Zara Feeney 803454305 - week 4- Systems of Duality

Zara Feeney
803454305
04/26/07
Desma 9
TA: Xarene

Desma 9- Week 4
In this weeks lecture, we discussed many different topics. We talked a lot about dualism and how although computers are extremely efficient and beyond creative inventions, they still unfortunately lack compassion that. In this weeks lecture we also discussed a lot about the idea of systems. The reading quotes,”the generative systems we create as artists are far simpler than the systems we encounter in everyday life. But by creating these comparatively minimal systems we can discover truths about the world that might otherwise be masked by the relative chaos of the day to day.” Thinking about systems, helps us further investigate the difference between a human cellular systems vs. a computer networking system. Why does the set of networks in the body give rise to compassion and love that computers lack? Are they not both organizations that react to the rest of the system?
Based on the idea of a computer network vs. a human network, I became very interested in Allen Turing. He was the father of making human/ computer interaction possible. Turing based his test on a game played in the 1950s where a person in a group would not be able to see two people (one man, one woman) but they would have to try to guess which one was the man and which one was the women. The man would pretend to act like the women and vice versa so the person would not know who is who.
Turing’s experiment had a similar idea. He made a person try to guess the different between automated computer responses and an actual other human response. This type of computer programming or binary logic was dependent on female and male stereotypes and gender roles. The ironic thing, however, is that Allen Turing was gay and does not fit the “typical” (whatever that means) stereotype of the male gender role.
Unfortunately the government thought if a man loves a man he must be a woman, so they made him take estrogen pills to further portray what he desired ( mind you , this was against his will). He grew breasts because of this, and then died from eating a poisoned apple. He eventually died from eating a apple that was poisoned with synod.
Even though the government’s reaction to the gay community is shocking, another fact interested me even more. Ironically enough, Steve Jobs, was a hetersoxual white male who rose to the top of the computer science industry after Turings death. Steve Jobs invented the apple comuters which meant there was an apple with a bit out of it.
I find it so appalling how no matter what industry someone is in, the crème of the crop will somehow manage to be a heterosexual white male. “Deeper down than we are rich are poor, black or white, we are he or she. This is the last ditch of out socially prescribed identity…the one line of our psychic defense we dare not surrender” (Roszack in Eaklor 352). Or can we? America’s patriarchal society often views females as less significant than men. I hope that society can exceed there patriarchal standards and be open minded to other people than straight white males.

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Zara Feeney 803454305 - week 3- Political intervention in art

Zara Feeney
803454305
Desma 9
04/19/06

In this lecture we learned about how many things influenced the want to use robotics in art including the industrial revolution, Henry Ford’s idea of the assembly line, as well as the second industrial revolution which included electronics.
Throughout the history of Modernism, art has made many dramatic impacts on society. One of the most emphatic movements of Modernism was the Constructivist and De Stijl movement. Constructivist and De Stijl effected politics and social life of the early 20th century in a similar way to contemporary art today.
Constructivism was an especially political art movement in Russia, as it was pre-revolutionary and contributed to inciting political up rise among the proletariat. De Stijl in the Netherlands was political in the way that it expressed a desire for political and social change to achieve a more utopian order in society. Varvara Stepanova’s constructivist costume design is in my opinion the most intriguing example of avant-garde’s desire to bridge the gap between art and life. His rigid costume design was intended to make a uniform society whose ideals were all the same. Stepanova insisted that once art and life could become connected, this utopian ideal could be achieved. If Varvara’s theory was correct, this teaches us now that our society has come no closer to utopia than society of Varvara’s time. Constructivism remains as an example to current society of art’s power to invoke political and social change. In many ways, art today still serves the same purposes.
The Bauhaus group also wanted to reunite creativity with the industrial world by training mainly in industry and handicraft as opposed to drawing and painting, which the academy preferred. This group wanted to unify many different types of art. In his essay, “The Theory Organization of the Bauhaus movement,” Walter Gropius claims that“ the ultimate, if distant goal of the Bauhaus is the collective work of art—in which no barriers exist between the structural and the decorative arts” (311). An artist must know how to stray from traditional techniques and realize a groups potential by gaining new forms of expression. He, as well as others in the Bauhaus movement, believed in the power of a collective effort. He believes that “Only an apparent unity can be achieved if many helpers carry out the design of a single person” (313).
According to the Bauhauists, collaborative work is the most effective when a group agrees on the same ideas of expression. Everyone involved must understand the same principal theme intended for the piece. The group must work harmoniously so the collective effort can become stronger and can have more of an impact than an individuals work. Gropius feels that this group force or spirit “creates for itself a new life other than the life of nature”(313).
Also integrating art and life, Rivera, who led the mural movement in the 1920s and 30s, used mural art as a public, idealogic and didactic propaganda for the proletariat. In his mural Detroit Industry (1932-33), it is clear that Rivera is attempting to analyze mass product assembly, make a statement about the working class ( the worker and the work should be united, and not in an assembly line), give a public message about technology either being good or bad, and use past and present cosmology. This mural is divided horizontally into three sections, the top one medium size, the middle one very narrow and the bottom one the largest. The top section has two simple human forms lounging symmetrically in the foreground, and has five hands ( of different skin tones and ethnities) protruding our of a rock like form. In the next panel, there are a few of earths basic elements that represent the connection between past and present cosmology. Lastly, in the lowest and largest section, Rivera paints a assembly line and a factory using a compilation of angular forms and an endless line of restless workers. In this chaotic mess, there is only one point where thhe viewer can depict a small red car in the distance. There is a separation of the work from the worker, because in an assembly line, a worker can only see what they are making, but do not know what the end product is.

This Website provides a lot of information that explains what artists today are making. http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2002/03/51058

In society today, art serves the purpose of answering the question “what if?” Contemporary artists present new ideas to push the limits to shock, amaze, and otherwise make an impression on society. In a sense, art does and always has attempted to be beyond society in the way it tests the boundaries of what is acceptable and will eventually grow to be accepted.

Today, art is no different than the art of the early 20th century because artists have expressed and will continue to express their ideals about political society through their work. Using their craft as a venue to express certain political views, contemporary artists, for example, often show how changing political views affect our modern world. For instance, modern artist, Greg Kucera tends to represent the relation of freedom of expression and population control with the political perspectives of our era. Similarly, my personal artistic creations give a provocative and controversial perspective of rising political issues such as gay marriage and abortion.

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Zara Feeney 803454305 - week 2- Week 2 wonders

Zara Feeney
TA: Xarene
04-012-07
803454305


Desma 9- Week 2

Although we did not have reading for this week I will still discuss how interesting the lectures were. We talked about many things, including the derivation of zero, perspective drawing, dimensionality, fractals, and other math related topics that directly affect aesthetics. After I briefly discuss some aspects of the lectures, I will then talk about something that fascinated me the most—how the increase in software in art helps to provide visual relations to the patterns in nature.
Zero started in 700 BC in Mesopotamia which is now ironically south central Iraq. It was not used as a number but as a punctuation mark. After working its way through Greece, India, China and Islam, it finally came to the west in 1600 AD. Although zero has often been known as being simply nothing, it is now more considered to be infinitly everything. For example, when looking at philosopher Nische’s idea of “433 minutes of silence,” this could either mean 433 minutes of nothing at all or 433 minutes of everything at once.
Artists have contemplated idea of perspective line drawing throughout history, but the first note worthy attempt was by Duccio in the medieval times. Duccio did not quite get all his perspectives correct, and it was not until Brunelleschi formulated the idea of a vanishing point that perspective drawing truly portrayed the real world accurately. This discovering was a breakthrough in art during the medieval times and greatly contributed to the rise of the renaissance. Later, Da Vinci worked a lot with vanishing points and was a huge innovator for bringing math and art into one.
Another huge discovery in art was dimensionality. For example, M.C. Escher, who was greatly influenced by symmetry in Arabic mosaics, in Spain, and used his obsession with mathematics to slowly perfect his art. He made hundreds of intricate drawings that fooled gravity, time, space, and mainly the viewer. Also, Buckminster Fuller used dimensionality in his work. He felt like cubes are insufficient in nature and emphasize the beauty of making dome structures. Dimensionality definitely had an impact on later artists such as Cage, Albers, Snelsan, and others.
Continuously, Fractals had an amazing impact on how art influenced science and science influences art. Mandelbrot, discovered the idea of fractals and how when a large image is zoomed in on, it is the same as the initial image. These fractals are infinitely complex, they are like islands in a sea of chaos. Although it looks out of this world and very psychedelic, it is still based on simple principles.
I found the most interesting part of the lecture to be when Kasey Lees came to give a guest lecture. I found his artwork absolutely fascinating and I was speechless when he stopped talking. His work uses highly innovative software to create math based digital work. By figuring out a certain equations that apply to circles, lines and how they intersect, he ultimately creates something unfathomable and aesthetically moving. Like the patterns in nature, all thing is primarily based on simple equations. For instance if you look at a flower, there is perfect symmetry and geometry from the little micro organisms to the petals attached to the center. When viewing a flower, most people just see its imitiate visual beauty, but do not realize whats behind it. In Kasey’s work, the same idea occurs. Something at first merely aesthetically pleasing has simple equations that define it.
I searched “math and art” on google and I found interactive art and math websites that reminded me a little of Kasey’s website. http://www.math.ru.nl/knopen/art_gallery.html

For example, you can “build a rainbow” or change its lines by using different calculations.

Build a Rainbow
We follow a collection of parallel rays -- let's make them horizontal -- of sunlight striking the drop at various heights. The drop has radius 1, so heights can range from -1 to 1. (From symmetry, the sign of the height doesn't matter.)
For each ray, we report the angle through which it was bent (the angle between the scattered ray and the incoming sunlight).
Error! Not a valid embedded object.Error! Not a valid embedded object.Follow rays through two reflections
Ray at height Error! Not a valid embedded object.wavelength Error! Not a valid embedded object.nm bent by 144.2 and 94.2 degreesRay at height Error! Not a valid embedded object.wavelength Error! Not a valid embedded object.nm bent by 140.4 and 108 degreesRay at height Error! Not a valid embedded object.wavelength Error! Not a valid embedded object.nm bent by 139.6 and 118.8 degreesRay at height Error! Not a valid embedded object.wavelength Error! Not a valid embedded object.nmRay at height Error! Not a valid embedded object.wavelength Error! Not a valid embedded object.nm

Through this lecture, I realize how undeniably essential math is in art. Not even just art in a studio, but the art visuals in nature. By realizing the potential math and science can have when combined with art will continue to move us forward in our technologically advanced future.

