentions, the scientific study of the brain is very new. I think the way colors influence us really relates to the unconscious mind, and can relate back to the ideas of Freud and his thoughts on how unacknowledged perceptions and other thoughts and habits can be manifested in dreams in a symbolical form. Although this mood influence may not quite fit what Freud was referencing, I think it was the starting point to understanding how our unconscious can influence certain decisions or choices we make when it comes to the products we use. The more we study phenomena like this and come to understand it, the better we will unlock the secrets of the mind and how consciousness determines who we are as people and how we relate to the universe and religion on a grander scale.  

References

Bateson, Gregory. “MIND AND NATURE.” Oikos, www.oikos.org/mind&nature.htm.

Ciotti, Gregory. “The Psychology of Color in Marketing and Branding.” 75 Customer Service Stats and Facts You Can't Afford to Ignore, 1 Mar. 2018, www.helpscout.net/blog/psychology-of-color/.

Gadsden, David. “The Impact of Colour in Advertising, Marketing, and Design - Maistro PLC.” Maistro, 21 Feb. 2018, www.maistro.com/blogs/impact-colour-advertising-marketing-design/.

McLeod, Saul. “Saul McLeod.” Simply Psychology, Simply Psychology, 1 Jan. 1970, www.simplypsychology.org/unconscious-mind.html.

Penrose, Roger. “The Third Culture - Chapter 14.” HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK? | Edge.org, 1995, www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/v-Ch.14.html.

Vesna, Victoria. “Neuroscience-pt2.Mov.” YouTube, YouTube, 17 May 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=61&v=TFv4owX3MZo.

Week 6: BioTech + Art

Week 6 BioTech + Art

13 May 2018

Movie Cover for Gattaca

This week we focused on biotechnology and art which is a rapidly advancing field in the modern world. Most people think of the manipulation of biology as a very scary aspect of the scientific community, since it tends to focus on eradicating flaws in genetic biology. As a flawed species, this manipulation seems to go against what many people perceive to be the natural order of things. There is also an argument to be said that it goes against natural environmental selection. An interesting movie that explores this concept is Gattaca, which is a 1997 science fiction film discussing the idea of genetic discrimination and eugenics. I really enjoyed the movie and the themes it played on, and the fact that it explored the mental tole it has on a person to be genetically modified. The movie ends on a note of warning, showcasing that perfection is not all it is cracked up to be and that manipulation does not guarantee a winning outcome. It was a wonderful artistic example of how genetics can be a force of good or a force of great harm to society.

Wheat Modification:
A Selective Breeding Crop

I think a more interesting focus of genetic modification is food manipulation, which has actually been happening for as long as humans have existed. Crops have been harvested and seeds chosen based on the strength of previous crops for 10,000 years (Ganzel 2009). The biggest changes to this in recent years is the use of gene splicing to make crops resistant to environmental concerns. It truly is a work of art what current scientists are doing by creating appealing or beautiful looking food. What concerns me most with this research is the fact that a lot of our crops are now becoming very resistant to certain strains of bacteria. This resistance could translate to the medical world, and create antibiotic resistant diseases that could one day sicken a good portion of humanity. We rely on antibiotics to attack bacteria, but if we create the tools for the bacteria to use to mutate and become stronger, we could put ourselves in the position of creating a disease that could destroy us. That is what I see as the real danger with a lot of the current genetic modifications and something more people need to be considering instead of trying to make apples larger and a darker shade of red.

Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Development

References

“Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Threat.” The Simmons Voice, 2 Feb. 2017, simmonsvoice.com/2017/02/02/antibiotic-resistant-bacteria-threat/.

Entine, Jon. “Gattaca Alert? Or Should We Welcome the New Age of Eugenics?” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 27 Nov. 2012, www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2012/11/26/gattaca-alert-or-should-we-welcome-the-new-age-of-eugenics/#61206b704324.

Ganzel, Bill. “The GMO Age Begins.” The New Deal Financial Reform Laws, 2009, livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe70s/crops_10.html.