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Zara Feeney 803454305 - week 1- Two Cultures in mind

Zara Feeney
04- 06-07
803454305
TA: Xarene

Blog- Desma 9- Week 1- Two cultures in mind

In the world of academics, a striking opposition exists between science and art.
During this weeks lecture, the idea of stereotypes and opposition in School systems, as well as religious organizations within art and science was presented. Scientists often see artists as either starving and desolate, or rich and pompous. Artists often see scientists as madmen who never stop working in their labs. A stereotype, however, is a fixed/generated pattern meant to control groups of people, and is many times proven false.
Instead of continuing the long held tradition of making science completely opposite to art; C.P. Snow presents the possibility for opposites to become one. He hopes everyone knows “the second law of thermodynamics” and has “read a play of Shakespeare.” Everyone, whether they are more artistic (north campus at UCLA) or more scientific (south campus at UCLA) should be equally acquainted with both sides of the academic world. C.P. Snow looks at artists who are using technology to cure world, and reversely scientist who are expressing physical/ experimental science to reach the metaphysical. By briding the gap between art and science, C.P. Snow forms sort of a third culture.
Well known scientists further explicate C.P. snows idea of a hybrid culture—something that is the grey between the black vs. white opposition of art and science—thorughout their carreers. For example, Feyeyaband, who presents the idea of a methodological paradigm( the “against method”) says that the structure of method is similar in art as well as science. Both science and art can prove something false to be true or vice versa. Feyerband notes that eventually every methodology can be proven wrong and ultimately “anything goes”. This idea is the only principal that does not inhibit progress.
Later on in lecture we discussed the controversial topic of science verses religion. One view is that science and religion are completely conflicting. Another view is that they can actually intertwine (ex- Galieo, Darwin). Christians feel that science is a threat to their faith, and scientists feel like religion is a threat to their scientific freedom. Unlike in the past, teachers just guide students in the write direction and do not tell them exactly how things are meant to be ( finally women can teach too!). Now as students in this generation, we can question authority, since thoughts and facts are always evolving.
Artist, Steve Kurtz, the guest speaker for this week, told his personal story of how authority affected his ability to integrate science into his art. He and his team “Haliflax” wanted to conduct experiments to test how much the government was altering the food Americans eat. When his wife of 27 years died unexpectedly of heart failure, the FBI searched his house, found petree dishes with unknown bacteria and immediately accused him of an attempted terrorist attack. Although his art may be absurd, authority is usually even more absurd.
As this class continues, the overlapping between science and art will become clearer. For example, the professor mentioned that with the invention of light bulbs and photography, painters started to paint less realistically. In all situations, it is evident or not, science affects are and reversely art affects science. By integrating art into life as well as life into art invoke political and social change becomes possible.

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Zara Feeney 803454305 - week 1- Two Cultures in mind

Zara Feeney
04- 06-07
803454305
TA: Xarene

Blog- Desma 9- Week 1- Two cultures in mind

In the world of academics, a striking opposition exists between science and art.
During this weeks lecture, the idea of stereotypes and opposition in School systems, as well as religious organizations within art and science was presented. Scientists often see artists as either starving and desolate, or rich and pompous. Artists often see scientists as madmen who never stop working in their labs. A stereotype, however, is a fixed/generated pattern meant to control groups of people, and is many times proven false.
Instead of continuing the long held tradition of making science completely opposite to art; C.P. Snow presents the possibility for opposites to become one. He hopes everyone knows “the second law of thermodynamics” and has “read a play of Shakespeare.” Everyone, whether they are more artistic (north campus at UCLA) or more scientific (south campus at UCLA) should be equally acquainted with both sides of the academic world. C.P. Snow looks at artists who are using technology to cure world, and reversely scientist who are expressing physical/ experimental science to reach the metaphysical. By briding the gap between art and science, C.P. Snow forms sort of a third culture.
Well known scientists further explicate C.P. snows idea of a hybrid culture—something that is the grey between the black vs. white opposition of art and science—thorughout their carreers. For example, Feyeyaband, who presents the idea of a methodological paradigm( the “against method”) says that the structure of method is similar in art as well as science. Both science and art can prove something false to be true or vice versa. Feyerband notes that eventually every methodology can be proven wrong and ultimately “anything goes”. This idea is the only principal that does not inhibit progress.
Later on in lecture we discussed the controversial topic of science verses religion. One view is that science and religion are completely conflicting. Another view is that they can actually intertwine (ex- Galieo, Darwin). Christians feel that science is a threat to their faith, and scientists feel like religion is a threat to their scientific freedom. Unlike in the past, teachers just guide students in the write direction and do not tell them exactly how things are meant to be ( finally women can teach too!). Now as students in this generation, we can question authority, since thoughts and facts are always evolving.
Artist, Steve Kurtz, the guest speaker for this week, told his personal story of how authority affected his ability to integrate science into his art. He and his team “Haliflax” wanted to conduct experiments to test how much the government was altering the food Americans eat. When his wife of 27 years died unexpectedly of heart failure, the FBI searched his house, found petree dishes with unknown bacteria and immediately accused him of an attempted terrorist attack. Although his art may be absurd, authority is usually even more absurd.
As this class continues, the overlapping between science and art will become clearer. For example, the professor mentioned that with the invention of light bulbs and photography, painters started to paint less realistically. In all situations, it is evident or not, science affects are and reversely art affects science. By integrating art into life as well as life into art invoke political and social change becomes possible.

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Michelle Baba, Week 4 - Stephen Wolfram

Though I thoroughly enjoy the things that we cover in this class, I am a little troubled by the small amount of things that we take the time to actually learn about and discuss. I think that so much material has been crammed into each week, we don’t really get a chance to think about all of the different works and artists that we are shown.

Anyways, this past week, self-organization caught my eye. I wanted to know more about it and how it was connected to the artist that was mentioned in class, Stephen Wolfram:
Self-organization is when something increases in complexity without being guided or told to do so. Some examples would be morphogenesis (when a living organism develops and grows), the creation of structures among social animals/insects, and flocking behavior among birds. According to http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SELFORG.html , it is basically a process of evolution where the effect of the environment is minimal and the development of new, complex structures takes place primarily in and through the system itself. Below is a mathematical construct that displays self-organization created using “Rule 30,” a program created by Stephen Wolfram.

Wolfram, a computer programmer (among many, many other things), studies simple computational systems and believes that they, rather than traditional mathematics, are needed to model and understand complexity in nature. He creates programs such as “Rule 30” to create his art of shapes and geometrical forms.

And to change the topic to computer programs such as Weisenbaum's ELIZA, I'm not even certain that I would consider that as having weak A.I. since it is programmed to give certain responses and ask certain questions in a particular order. I suppose it does fit the definition of weak A.I. since it does perform simple tasks, however, I feel that it do not, in fact, live up to the "intelligence" part of its name... just something to consider. Oh! And there's also the similar program that is contacted via AIM called "Smarterchild" that can be used as a seemingly personalized/intimate search engine.

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We're All Generative!

Science and art are definitely both generative. Can you tell the difference?





There were many topics covered in lecture and section last week that covered a wide range of topics: networks, natural systems, biology, generative art, artificial life. As we learned about all these different topics I am still somewhat lost on the connection of some of these topics to art. As for networks, the example of the first internet connection being between UCLA and Stanford was very interesting but I think I missed the point of how it relates to art. The same goes for artificial intelligence. It is really interesting to see the development of A.I. such as the evolvement of Eliza to Alice, but I think I need to see more examples to establish the connection to art. I hope that we can go over this more in discussion or again in lecture just to clarify some things.

It’s a little hard for me to agree with Philip Galanter that generative art is as old as art. The definition Galanter gives for generative art is that it “refers to any art practice where the artist uses a system, such as a set of natural language rules, a computer program, a machine, or other procedural invention, which is set into motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art”. When thinking of classical pieces of artwork there doesn’t seem to be much autonomy. Back then paintings, portraits, and sculptures were very much in the control of the artist and not some external force. By definition generative art is very much about the process rather than the final piece of work and I feel that before many artworks were about the finished project. I feel like I can really relate generative art to my own science experience. In my chemistry lab we are required to keep a lab notebook. In this notebook we are to document every step, observation, resource, change, mistake, etc. With a carbon copy on the back and a ban on white out we can see our entire process from start to finish, mistakes and all. As our professor articulated at the beginning of the quarter, it is better to see where we have made mistakes in order to correct them rather than having a perfect final lab report and we know nothing about the experiment. Although I wouldn’t call this generative science, but writing in my lab notebook, in my opinion, is as generative as Philip Galanter’s Chaotic Conductor.

I definitely can agree with Jack Burnham, who said, “"Deep-rooted drives lasting several millennia are not erased from the human personality overnight. Yet there is abundant evidence that the modern era of artistic expression through sculptured objects is drawing to a close. Taking the path outlined up to now, it would be logical to speculate on the quasi-biological nature of future art...” Generative art seems the way to go these days. And from the works of Casey Reas, Hans Haacke and other artists, art does now seem to have a biological feel.



this piece is one of Casey Reas’s:

http://www.computergraphica.com/2005/03/16/casey-reas-updates/

And this is a picture of neuronal cells:

http://www.qbmcellscience.com/gallery/img10.html

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--- Section 2 --- Matt Ko ---

This week’s topic was on generative art and also artificial intelligence. There is debate over whether or not generative art is truly art or not. And I am not surprised that there is such a debate. There are different extents to how “free” the art is to develop. Some artists would generative art and totally just let the art make itself, and others would make it more of a precise process, almost leaving no freedom for the art. I personally like generative art that is more artist controlled than not, and I would say that such art should actually be considered art. But in the end, to me, whatever is appealing to the eye is art. So, if the generative art is left to run without the artist doing too much, and it makes something appealing to the eye, I wouldn’t give the credit to the “artist” but rather to whatever system used to create the piece. As strange as that may sound, I think that is the best way to consider such a case. I would be much more comfortable saying that nature made the work than a person who didn’t contribute. A great example of generative art where the artist has taken control of the production is our prior week’s guest, Casey Reas. He did all of the programming required for the art to be done. Hans Haacke’s Condensation Cube is a decent example of artist control. He came up with the idea to display condensation as art, building the cube, and placing it in an atmosphere where condensation would occur. However, this case is also a very hard case to distinguish. Since Haacke had minimal involvement in the process, some would say that his cube is not art. And it isn’t as though what is being created isn’t an everyday occurrence. So it’s very tough to decide. I am very close to not calling it art at all.

Artificial intelligence is another gray area for me. I don’t know how much AI is involved in art exactly, but either way, it’s really hard for me to decide what I think about it. AI is a promising idea, and I see many great uses for AI in our society. However, AI taken to the point of the movie I Robot scares me. If AI were ever really self aware, I would feel very strongly against it.

As we talked about in discussion, current AI is lacking in many respects. If you look at things like ELIZA, such an AI really needs to be able to respond freely, in creative ways. If ELIZA does not know how to respond, she tends to either rephrase the text that was inputted, or she will divert the question somehow. A real AI should have a creative response for any statement. However, the greatest struggle in the study of AI is that an AI will probably never be able to exhibit ethics and morality, and be able to sense feelings and express them, just as a human would. These features are what I would attach to the definition of intelligence, and without them, AI can never truly be intelligent.

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Claire Benson-Week 4-Objects and Systems

This week I found the topics we went into the most depth with to be by far the most engaging. Lately a few of the lectures have felt like a bit too much of not quite enough information, so I liked Edward Shanken’s response to Prof. Vesna’s talk because it provided a bit more focus and elaboration on certain subjects.

One remarkable collaboration that has been brought up a few times (although I still don’t feel like I necessarily have a good understanding of what they actually accomplished) is that of Rauschenberg’s and Kluver’s ‘Experiments in Art and Technology’. While the spotlight in the lectures has been on E.A.T.’s concern with “humanizing the environment,” it seems to be even more so about this concept in combination with their interest in advancing the second Industrial, or to be more specific, Technological, Revolution. In looking up their Statement of Purpose from 1967, (http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?NumPage=306) it becomes clear that their reasons for creating such a group lay in capitalizing on and appreciating the advancements in multiple arenas. The statement concludes with hopes of “avoid[ing] the waste of a cultural revolution,” and in acknowledging the societal implications of such developments, they also acknowledge the far reaching effects that such changes will have.

I also felt that Jack Burnham’s quote from the beginning of class was especially appropriate for the examinations of revolutions at large because advancements that are multifaceted and strong enough to attract the word ‘revolution,’ always include some sort of system restructuring. However, although many of the innovations of the initial Industrial Revolution also focused on how things were constructed, the product itself (as a sought after result) was still the goal in this era. To Burnham’s credit, it does seem fitting to recognize the shift on many scales and in many more arenas within the progress of the latter half of the twentieth century. As Mr. Shanken started to show us, there were many artists that began to prioritize the process rather than the outcome during this time period, and it therefore makes sense that performance art would emerge as an important force around this time as well.

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Christine Dang - Week 4 - Chaos and Order, Logic and Art

Each passing week it seems that we cover a different aspect of science, and yet, despite all of the inherent contradictions, it all somehow makes sense to relate these rigidly logical fields with the relaxed creativity of art. At first I had expected this course to focus more heavily on art and how technology can enhance it. I had hardly expected this intriguing paradox between logic and creativity. In this week’s reading, generative art was discussed, and this style even further increases the oddity of this amalgamation of art and science. Not only is there the mix between calculation and emotion, but there also exists the combination of both chaos and order. The pieces themselves are based on calculation, pattern, an ordered schematic of some sort. And yet from these static instructions arises random patterns and creations, many unexpected even to the writers themselves.

As mentioned in the description of the '99 Conference of Generative Art in Milan, Italy, "Generative Art allows us the possibility to perform our ideas as genetic code, and to realize, as the natural DNA does, always different and unpredictable series of events, pictures, objects, architectures, music, environment, all recognizable by our creative idea." Until I saw this statement, I hadn't even thought of relating the uniqueness of pieces of generative art to the creation of DNA strings. I truly could not make a better comparison. It could even be related to the "unexpected even to its creator" aspect of generative art, for when DNA is transcribed into RNA strands by the polymerase, every once in a while an unexpected error or change would occur, dubbed a mutation.

Examples of Generative Art, by Bogdan Soban

In the Fiat Lux seminar in Design | Media Arts that I took last quarter, we discussed this one program which detected the electric impulses sent to a plant’s roots upon touch and utilized these impulses as a method to control the growth and creation of various plants in a 3D garden. While the basis of the piece itself is a static program, no two gardens created through this system were identical. Thus, order creates chaos, and logic gives birth to artistic creativity. Furthermore, when this piece was on display in a gallery, a man in an electric wheelchair attempted it. The next day, the machine would no longer run. When the artist was called in and the program was fixed again, they discovered that somehow the electric impulses were affected by the presence of the wheelchair and had shorted the display. In this way, pieces sometimes yield results that are unexpected even to its creator.

Generative art also brings up the debate of intelligence. How intelligent does a program have to be before it is considered artificial intelligence? A program used for a piece of generative art is essentially self-reliant and can continue to create on its own, would this be deemed intelligent enough? Most people do not seem to think so. In last week's discussion session, we took another look at some of the earlier interactions with artificial intelligence. Many people looked at the simple text-based models as pointless and "dumb". However, those programs can and do interact with people on some semblance of intelligence, preprogrammed or otherwise. So what determines intelligence? Is it the ability to learn and change? Sentience, thought, feeling? Artificial intelligence is indeed an intriguing concept, especially when it appears that for the most part, people have not even yet defined intelligence itself.

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Claire Benson-Week 4-Objects and Systems

This week I found the topics we went into the most depth with to be by far the most engaging. Lately a few of the lectures have felt like a bit too much of not quite enough information, so I liked Edward Shanken’s response to Prof. Vesna’s talk because it provided a bit more focus and elaboration on certain subjects.

One remarkable collaboration that has been brought up a few times (although I still don’t feel like I necessarily have a good understanding of what they actually accomplished) is that of Rauschenberg’s and Kluver’s ‘Experiments in Art and Technology’. While the spotlight in the lectures has been on E.A.T.’s concern with “humanizing the environment,” it seems to be even more so about this concept in combination with their interest in advancing the second Industrial, or to be more specific, Technological, Revolution. In looking up their Statement of Purpose from 1967, (http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?NumPage=306) it becomes clear that their reasons for creating such a group lay in capitalizing on and appreciating the advancements in multiple arenas. The statement concludes with hopes of “avoid[ing] the waste of a cultural revolution,” and in acknowledging the societal implications of such developments, they also acknowledge the far reaching effects that such changes will have.

I also felt that Jack Burnham’s quote from the beginning of class was especially appropriate for the examinations of revolutions at large because advancements that are multifaceted and strong enough to attract the word ‘revolution,’ always include some sort of system restructuring. However, although many of the innovations of the initial Industrial Revolution also focused on how things were constructed, the product itself (as a sought after result) was still the goal in this era. To Burnham’s credit, it does seem fitting to recognize the shift on many scales and in many more arenas within the progress of the latter half of the twentieth century. As Mr. Shanken started to show us, there were many artists that began to prioritize the process rather than the outcome during this time period, and it therefore makes sense that performance art would emerge as an important force around this time as well.

Read more!

Section 3 week 4

I’m not going to lie; this week’s topics were way over my head. I was clueless through the first lecture and then the movie Brazil completely sent me over the edge into confusion. I didn’t really have a strong stance on what I thought artificial intelligence was before this topic was discussed during class, but I hate to say that the lectures and movies presented didn’t clarify my confusion any more. Before this week I thought that robots were associated with artificial life and that it also had to do with life created by humans like test tube babies.
Because I'm very naive when it comes to things like this I was completely in awe by the different topics discussed during class. I thought the program Eliza, created by Joseph Weizenbaum, was very interesting and I wanted to explore it more. I went to the website and started talking to her, and found her very frustrating. After trying to have a conversation with her I began to realize the pattern and process that she “thought” by. I started off with a topic that I thought most people would start off with. “ Hi, how are you?” However the response was not the predicted one. “ Does that question interest you?” Usually people answer with a “ good thank you” or something along those lines. However, I realized that the response is probably similar to many questions people ask and that is her backup answer for questions she can’t rhetorically answer with. Almost everything she responds with is a question, which makes the questioner very frustrated and annoyed. I don’t know if I would consider this art. It’s a very interesting creation and it provokes many feelings and thoughts, but I wouldn’t let it fall under the category of artistic.
Another program that reminded me of Eliza was a website called “ Peter Answers”. It’s a website that you go to where you ask it a question and it answers depending on if it “trusts” you or not. Basically it’s a computer magic trick that people use to confuse and baffle their friends, but I’m not quite sure how it works and was a first very scared by it. Here’s a website that completely describes how the “trick” works and its really fascinating to read about.
http://chriswondra.com/2007/02/21/peter-answers-the-secret/
While searching for more information about Peter Answers, I found a really interesting site that totally coincides with the artificial life topic of this week. The program discussed was where you could communicate with “god” and have a full on conversation with “someone.” It was almost exactly like Eliza, using predicted questions and answers, but it was still funny to read about how kids especially are fascinated with it. Here’s another website describing the “ Igod”.
http://chriswondra.com/2007/04/15/peter-answers-and-igod-logging-in-to-the-spirit-world/

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something more about bees

So I am sorry for this, but I really would like to continue harping on Sean Dockray’s lecture from week 3. However, he lectured on systems and I think that there are some very interesting ties between some of his pieces of art and some of the systems biology which we discussed on Tuesday in week 4.

On Tuesday we discussed for a little about populations and systems biology. I thought this discussion integrated very nicely with Sean Dockray’s art piece on the ants. I think that colonies in the wild like ants and bees are extremely fascinating. I find it amazing that a queen bee can reproduce parthenogenically in order to create males. These males are haploid and contain half the DNA compared to the mother. Then, when the females lay eggs which are fertilized by these males, all offspring are ¾ related. This is much greater than a normally sexually reproducing family where siblings have ½ genetic relationship. It is often thought that the colonial actions of these species are due to their unusual genetic relationship between the offspring. In this manner, these species are an extreme version of altruism because any particular ant or bee would be more genetically related to their sibling than their own offspring. Thus, they would not reproduce at all. However, this past week I was listening to some podcasts produced by the science journal Science about bees. The journal highlighted some new findings that have shown that the genetic relatedness is not in fact the only reason why bees and ants act this way. Scientist observed that the bees had a policing force. They saw that in fact the female worker bees did reproduce, however, other workers were designated as a police force and these bees went around and destroyed any eggs which were not the queens. In this way, the colonies were able to maintain a relationship of 3:1 females to males and keep the queen as the only reproducing body within the colony. The journal is in Science magazine and the article link is: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/307/5706/54 .

After reviewing this article and listening to the podcast I began to think a little bit more about Sean Dockray’s picture of the ant and also his fascination with how the government and police control society, specifically by controlling traffic. I felt that new meaning on his piece of the ants arose once I read this article. Before reading the article I just thought about his piece as being an interesting biological system where the ants were able to follow one another because they used chemical signals and they followed each other to bring food back to the colony. However, the more I think about it, the more who work on traffic lights and ants seem to become connected. In order for the ants to continue to act in a function colony, the article states that the ants must have to do extensive policing in order to rid themselves of any illegitimate offspring. In this way, the ants will function as a colony and a unit and thus they will walk in straight lines for food and bring food back to their queen and nest. Similar to ants, human society must be controlled by policing and traffic lights in order for us to maintain adequate conduct and order.

I thought that it was truly interesting how after gaining some further insight about ants and bees, unforeseen connections between different art works of Sean Dockray’s can be made. Although these connections may seem like a stretch, or something Sean was not trying to talk about in his art, I still think that this connection is fascinating. It is amazing to see that even bees police their colonies in order to maintain proper conduct, and while it might not be through photo-enforced lights, it is still a big brother watching over.

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Duy Phung -Week 4 -Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Technology has advanced quickly, especially in computer sciences. Prof. Vesna discussed many network and computer concepts and applications, which were new to me, in the modern world such as: the Turing test, artificial intelligence, swarm intelligence, and generative art. I don’t understand much about these things since my major is biochemistry. However, AI was an interesting topic that I’ve some knowledge, so I’m going to discuss about it today.
I’m sure we’re all familiar with the concept of AI. We’ve encountered it anywhere in our daily life, and fortunately it has developed well enough to serve human beings. Personally I have seen them most in video games industry. AI is my entertaining friend although frequently it appears as my smart and organized enemies in video games and often gave me hard times. Without it, video games are boring since they’re all filled with predictable enemies and repetitive battles.