“Gattaca (1997).” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/.

Jabr, Ferris. “Are We Too Close to Making Gattaca a Reality?” Scientific American Blog Network, 28 Oct. 2013, blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/are-we-too-close-to-making-gattaca-a-reality/.

Panopoulos, N. “Transgenic Crop Resistance to Bacteria.” Egyptian Journal of Medical Human Genetics, Elsevier, 8 Mar. 1999, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0378429095000984.

Rangel, Gabriel. “From Corgis to Corn: A Brief Look at the Long History of GMO Technology.” Science in the News, 23 Oct. 2016, sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/from-corgis-to-corn-a-brief-look-at-the-long-history-of-gmo-technology/.

Event 2

Event 2: The Construction of the Environment in Epigenetics Research: a Social Science Study

13 May 2018

Dr. Clémence Pinel in London

I attended this lecture, a part of the 2018 EpiDaPo Lecture Series, which focuses on the modern effects in molecular biology labs, start-ups, and government to explore the gene-environment interaction but also to address issues including health and illness, normal and deviant behaviors, and politics and social justice. Dr. Clémence Pinel was the speaker, and she is from King’s College London, in the UK. Her talk was in a tiny area in the Life Sciences Building and my friend and I stood in the back of the very crowded but interested room. Her research is on two different labs and the work they were doing to cross different disciplines in terms of collaboration to create mutual gain. She really expanded on the ideas of how different benefits in the labs can secure assets outside the traditional role labs utilize; finding data, expertise, or technologies in these collaborations.

She began her lecture talking about how the environment can help secure funding for some labs. Some labs, like smoking labs, have a higher ability for publication opportunities and this is due to the fact that smoking studies provide very visible and notable results, which makes publication and even believability for the general public easier to attain. She really highlighted the three main collaboration necessities, which were profitability, mobility and versatility. Research collaborations create a resource which allow more versatility and mobility to be created. In addition to this, diverse portfolios and exchanging of resources help the environment of the labs improve by increasing all three necessities. This increase gives the labs access to higher end technological facilities, which in turn allows the labs to outsource data production to external companies.  

Discussion on Research Implications of Collaboration

The lecture continued by emphasizing the fact that collaborations enhance versatility. This in turn allows them to find new uses for the research being done and gain different types of capital for funding. This funding is a very important aspect to the collaboration because the combination of multiple disciplines would hopefully give way to better experimentation and more fruitful results. Current research could also be used to study other experiments in different labs, and this cross-discipline collaboration creates an increase in versatility. 

I really enjoyed the example she used toward the end of her lecture which brought these ideas together. The example was sharing two different environments like early life vs adult subjects in two different labs to collaborate findings, which would maybe help the early life or adult lab in their different studies and improve the value of both labs. I thought this was a truly fascinating discussion, and one that could apply to my own future research practices. I also thought the discussion tied in with the medical technology lecture we had in class. Since the labs being compared were doing medical type research in most cases. I believe medical experimentation could be improved greatly with the ideas brought up by Dr. Clémence Pinel, and that medical art and technology is really on the cusp of change in our modern world. Collaboration could even be extended to the artistic field to gain profitability, mobility and versatility for medical research. I could especially see more funding being applied to research if more artistic endeavors were seen to be crossing into the research field. This is why this lecture series was so interesting and why I highly recommend to my fellow classmates to attend the other talks this quarter.

My Friend and I at the Lecture Series

References

Pinel, Clemence. “The Construction of the ‘Environment’ in Epigenetics Research: A Social Study.” The UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics, socgen.ucla.edu/events/the-construction-of-the-environment-in-epigenetics-research-a-social-study/.

Vesna, Victoria. “Medicine and Art: Parts 1-3.” YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded.

Warwick, Kevin. “Home.” Kevin Warwick, www.kevinwarwick.org/.

Midterm Link

Midterm Link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IvZlDyWe8a0vjURbN5hLDrfOqz4AVms6/view?usp=sharing