People have been enjoying the benefits of AI, but they’re instinctively afraid of AI as it might evolve sophistically enough to overshadow humans and then rule the world. Many movies have come out to illustrate the idea and successfully added more fear to people. For example, the movie Brazil on Wednesday lecture captured our attention about human life in future. A man worked lonely with special machines to find himself often daydreaming about a girl he had never seen before. It was his only motivation to live. Even that in his dreams he wore robot-like outfit, flew with steel wings, and fought with machinery demons. After meeting the girl in real life something exploded in his mind and he continuously ran into troubles. The message was simple and clear: along with the development of technology, human social interaction becomes a major problem; therefore directly or indirectly under influence of AI, disasters will be inevitable.
Since John McCarthy coined the term Artificial Intelligence meaning “"the science and engineering of making intelligent machines" in 1955, AI has been well studied and applied widely in many fields, especially of computer sciences, engineering, and the rising neuroscience (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence for more information).
When the IBM Deep Blue was the first officially supercomputer using its AI to win the chess game against a reigning world champion, Garry Kasparov, under regular time controls after a six-game match in 1997, it was heralded as a major turning point in the continuing struggle between man and machine. The omen has turned out to be right as computers have developed strategies designers have never thought of in game AI and strategic planning fields.
It was interesting and amusing when Prof. Vesna introduced us ELIZA, the computer therapist. After chatting with her online for a few moments, we immediately knew she was a computer since she was evading to answer the questions directly but rather asked other questions back to us. I wasn’t surprised to know that in 1960’s many people thought her a woman because the field was new and people didn’t have the knowledge back then. Nor would I be surprised if my children laughed and told me the computers we’ve experienced now were dumb in the future. In conclusion, human and AI development has direct influences to one another, and it’s not exaggerated to say both will unify to become one in a near future.

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Tygue Luecke-Week 4- AI and such

First, I suppose I should say something about Brazil. What a bizarre movie that was! Still, it was a great example of science affecting art in a way we haven’t discussed in as much detail as in other cases. In Brazil, the art of movie making helps to make a social commentary about the growing presence of science and the potential problems it can cause. With all the machines going awry in the movie and the central and absolute control over the maintenance of the machines, it is clear that the movie was making a very anti-establishment statement laced with a clear warning about putting too much control into the hands of technology. It is interesting that we hear such strong anti-establishment, anti-technological arguments as well as anti-establishment, pro-technological arguments, such as the one made by Steve Kurtz.

I find it fascinating that the Difference Engine was created as early as 1822. That is incredibly impressive, especially considering that the sewing machine- a machine that seems much simpler by comparison- was invented in 1830. However, in researching this fact, I found that photography was also invented in 1822. Here’s the site I found that on:

http://www.anatine.co.uk/c19.htm

It also has a bunch of cool timelines and other related things. I suggest you check it out. I just spent about 10 minutes on it myself.

Being as impressed as I was with the invention of the Difference Machine, I was rather unimpressed by the fact that H.G. Wells was one of the first to conceptualize a pre-internet idea of information sharing. It seems that someone should have thought of such an idea much sooner. I mean, if a machine can actually be invented that performs mathematical calculations, it seems that someone could have merely published an idea about an information network.

An interesting concept came up in section- and that is that we humans discuss intelligence only in terms of human intelligence and therefore have a hard time conceiving of true artificial intelligence. The more I thought about this idea after section, the more I became fascinated by it, mostly because I cannot even imagine an intelligence that is not human. And if said inhuman intelligence did exist, I can’t decide whether or not it would fit under the current definition of intelligence. This, of course, brings me far away from my original considerations and leads me into questioning definitions, which is neither helpful nor relative to my discussion of this week’s material. So- back to the point- as for me, I’m not sure I will ever be able to accept the idea of artificial intelligence simply because I can’t wrap my brain around it; I would have to assume many people might encounter the same problem when they consider the same issues.

Here’s a link to the site for the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence:

http://www.aaai.org/home.html

I would like to ask these people why they find it so necessary to advance artificial intelligence. Why not focus on humans first? Shouldn’t we work on our own problems (social, medical, etc.) before creating a new institution with its own new set of potential problems? I personally think so.

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Week 4 - Section 3 - Ross Goldman

The thought and discussion of robotics and artificial intelligence bring up a number of questions that continue to be discussed. One of the simplest, though most important, is this: how accurate is our current understanding of the state of robotics and AI as they relate to the human experience?


Robotics and AI continue to permeate our culture as science fiction fantasies (or nightmares) much like those found in the move Brazil. However, upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that small pieces of robotics and AI are more pervasive than we might think. Take, for example, the robot Roomba, created by the iRobot Corporation. This robot, which vacuum cleans floors by itself based on simple algorithms. Though not nearly as complex as R2D2 or Johnny 5 (http://www.jeffbots.com/johnny5.html), the Roomba could certainly deviate form its societally expected behavior, and cause all sorts of trouble with just a few simple software hacks.

Interestingly, the programming of Roomba follows the philosophy that robots should be like insects, "equipped with simple control mechanisms tuned to their environments," according to iRobot. Thus, the Roomba follows algorithms such as spiral cleaning, wall-following, and random-walk, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roomba).

Now, apply these "natural," insect-like algorithms to our concept of swarm intelligence. Imagine one hundred roombas contained within one room, each following, say, their pre-programmed random-walk behavior. The resulting swarm of collisions and path changes would most likely be spectacular, and not at all dissimilar from Casey Reas' work.

Now, finally consider taking the AI from ELIZA, the artifical therapist, and applying it to the software built into the Roomba, and into our swarm of 100 Roombas. The result, while not necessarily useful to our society at the moment, could certainly be the beginnings of an interesting piece of art. Hopefully, if nothing else, it can show that despite society's belief that robotics and AI are just science fiction, the technology is here. Robots and AI will be a part of our lives sooner than we think.

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jose fernandez, week 4, networks/systems/AI

This week’s lecture was on biology, networks, natural systems, and artificial life. I thought that I was going to enjoy this lecture because I am planning on majoring in biology. It was unfortunate that we only had class on Monday. We had to see a movie on Wednesday. The lecture dealt with things that are now widely recognized as important aspects of life. The first thing was the first network between two computer systems. It was predicted by H.G. Wells in 1937, which was similar to the internet, something ahead of its time. It began with two computers and then it spread out to a several other systems. Presently it is called the internet and has expanded globally. We were shown complex models of the various networks computers have established across time. I guess the networks were being compared to the web of life or the food chain. This was the biological aspect. I did not really understand this part. Then the lecture shifted to an interesting topic in artificial intelligence. I was seeing the movie I, Robot this Sunday and I found myself remembering what we had talked about regarding artificial intelligence. Robots are able to be constructed in a way that they can carry out tasks just like humans do. Yet their lack of emotion and sentiments is something that prevents them from actually being human like. I believe Joseph Weizenbaun was the man that stated that robots would never make intelligent decisions because they lacked human characteristics such as emotion. Many decisions come with that thought of what might happen and the consequences. A robot is just programmed to do tasks with out thinking about them. Another topic that was interesting was systems. We were shown several types of systems and how they function. These were self-assembly, which deals with the repair of a malfunction with out the help of an outside source. Similar to this is self-organization. There is a control system which regulates behaviors of systems. These can all be found in humans. There is the nervous system, the digestive system, and the heart. These were the thing that caught my attention of the whole lecture.
The movie on Wednesday was quite interesting. It was called Brazil and for the entire time I kept wondering why it was titled that way. Anyways the plot was wacky and very futuristic. When the professor said it had a connection to what we had been learning. For the most part I was able to recognize how the place where the main character worked as a system. Many people work as one to get the job done with the boss being the central part of the system. Apart from this I had a hard time connecting the lectures to what was going on in the movie. Unfortunately I had an appointment at 11 so I had to leave class early. I am sure I missed some of the connections the professor was talking about. Overall it was the worst week so far.

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Juliet Lee - week 4 - Artificial Life

Truthfully, after I leave class I often feel like I have left a foreign language lecture. The teacher talks and it is like the other students can follow and for the most part understand what is going on. What are the connections between the slides of the different artists? When we visit a website, it is like everyone can see where the next link is going to go and I cannot follow the train of thought, so I nod and act like I can see where the lecture is going. Hearing the guest lecturer on Monday was a nice change of pace. That day Professor Vesna went over numerous artists with examples of the types of works they do, and I am still having issues keeping them straight in my mind. But Edward Shanken took his time when elaborating on a few of the artists. He gave a back story and current situations about the artists; I guess you could say he talked in a more conventional manner that made it easier for me to comprehend what it was that these artists were doing. Shanken talked about the different groups too like the Experiments in Art Technology or EAT and it made it easier to understand where the artist was coming from. It would be nice if Professor Vesna could also slow down when she talks about artists and the styles of work that they are doing and to connect them with each other and not just to the topic at large for the week. I find it more difficult to relate to the artists and understand their work. Continuously every week I see more pictures and I wonder: why is this art? What qualifies a piece of technology into a piece of art? What is artificial intelligence in terms of art? I do not consider the scientific research or developments as artistic, so is it the form in which the artificial intelligence is portrayed in that is the art work? A.L.I.C.E for example responds to questions and sentences that you input into a computer program. I consider that the artistic portion of A.L.I.C.E. is the physical manifestation of the response program. When we talked about the artificial gardens that can be remotely controlled from the internet, or other games that a user can input characteristics into and watch them evolve, all that I could think about was my Tamagotchi from junior high school. Three buttons control the environment of these little blobs, and depending on the type of care you show it, they can turn into different creatures as adults. I wonder just how far we are going to be able to go in the research of artificial intelligence. For generations and generations, people have wanted to find a way to defeat death, and in my opinion, artificial intelligence is a method to beating this issue. But if all of this stayed in the lab, and people like Ken Feingold did not make artistic commentary about it, would it still be considered art?

This is an interesting link to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. There are quite a few projects on technology and it was fun to look through them.

http://blogs.walkerart.org/offcenter/category/technology/

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Grace Tang-Section 3-Week 4

[span class="full post"]This week Professor Vesna touched on subjects concerning Biology, Networks, Natural Systems and Artificial Life. It was a bit overwhelming fore me seeing that may things were covered and the lecture on Monday seemed kind of everywhere. The gust lecture afterwards by Edward Shanken did not do so much to expand and clarify on the topics covered earlier. Self-assembly seemed pretty clear to me and it is defined as independent subjects working to build a larger structure or to make a group achievement. This also related to what was called self organization, the internal organization of a system that increases complexity when continuing on. Sierpinski's Triangle brought me back to the fond memories of psychedelic fractals, only this time in simple two dimensional triangles. I can see how the triangle builds upon itself to make a larger structure. ELIZA the computer therapist and ALICE from the Artificial Intelligence Foundation just crack me up. The personalities added and the responses that can from them proves that artificial intelligence can be made into more complex processes. [/span]

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Annie Wu, Week 4- Generative Art

Something that really caught my interest this week is the topic of generative art. According to Philip Galanter in the assigned article for this week’s reading, generative art is “‘any art practice where the artist uses a system,’” and allows there to be “some degree of autonomy” to contribute to the artwork’s outcome. Galanter also said that generative art is like working with “experimental philosophy.” I really like this idea of “experimental philosophy,” because it just shows how effective art can be in revealing some kind of truths to viewers. It is like playing around with various systems, just so that one can have different results to study and to draw conclusions from. Learning new things is what will propel us into the future with new ideas and perspectives. Because of this aspect, generative art definitely seems to be something beneficial to our culture.

Generative art is more about the process of making art, rather than just the end product. By analyzing the process of something, people are more likely to realize something or learn something about the world than if they were just to stare at a painting hung on the wall. They would actually be participating with the artwork when watching the processes take place. Everyone would have their own experience and understanding of the art piece, meaning that they can all relate to it, in some way or another.



As we mentioned already in class, Casey Reas’ creations could be considered to be generative art because we were able to experience the processes they underwent. It really intrigues me how his art is created, because the product is a result of both his input and chance. Casey is the one who writes the codes, yet the images are created through random interactions and chance. Endless variations could be derived from the same codes and program.



Generative art is not only strictly restricted to computer programs. Generative art could also be created from natural systems, such as the condensation cube by Hans Haacke. It reveals a biological system, a system from the natural world, as it demonstrates the process of water inside a clear cube. Lisa Autogena and Joshua Portway's Black Shoals Stock Market Planetarium is another example of how generative art can be based on something other than just programmed algorithms. This work relies on a system of human processes, for the factors in the image are based on the world’s stock markets. Whenever people do anything in the stock market, such as trading stocks, the lights of the stars change.
http://www.artificial.dk/articles/generativespecial.htm

Basically, what attracts me to generative art is that the artist is not really the “sole creator” of the end result. There has to be some factor of change, of randomness, that plays into the piece. In essence, it is the artist and nature that are responsible for creating generative art. I think generative art really reflects how much nature plays a part in our lives, and that it is something we cannot really run away from.

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Week 4 Section 2 - Allen Wang - Are insects ruled by a grater mind?

http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/4/1/reviews/kluegl.html

It has been a great question whether insects, as a colony, have more intelligence than a single unit of the insect colony. Though the single ant worker would wander around aimlessly, even for life, without serving a purpose. Yet, as a colony, ants can achieve many great goals every day. Every day, food and found and collected with the help of the colony as a whole. With the work as a whole, ants can get much accomplished. Each by doing their part for the colony, ants can fight when in danger and collect when food is avaliable.
While forging, ants actually give off different scents for different types of food. Different smells tell the other ants that different foods are avaliable, therefore if different types of food is found, the ants would prioritize and go for the more important and nutrictious food first, then go to collect the latter of the food, if the food is still there.
While forging may be an important part of the ant life, there are other jobs avaliable too. Other jobs consists of caring for the larva or the storage of the incoming food. By working together, ants can make jobs efficient and faster. Though all the workers are almost identical in every way, they all play an important role in that ant colony as a whole. This delegation of tasks is just like that of a robot, in which a robot is each assigned a different job, such as, a refrigerator is only for storing food and a car is for transportation. By each working is important tasks, a society is created. If each ant diverges and works on different tasks, ineffieicny is created, such as if a car is used to cook food by heating up its engine, it may work but it'll be inefficient.
For ant colonies, there also exists the job to create new paths and repair broken ones. by coperating with one another, ants can survive. It is based ona trust system in which each ant, though identical, is programmed to perform different tasks. The insect colony is efficient on its own terms, but each individual worker does the work that is insignificant. If a few worker ants died, the ant colony would still survive, but is the colony died and the worker ants scattered, their survival rate would decrease drastically.
It is without doubt that insects require the ability of the colony to survive. As an individual, ants would be lost. And this insect colony represents both the human and robot society that exists today. Our jobs, to be blunt, is very insignificant to the human race as a whole, but together, we help advance the world. Though there are a few selected few, such as Bill Gates or Newton, that actually shape and advance the world individually, there are very few, compared to the size of the population as a whole, that have actually impacted the lives of colony as a whole.
Therefore, in a mattter of speaking, we are after all living in a colony, mindlessly. We have the abiliy to be significant though. The creative thinkers of the world help shape the world while others jsut walk about accepting whatever comes and do what others order them to do. We, as the human race, in a greater sense, are no more free from the colony than the ants of a ant colony are free.

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Week 4 - Christopher Flannery

I liked the interview with Philip Galanter because he made connections between art and music. Generative art seems to have a lot in common with music performance because it is a live process within guidelines, but the outcome is always different. Improvisation and randomization have always existed in music, however it has become more common with the development of jazz and use of technology. Music and art are unfolding and temporal entertainment for the audience. He describes generative art as “verbs” and not “nouns” and I think that this is a great description of music as well.
My music theory teacher used a metaphor to explain why many listeners don’t have the patience for modern music. Listening to an abstract composition is like looking at a giant mural only five inches at a time. Generative and process art can lose an audience in the same way if they don’t come with the correct mindset.
We briefly discussed John Cage’s use of I Ching as a system to randomly designate which notes are played when. Cage is responsible for the resurgence of what has been named “aleatory music” – music where some or all details are left to chance. The system for randomization is pre-determined by the composer however is virtually out of their control. There is evidence of musical “games” involving rolling dice to determine some aspects of the composition as far back as the 18th century. Aleatory music is as close to generative art as music comes. Wikipedia gives a better explanation and links to a number of examples. (the hotlink function is not working for me ...) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_music
The most important point that I learned from the Philip Galanter interview is that generative art has always been around and that it is not restricted to only technology. Generative art has existed just as long as art. It is the use of systems and guidelines is what defines generative art, not the tools.
I liked the part of the lecture concerning swarm intelligence, but I was confused how it is any different than normal systems of information sharing. All operations of live need many parts to react and work locally for a larger goal. The human race does exactly that by recording history, collaboration, diplomacy, and professionalism or specialization. It seems to me that almost anything can be analyzed at this level if one steps back far enough. Along with self-assembly, it seems like it only one aspect of the larger concept of synergy which is the drive and original of life, or emergent properties.
Watching the movie Brazil in class, I was reminded of Steve Kurtz’s lecture focusing on the over-reaching power of the American government. Both present their message in a satirical manner of social commentary. On the other hand, I thought it was funny that we viewed the movie because I saw almost no examples of art in the film. The government apparently does not allow any forms of public expression, but the futuristic and bleak setting is shown through amazing imagery. The complicated and dark city-scape, dirty and futuristic electronics, and utilitarianism designs are iconic for government’s oppression of the people. The setting reminded me a lot of the new movie Children of Men, which is also set in the bleak future. In this film, the government has become even more oppressive because the social structure and responsibility has collapsed after every woman on the planet became infertile twenty years prior. It is obvious that film is now the most powerful method of social commentary.

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Section 4 Week 4

Okay, so this week we covered a lot of topics a handfull of which I thought were REALLY interesting. The first thing that caught my eye was the idea of generative art because it has an intrinsic relative nature to it. Upon first hearing the word generative art (with some understanding) we consider computer-based and organic systems like insects or computer algorithms that create intricate paths from which we can derive patterns or what we think are recurring paths. Using these things and robotic graphing systems we can create art and then the question "is that really art?" is realized. Randomized computer graphing, interactive art that grows as you touch it or walk near it or yell at it, what makes this art? For organic systems, it almost seems like a comedy that nature plays on us; we try to map it out and predict its next moves but then it pulls a quick one, making us realize we can't replicate what it has made. Math can't define nature, nature just defines math. People see it as a concrete idea but ultimately it is just as fluid and changing as the seasons. This is the beauty and artistic nature of our computations is that they're sometimes infinitely close but at the same time, close is not right. Also one of the things I think particularly plays into this relativity is that sometimes humans like to separate themselves from these systems when we are just as natural and just as mathematical as any. I believe that when 1,000 people are in the same place, they will interact almost the same as another thousand because there is an equal probability of random variety among them and as the saying says "places change but people don't." We are as easily mapped as ants or plant growth patterns or anything else. It is for this reason that I love the generative art that Philip Galanter does as it grows as people interact and is considered random and happens while the observer interacts with it while it is somewhat predictable and deviates only a bit.
The next topic of interest is artificial intelligence. I read an article in Popular Science about artificial intelligence from a nobel laureate in the field. Somebody asked the question 'is the development of artificial intelligence the equating of human consciousness into a computer?' to which he replied, very smartly and simply, "no." He explained that a human can walk into a room ten times and feel differently and interpret the room in ten different ways while a computer entering a room simply interprets it in one. Humans have the ability to discern an actual item from its symbolic counterpart. We can ascribe meaning and emotion into a song or thing or voice or view while a machine can only interpret what has been fed into it. Even if it learns from its environment, it will never understand the feelings something can hold even if it understands further the entire knowledge base that the internet contains. And so, it is to this extent that AI can reach. Interestingly enough, Wilson reflects in his article that the artistic nature of AI is in its goal to reach into human nature and fool a human into believing that it is itself a human. Being able to hold converstaions, reflect feeling and understanding are all part of being a human and it requires researchers to look both into the limitations of machinery and the far stretches of humanity to make AI a reality.
I actually found an interesting video on youtube.com about a robot from Cornell University that is able to map out itself. First it moves and then utilizes several sensors that allows it to interpret how much pressure is applied to different areas of its body and where it is spacially to determine what it looks like and how it works. Additionally, when it is injured, it repeats the learning process to find out what is wrong with it, and how it can move without that part. When you think about it, we kind of learn in this way. We move and say and do things to test how far we can go not only in physical measures but socially. I think this a huge step in moving toward AI. This is the link to one of their vids but I can't find the original video that I watched.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNdDsK_t1Vs

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Section 3

INSERT INTRO!!!

Since I have very little background in art, I didn’t really understand what generative art was when we talked about it in class. I had to do a little Wikipedia-ing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_art

INSERT BODY!!!I’m sure that everyone else in the class fully understands it, so I’m probably only writing this for my own benefit. I found that generative are also includes the ELIZA and ALICE that we studied in class. It includes anything that “generated, composed, or constructed in an algorithmic manner through the use of systems defined by computer software algorithms, or similar mathematical or mechanical or randomised autonomous processes” (Wikipedia). I feel as if the mathematical works we studied with the guest lecturer Professor Casey Reas would fall into this category. I did some research on other works in the generative art genre. I found a huge list of links of works. http://www.generative.net/links.cgi One that stood out to me was “Flash and Maths.” The work started out with a display of a bunch of math symbols. It then turned into a bunch of dots circling about in an almost psychedelic fashion. The work is composed to a piece of music called “Bucephalus Bouncing Ball” by Aphex Twin. The dots changed from colors to black and white and moved in different patterns depending upon the mood of the music. This would fall under the computer software algorithms. Computers decide what the dots do and their characteristics based on a set of mathematical algorithms.

I was also struck by our discussion of artificial intelligence. I found it interesting that we would cover such a topic in a design and media arts class when I don’t feel like artificial intelligence has much to do with art. Perhaps I have a too narrow view of art, but I feel as though robotics has more to do with circuitry and mechanics and psychology than art. Perhaps art can be used to craft a life-like figure, but I do not see the connection between art and creating a life-like being. I don’t see how art can help create a robot that can make important decisions and such.

The topic of Cellular Automata was interesting though. The idea that one thing can affect everything around it is certainly a deep concept. The idea of harnessing such relationships for art is powerful. It is interesting that computers can be used to create such a work. I find it fascinating that this is displayed in “Game of Life” by John Horton Conway. It is amazing that such a mathematical algorithm applied to a square (an obviously inorganic figure) can create something so organic and lifelike.

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Week 4 - John Milinovich - The Prospect of Artificial Intelligence

Last week's discussion was of particular interest to me. We examined the prospect of artificial intelligence and whether it is somewhat of a possibility in our near future. I have grown up in the era of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas - growing up, AI just seemed like the next logical progression in computer technology.

Looking back on movies like "A.I," "Bicentennial Man," "Star Wars," and "I, Robot," I have realized how far off and how 'sci-fi' the movies are. Granted, I never believed that I was going to have a wookie or a robot servant with a sense of self anytime soon, but it just somehow seemed plausible.

The case studies examined this week helped me realize how far off this science fiction driven vision of the future we actually are. A robotic head that exudes facial expressions and has motion tracking took around fifteen computers, several years and millions of dollars of research to create. Even after all this, it is still not perfect and, well, it is just the head.

As much as I want to believe that there will be fully independent robots within my lifetime, the prospect just seems too far off. If it takes a room full of processors controlled by humans to get a "head" to do only the most primitive of tasks, how much manpower would be necessary to create a full body - a mechanized clone if you will? Unfortunately, the answer to this is merely, "too much."

I do realize that I have been examining a very science fiction-esque definition of artificial intelligence. The fact is, AI is being used in many different settings already, just not in the R2D2 fashion. It is already implemented in stop lights across the country and in several popular computer games. Here is a little anecdote on how artificial intelligence is affecting the average college student:

My roommate has found a lot of free time on his hands this quarter and one day when he was bored he decided to download and play the new Command and Conquer game. Very quickly he realized that he wasn't playing the computer in the traditional sense. Every move he made, the computer adapted and did not make the same mistake again. Lo and behold, he ended up losing over half of the games he played.

It just goes to show that despite the slow progression of SciFi's perception of artificial intelligence, it is popping up around us more than mos

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Julie Fair- Week 4- A.I. Etc.

Although this weeks theme was clear in the material presented, professor Vesna seemed to cover a huge and diverse amount of material. Having said that, I thought it was nice to have Edward Shanken speak after professor Vesna's presentation and offer different points of view and more thorough explanations on some of her points.
Concerning professor Vesna's presentation, I thought it was very interesting to find out just how far back the field of computer science goes. I had not realized that the concept of computers had originated as long ago as the 1930s and that the idea of artificial intelligence had been around since the '50s. I guess because these fields have only recently begun to make much progress, I thought they were more recently created.
During her presentation, Professor Vesna mentioned cellular automata, but did not really go into detail about it. After looking it up I found out what a complex, yet basic concept it is. I researched John Horton Conway's "Game of Life" which gave me a much clearer picture of what cellular automata entails and the way in which it can be seen to relate to the processes of biological cells. I found out that the "Game of Life" is a zero-player game, which means that its evolution is determined by its original configuration so after a human creates this initial configuration, no other human input is necessary. The game just goes on its own rules. The game is based on the idea that each cell has two possible positions- alive or dead. Each cell is effected by the cells around it, whose configuration determines whether the cell will live or die. These rules apply continually which is what drives the game.
I saw this as relating to biological cell systems in the way it portrays each cell as interconnected to all the other cells of the system, much like the cells of a biological organism. It demonstrates that technology is beginning to be able to recognize relationships like this that exist in biological systems, which makes me wonder, by following along lines like these, how close technology can come to replicating biological systems. Info on Conway's Game of Life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life
Professor Vesna also mentioned a few pieces in her presentation that involved interaction with humans. I found this subject very interesting as well because it represents such a different approach to the concept of arificial intelligence than does the idea of modeling a technological system after a biological cell system. Here the goal is immediate results, instead of gradual build up of a system until it reaches a level of organization that allows consciousness. Here the consciousness is truly artificial, however much more tangible. Pieces like "Alice" and "Eliza" clearly demonstrate this concept: they are obviously simple versions of "consciousness," however they are appealing because they have such a lifelike appearance.
Now getting back to my point about Shanken's presentation. I thought he brought up some very interesting points that professor Vesna did not. For example his mention of the shoe-fly fallacy, which demonstrates the way the concept of A.I. can be misconstrued by stretching the idea of what constitutes artificial intelligence. Through this fallacy, the label of A.I. could be stretched to technologies where intelligence is clearly not present.
I also thought his mention of the idea that, although art and science often develop similar methods simultaneously, science is usually given credit because people do not know how to interpret art compared to science, held particular validity. In my limited experience, I too have noticed this phenomena. Especially during the course of this class, I have noticed that art we look at has many similar elements to much more well known scientific fields and discoveries. Shanken's annunciation of this concept just made me fully realize its validity.

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Daniel Baker - Week 4 - Dependency and Generative Art

When discussing generative art, it seems nearly impossible to not make references to nature. Combining natural and organic systems with mediums like computers and robots seems at first to be something that would clash, but really it allows us to view the familiar in a new light. What seems most intriguing this week are the models of cellular automata. The idea that a cell’s status depends directly on the surround cells’ statuses, seems to go hand in hand with art. I attended a lecture this week by Ong Keng Sen, a Singaporean director who produces performances with various artists from around the globe. One of his most famous works is a play entitled Lear, based on Shakespeare’s play of the similar name. Throughout the play, actors trained in highly traditional styles of performance all share the same stage, something that does not occur often in normal productions, let alone productions of King Lear. But in the process of throwing all different types of styles together, the actors had to take workshops where the theories of each performance method was shared with the rest of the group. Each performer’s individual knowledge became part of the larger, group knowledge. Onstage, this group awareness seemed to parallel that of the cellular automata; each actor dependant on all the others, even though they were all individuals separated by clear differences.

Generative art takes this process of dependency and shifts it slightly. Instead of simply the art piece being dependant on segments within itself, the work as a whole is dependant on outside stimuli. In one instance, such as Ken Rinaldo’s “Autopoiesis,” the art piece is dependant on the viewer, changing its movement based on the movement of the spectator. But the spectator then makes changes to his or her normal movement as a reaction to the art piece’s reaction. The interaction between art piece and viewer has become a sort of cellular automata, or even shows remnants of the recursive mathematics of Mandelbrot. It is like an infinite feedback loop has been created, and continuously taking the reaction of one and using it as the input of the other.

The other form of generative art seems to have a more linearly dependent characteristic. In these pieces, the artist creates a set of rules for the piece and then basically lets the work go free. Examples would be Norman White’s “First Tighten Up On the Drums” and the work of Casey Reas. There seems to be a looping factor only in the developmental stages of creating the work, where the artist tweaks the rules based on the product from before, but after these rules are finalized, the piece only interacts with itself. Is the dependency of one segment within the work upon another on the same level as those of Ong Keng Sen and Ken Rinaldo? The part that seems to be missing is the human factor. In Ken Rinaldo’s work, for example, humans play a part in the loop of dependency, while in Casey Reas’ work, the process is complete dependent on itself. The pieces that depend on human interaction pull the viewer into the process of art creation; the art depends on the viewer in order to be created. Spectators hold a direct stake in the formation of art. But the pieces that are autonomous seem to leave the viewer behind, for they will create art with or without the viewer present and while interesting, are less engaging.

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Week 4--Cui H. Cao--Who is the controller?

"We are now in transition from an object-oriented to asystems-oriented culture. Here change emanates, not from things, but from the way things are done."
Jack Burnham, 1968
I was impressed by this opening of Week 4 Lecture and at the same time it reminded me the work of Casey Reas "Processing." I was once confused and wondered how to understand and derive "esthetics" from his work. Which is most important in the eyes of artists, the outcome or the process? It's not only the images that count. More importantly, it's the process that bring the applauses. As Burnham stated, "the specific function of modern didactic art has been to show that art does not reside in material entities, but in relations between people and between people and the components of their environment." With this knowledge, I've changed my way of approaching and understanding Art. Whenever I visit Art muesums, I am not watching still objects, but my mind is watched by the meaning of the pieces of art.
Also, I'm fond of the below theory of Art:
Art, as an adaptive mechanism, is reinforcement of the ability to be aware of the disparity between behavioral pattern and the demands consequent upon the interaction with the environment. Art is rehearsal for those real situations in which it is vital for our survival to endure cognitive tension, to refuse the comforts of validation by affective congruence when such validation Is inappropriate because too vital interests are at stake...."
It has significant influence on my thinking of the definition of art. It's not only related with beauty or pefection. Art is a mirror, if you move, what you see in the mirror is moving as well; therefore, I think, I need to move on, in order to explore my discovery journey of definition of art.

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Kiesha Nazarenus- Week 4- Dance, Alice and a WEIRD movie

In dance the movement comes forth from the music. The music is what provokes the body to move in relation to the emotion that is a direct reaction to the sound. When the professor briefly spoke of David Rokeby she caught my attention because his work centered around music coming forth from movement. Movement creating music. When I was reading about one of his pieces of work, Very Nervous System, it said “The feedback is not simply 'negative' or 'positive', inhibitory or reinforcing; the loop is subject to constant transformation as the elements, human and computer, change in response to each other. The two interpenetrate, until the notion of control is lost and the relationship becomes encounter and involvement.” While his movement may not necessarily be able to be termed conventional “dance” it was still the movement creating music rather that music creating movement. He stated “Any movements made by people within the space create sounds whose qualities reflected the qualities of the movements.” My question for him is what music is deemed correct sounds to form from certain movements of the body? Is it pre-programed that certain speeds of movement or range of motions of movement will produce certain sounds? There would be no spontaneity in this art form, which makes me think that there is no individualism or soul and emotion behind the creation…almost detached from humanistic expression. In dance it is the artistic expression that allows a person to connect to the movement, such as how a person will move in relation to the music, but does a soul-less object have this artistic ability? Of course this seems to be the direction our class has been moving. With all the technological based work that we are being exposed to I think the biggest question coming to our mind is- What is art…how do we define it….or who is allowed to define it.

http://http://homepage.mac.com/davidrokeby/reflex.html
The project with A.L.I.C.E. while kinda cool really doesn’t have any purpose or meaning more than just being kinda cool. I mean from it springs games like the Sims and interactive video games, all of which provide us with a form of entertainment, which I suppose would be its purpose. I wonder how long it will take before we create a computer so smart that it is able to blend in with our society. At the moment you can’t help but laugh at some of the responses A.L.I.C.E. makes and the turn about expected answers it creates. But then again would we really want computers to be so smart and where are we going by creating this technology…and even more so, how does this relate to art?
This week was jam-packed with info that is all worth doing a little research on to get a more in-depth understanding of some of the pieces people are creating. But let me tell you, I thought the movie we watched was extremely bizarre. It just went on and on and on and was gruesome and just plain off the wall. I suppose its purpose had something to do with technology and the corruptness of government but honestly I thought I was going to go crazy sitting there and watching it.
I’m excited to move on to the next week but hope that the topics that are discussed pertain a little more to art than strictly advances in technology.

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Sara Saadeh Week 4; Swarm Intelligence and Mobile Feelings

I found this week’s topic to be a lot more interesting to me. Although making its connection to art is a bit of a stretch for me, but then again I am forced to reconsider a lot of artistic areas in this class. Swarm intelligence was especially fascinating to me because it delves into a complex process of nature. Nature being a subject we continue to be perplexed by is dominated both by science and art and they strive to recreate and understand it. The amazing ways in which the different organism and organic systems function as a means of following certain patterns and rules that just seem to exist, is in itself incredible. Often times much of how these rules and patterns came to be is unexplainable. Yet, little by little as science and engineering discovers new ways to understand the complex systems of nature we are able to apply those concepts to areas such as business and art. Art, however, not only utilizes these concepts but helps us to better understand them through visual representation. Just as the artist in this week’s reading explained that he wanted his art to be more than mere bones of dinosaurs, but to show the complexities of their lives and how they interacted, basically bring them to life. That is what I think art is very good at especially with generative art, it brings animation to these systems and makes the audience, like myself, have an easier, more enjoyable time observing it.
The idea of using natural processes such as swarm intelligence to achieve some form of artificial intelligence does seem a bit scary in the sense that I don’t really like the idea of our world being run by machines and computers. The fact that many businesses use swarm intelligence to run their businesses and products more efficiently is promising in the economic world. I never thought such a simple organism as an ant could hold the secret to such a complex idea/process that we could utilize in our business world.
One art concept I really enjoyed was a piece called Mobile Feelings, by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau. It addressed the issue of cell phones causing us to publicize our intimate experiences by talking about them on the phone in public in which we often animate them because we subconsciously know others are listening. So, they created this project to show how uncomfortable it would be to share more private body sensations with strangers over the phone, it would be quite unsettling. I think it is a very interesting project that might not seem like art. However, it involves the participator to utilize his sensations and get intimate with the art, therefore having an emotion effect on them. Art has this ability to probe into our emotions and sometimes we need that, especially nowadays when increasing technology causes us to become more detached and desensitized to the world around us. Art in this way brings us back to our most primal state of raw emotions. I recommend taking a look at this piece of art and well as the other’s on this website, they’re very interesting.

http://www.interface.ufg.ac.at/christa-laurent/WORKS/index.html

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Section 2 week 4: Still missing judgement, and emotion

Some examples of AI from artistic ideas to science:




For the biology part of the lecture on Monday, I thought swarm intelligence was really interesting. I never thought about how ant colonies work. They actually communicate with each other in their own way specific to their species. From what I understand, ants' only missions are to search for food to bring back to the colony. They do this efficiently by leaving invisible trails of residue so that other ants will know the path between the food and the rest of the colony. The ability to work together is what much of a network is. In addition, the ants sometimes form chains, creating bridges for other ants to cross and work together to bring big chunks of food.!!! Very Nervous System creates a relationship between body, space, sound and technology. The video that Professor showed us in class really amazed me. I didn't realize that motion, sound, and space detectors could have been used in that way. It was also a little surprising when I found out how early the project was started. I never knew the late 80's was a time of such artistic display of creativity. The fact that the computer is able to detect the specific motions of the performer and interpret the movement's enthusiasm really makes a path for computer and human interactivity. This makes me wonder what is the next step that links computers to human body. Hopefully next will be the human mind.

I really appreciate how artists think ahead of their time. They use their creativity to envision the future. In some senses they shape the future. A lot of the crazy ideas that are presented through media like films and literature give people inspiration to build such things like humanoids and generative art. I saw this week how much interaction there really is between science and art. Much of the scientists' work are reflections of artistic ideas. Major examples are found in films including Frankenstein and the two futuristic movies about robots was brought up by Professor Vesna in lecture. Those two movies were made decades ago and today, we are still trying to make those dreams come true.

I can see a big future for artificial intelligence. This has been a major topic of study and thought for many many years. We have seen many advancements in movies as well as reality including Eliza and I Robot. Eliza is a major accomplishment in its time. The program was designed to be somewhat of a computer therapist. It would talk to you and answer to whatever you typed. It took into account what you said and gave a response that often envoked more questions. The only setback was that it sometimes didn't give you a straight answer that you might be looking for. It would give you a response that is also a question making you a little frustrated to not have an answer. Often you can't find out much about a topic because it is programmed to a limited response. I Robot was very creative innovating. Although it was not the first time that the idea of humans and robots lived together, it definitely was a well thought out portrayal of human and android interaction. The story is of a robot who actually finds a way to understand and feel emotion. He develops a conscience and starts to act on his own and not just under programming and instructions of humans.

Generative Art is very interesting to me but right not it seems that there is a limit on how far it can go. Right now, a major set back is creating a robot that will judge, compromise, and adapt to human feelings. We have almost everything. At MIT, we already have had the knowledge from the Cog project to take into account someone's words and react with facial expressions. However, a lot of it only depends on the volume and words. We have yet to see robots that are able to take into account many human emotions like humor, sarcasm, joy, and many other things that require expression and tones. Since we have almost every other aspect to mimic humans, all we need to do in order to create human-like androids is to develop ways to consider human emotions.

Cool androids:
http://www.androidworld.com/prod01.htm
!!!

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Nolan Bennett - Week 4 - Generative literature

As a medium and an art form, generative art stands out as something somewhat left of the middle. As there is no art form worth mentioning that doesn’t provoke some degree of controversy, it makes sense that critics of generative art would perceive its form as misguided or absent and automated. However, given Philip Galanter’s emphasis on the “natural language rules” utilized by generative art it can be argued that such a controversy is pertinent to any art form that seeks to evoke reaction.

As Galanter insists that “generative art is as old as art” it is interesting to see how his concept of the art form appears in artwork predating the systems of algorithms with which we’re familiar today. There’s no reason to reiterate that which he summarizes, the history of patterns and tiles seen in ancient art. Instead, look to literature to examine just how “natural language rules” are used to promote a response. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men the author uses language to insinuate not only the education and intelligence of each character but their respective demeanors. By having Lennie speak with the vocabulary of a young child, the reader is made aware of those faculties separating the two characters. This concept in which language is manipulated to demonstrate a property external to the language itself (Lennie’s grammar is not only indicative of his limited language skills but his diminished intelligence) is used consistently throughout literature. The most provocative use of this idea is in poetry, where language is not only manipulated through syntax and semantics but margins and spacing. In Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool,” separated lines transmit more than the language does itself in order to provoke an idea: “ We real cool. We // Left School. We // Lurk Late…” and so on. In literature a natural language’s rules can transmit ideas about not only characters in a story but thematic statements commenting on social life.

Although it is a stretch, this idea is viable enough as a correlative to generative art. In this particular form of art, an author takes a pre-existing configuration of language, creates a piece using its elements and then presents to the viewer the “interpretation” of those rules, leaving the reader to further scrutinize its meaning. As Casey Reas “speaks” in code the computer responds, weaving an intermediate interpretation of his language prior to the eventual artwork’s completion. This is in essence exactly how authors interact with a reader – Steinbeck took a language and wrote with it so as to create an image in which the nuances evoke a reaction to not only the language but that which its usage suggests. Furthermore, writing in the English language is a form of automation in itself – it is the aberration of bad grammar or awkward syntax that stands out in the streamlined process of communicating in language, just as Galanter chooses those pieces exhibiting curious occurrences in his code’s practice.

The connection between the two might make more sense in considering how artists do this as well – the Mona Lisa is an image not unique in the context of human life, however it is through that “language” of interpretation that viewers perceive what is a real contextual meaning.

After all, there always has to be a context; so often does a viewer automate it independently.

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James Zavala week 4 internet and other stuff

Wow! Where is this class going? I was very interested in the topics that the professor presented at the beginning of the quarter but now I am not so sure that what she decides to show is very artistic. The reading also begins to become less interesting. The reading for this week was about generative where an artist was interviewed about his work and gave his thoughts and opinions of his art rather than talking about it. I did enjoy his art although. It seems that the art was a body of its own. The artist states that one of his goals was not for people to merely see the bones of the dinosaurs but to be able to see how they interacted and they lived. The display was also very extravagant which would definitely catch my attention. Nonetheless I have no clue what his art is being that it didn’t give me a detailed description of the piece but the history of what he does and his thoughts. No offense, I don’t care, tell me about your work and catch my attention that way.
Mondays lecture was interesting with the whole thing on the robots. I went back and read the title of the course, which was appropriately given. I understand the talk about the computers connecting and how the Internet is revolutionary. Going into detail about a website that came before myspace was very interesting but needless to say, I lack the connection between the information given and art. It would be something if the class was geared to informing about late breakthroughs but I am pretty sure that it’s supposed to be centered on art, which I have not seen lately.
I thought that the talk about the amoeba and how it solved a puzzle for it to eat was very interesting. For something without a brain or sense of self to do something so complex, makes it something to admire due to its abnormality. We then got into the subject of self-organization due to the amoeba, and looked at the pictures of ants and the fact that they cooperate together to become successful. It’s interesting to know that major companies pay attention to these behaviors to become more successful. To me it seemed to be an intelligent decision. Looking at something that is self-organizing gives a company a heads up on what they can do for future success.
Up till this point I find nothing that was presented as artistic or anything that I could appreciate myself, then again I might be wrong.
On the other hand there are other things that I could appreciate as art. I loved the piece by David Rockeby and his method of movement and how that created sound. That was so awesome not only can you appreciate the complex method that he took to create such a masterpiece but also the final product was something to appreciate. The computer therapist was also interesting to me, it says a lot about society. I would read it as your crazy, go talk to a computer; but even then the programs response are very far from a real conversation; Which leads into something that was brought up in section, computers are not as smart as they could be because they have no sense of consciousness. I am glad to say that I am smarter than a computer.
The movie that was presented was very weird. I honestly did not like it but the conclusion that I came to that the movie was trying to convey was that the government doesn’t allow for people to be so dependent on computers and therefore for computers not to be so complex was for the reason that computers malfunction. The movie was complete chaos all due to the computers. The past weeks have been more interesting that this one and the previous one to that one was far more interesting than that one. I just hope that it’s not a pattern for the class to get more uninteresting as the weeks fly by.
i loved rockeby and his website kicked butt, check it out!

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James Zavala week 4 internet and other stuff

Wow! Where is this class going? I was very interested in the topics that the professor presented at the beginning of the quarter but now I am not so sure that what she decides to show is very artistic. The reading also begins to become less interesting. The reading for this week was about generative where an artist was interviewed about his work and gave his thoughts and opinions of his art rather than talking about it. I did enjoy his art although. It seems that the art was a body of its own. The artist states that one of his goals was not for people to merely see the bones of the dinosaurs but to be able to see how they interacted and they lived. The display was also very extravagant which would definitely catch my attention. Nonetheless I have no clue what his art is being that it didn’t give me a detailed description of the piece but the history of what he does and his thoughts. No offense, I don’t care, tell me about your work and catch my attention that way.
Mondays lecture was interesting with the whole thing on the robots. I went back and read the title of the course, which was appropriately given. I understand the talk about the computers connecting and how the Internet is revolutionary. Going into detail about a website that came before myspace was very interesting but needless to say, I lack the connection between the information given and art. It would be something if the class was geared to informing about late breakthroughs but I am pretty sure that it’s supposed to be centered on art, which I have not seen lately.
I thought that the talk about the amoeba and how it solved a puzzle for it to eat was very interesting. For something without a brain or sense of self to do something so complex, makes it something to admire due to its abnormality. We then got into the subject of self-organization due to the amoeba, and looked at the pictures of ants and the fact that they cooperate together to become successful. It’s interesting to know that major companies pay attention to these behaviors to become more successful. To me it seemed to be an intelligent decision. Looking at something that is self-organizing gives a company a heads up on what they can do for future success.
Up till this point I find nothing that was presented as artistic or anything that I could appreciate myself, then again I might be wrong.
On the other hand there are other things that I could appreciate as art. I loved the piece by David Rockeby and his method of movement and how that created sound. That was so awesome not only can you appreciate the complex method that he took to create such a masterpiece but also the final product was something to appreciate. The computer therapist was also interesting to me, it says a lot about society. I would read it as your crazy, go talk to a computer; but even then the programs response are very far from a real conversation; Which leads into something that was brought up in section, computers are not as smart as they could be because they have no sense of consciousness. I am glad to say that I am smarter than a computer.
The movie that was presented was very weird. I honestly did not like it but the conclusion that I came to that the movie was trying to convey was that the government doesn’t allow for people to be so dependent on computers and therefore for computers not to be so complex was for the reason that computers malfunction. The movie was complete chaos all due to the computers. The past weeks have been more interesting that this one and the previous one to that one was far more interesting than that one. I just hope that it’s not a pattern for the class to get more uninteresting as the weeks fly by.

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Michael Nguyen - #4 - Study Simple to Learn About Complex

“The generative systems we create as artists are far simpler than the systems we encounter in everyday life. But by creating these comparatively minimal systems we can discover truths about the world that might otherwise be masked by the relative chaos of the day to day.”

-Philip Galanter

If the word artist was replaced by scientist in the above quote, it would still apply to the approach that is often used in scientific research. I was surprised by this connection as I read this week’s article because it backed up the idea that often times the same concept emerges in art and science but science gets more recognition. To study mechanism in the human body, scientists often go to simple model organisms such as fish, yeast, even bacteria. By studying these apparently unrelated animals, we have learned a great deal about our own human biology. I’m still not quite sure what truths generative art has revealed but I respect the approach and philosophy. (Anyone help me out here and give an example?)

A concept that I wasn’t familiar with until recently is the process oriented approach that artists take. Trying to relate that to my experiences within the study of science, I often see beautiful images produced as a result of scientific endeavors. For example, the video found at the following link shows “Regulated Nuclear Translocation of the Glucocorticoid Receptor”:

What’s happening is that fluorescently labeled hormone receptor proteins in the cell are visualized as glowing green points. As hormone is added to the cell, all of the glowing elements suddenly move into the center of the cell in response. This performance by the cell was choreographed by researchers who probably weren’t thinking of the aesthetics of their experiment. The elegance of the experiment allows us to understand a single mechanism within a sea of chaos that is a cell. Relating back to Dockray’s piece involving the flying dollar bills, the visualization of raw data allows us to understand concept not readily apparently. The same thing applies in this study of the cell.

The above experiment gives us the most miniscule understand of how our bodies work yet was undoubtedly the result of months if not years of research. Processes such how genes are regulated are not completely understood by scientist yet there are those who want to create artificial intelligence? I find it hard to believe that we can create anything close to artificial life when in the grand scheme of things, we know very little. Life has had billions of years to evolve and it seems backwards to try and create something as complex as intelligence in order to get a better understanding of how things in our world operates. I tend to disagree with the idea of strong A-life in light of the Shoe/Fly Fallacy that Edward Shanken touched upon during the guest lecture.

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Jacob Janco Week 3 Section 3 - Zombies!

I was thumbing through some old movie files through my desktop and came across Dawn of the Dead, one of the greatest zombie movies of our generation. Aside from the gore splattering across the screen and the multitude of body parts littering bleak cityscapes is an interesting link to the artificial intelligence discussed in this past week’s lecture. There is an essential imperfection in our understanding of consciousness that handicaps our elucidation of what exactly the thing is. Human beings arguably possess “qualia.” Qualia by definition (and I use definition loosely since it is debated), is the unique and subjective inner experience that John Doe has in relation to sensory perception and stimulus. In this sense, he has a unique and intrinsic response that can never be communicated to Jane Doe. Beings that experience qualia are therefore determined as conscious, and science has yet to explain them. They seem detached from the physical pathways of neuroanatomy and processes of the physiological sciences. The philosopher David Chalmer’s proposed this as the “hard problem” of trying to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. The easier problem is to explain various pathways of sensory input and output, such as: Visual input and image interpretation in the visual cortex, cognition and speech pathways, etc.

To delve into the hard problem, we bring back the zombies. Why are humans not philosophical zombies? Why, when presented with a warm apple pie, does Mary conjure up images of childhood and foster feelings of benevolence while John becomes murderous because he worked at a bakery that mass produces apple pie and that just fired him? The philosophical zombie is a robot that looks to be human in every way. We present it with an apple pie and it smells it and remarks that it looks good. However, it is a singular pathway and a mimic. Similarly, if we stab the robot with a knife, it will scream in pain, but it does not feel pain. It is in this sense a zombie, with all appearance of being human but without the qualia that separates us as sentient beings.

There is an argument against this that some students in my discussion section brought up in relation to consciousness. They argue that once the complexity of the brain is delineated and every pathway is constructed and understood that consciousness arises. Our subjective experience is based on pathways formed from memory and stimulus. I argue that there is a distinct separation between the physical neural networks of our brain and the element of consciousness. The easy problems of consciousness are in the process of being explained, yet the hard problem continues to haunt the neuroscientists explaining the various functions of our brain. It is interesting that when we experience a smell, such as with apple pie, there is an attachment of experience to that smell. We do not simply smell it, rather, it evokes a subjective inner experience that is in no way explainable at this moment. There is a ghost in the machine. We carry out a myriad of processes that result in a functional state of being, but these functions have that experience tied inextricably to it. It is puzzling that an awareness of these sensory functions, carried out for the most part involuntarily almost always evoke consciousness.

Here are David Chalmers’ papers on consciousness. Like this class, he bridges disciplines and possesses a depth in philosophical and scientific inquiry. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the study of consciousness is that metaphysical thought and discussion of a separate entity of consciousness within the brain has not been dismissed. It cannot be dismissed at this point, and neuroscientists and philosophers debate consciousness heatedly at this very moment. People have a tendency to argue that science has explained everything and is the ultimate method of explaining the natural world, but quite often science exists in paradox to itself and

http://consc.net/consc-papers.html

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art doesn't have to be weird

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After watching the movie on riday and seeing the pseudo 1984 rendition of a science fiction story it got me to thinking why does art mixed with science have to produce this brain child of weird. I understand the desire to be edgy and to push the limits of art in ways they haven’t been pushed before and most of the time those artists succeed in doing so. They create the oddest stuff and yet I don’t understand why that has to be. I have looked at a great deal of the art we have been studying and I have seen a lot of art’s impact on science but the only impact I am really seeing science have on art is resulting in science fiction or creepy independent films.

Artists like Chris Cunningham are brilliant. He is creating some revolutionary film footage and its is really mold breaking. It makes the viewer feel uncomfortable and that is what art is supposed to do, Cunningham succeeds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wXVnnNzob4

There is also the link with technology and art. Science is technology in a sense, but I don’t think it has to be lumped in that category. I think the water exhibit that Professor Vesna installed in Spain is even more science that an any technology. Yes the screen that the projection was on and the projection itself is technology but the exploration of water is art. Science in itself is art. The study of planets and the way our solar system functions is art. http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/waterbowls/bowls.php

There are artists that are using the magnifying glasses to bend sunlight to hit wood and create designs with the heat. This is using science to produce art that doesn’t have to be pushing the edge, but just creating beautiful pieces of art work. http://solar-center.stanford.edu/art/art-images.html

The bond between art and science can also be seen in artists work like Derek Winstanley who uses his life as a scientists to have a creative influence on his art form. http://www.lib.niu.edu/ipo/2002/oi021213.html

Derek Winstanley created the "Evolution" series in 1977 while In Canada to express a scientific concept through art. The series includes (top to bottom) "Single Cell," "Splitting of the Cell," "Embryonic Form" and "Birth," all in black walnut, and "Man" carved from cedar. 14


There are also more common forms of art that we do not acknowledge as being science and art put together such as digital photography and AutoCad which is a program that digitally draws out set designs for theatre and can also be used in architecture.

Robert Berdan is a Canadian artist who works for a company called science and art and has a passion for science and photography. http://www.scienceandart.ca/gallery/gallery.php?search=category&categoryID=350&sessID=e21bf4872960edf1e7a03c945e87d9f7
Some of his work includes digital images of caffine crystals that have been turned into works of art. He also has a photo of a dog flea, and a snail embryo. All photos of images from the science world that he has turned into art. This art form is definetly pushing the edge of what we think of as art but it is not really grotesque or shocking, it simply makes you think about normal objects in a different light. Which in my opinion is what art, especially photography is supposed to do!

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Week 4 - Justin Nordheim - The Art and Science of the Future

As a child, I thought "real" art existed only in museums or in the homes of the rich and famous. Growing up, I realize that art could actually be created by me or anyone who wanted to. It is obviously hard to create world reknowned work, but art is just a translation of feeling onto a medium that can be understood by human perception. The most recent lectures have been very interesting because they have helped show me some work of the present and works that look into the future. In the public school system, we are exposed to classic literature (not modern) and almost no art (and the art we are exposed to is of a classical nature). This is the first time I have received an education in current events with the focus on artists and new developments. However, as stated by another poster, I am uncertain as to what recurring themes surface in this art movement, how it possibly started, and other specifics besides what artists participated and what kind of artwork they generated.
Artificial intelligence is one of the largest current art forms in my opinion. In fact, it opened my eyes to idea that art is doing much more for society than most people think. Design may not be a necessity of human existence, but how boring would the world be without it? Also, I'm pretty sure it's proven somewhere that visual and auditory beauty help with our emotions, mindstate, and well being. Furthermore, artificial intelligence is an incredible way to connect humans to all forms of media, including other human beings. I found this website to be very interesting and a very simple presentation of where artificial intelligence is currently, where it has been in the past, and where it is looking to progress: http://people.csail.mit.edu/phw/briefing.html. Upon reading this page, I was surprised as to how many things use artificial intelligence or some other aspect of design and technology to help with human compatibility in regard to electronics.
I found artificial intelligence to be the most interesting topic of the week because of a number of reasons. First, science directs the actions involved, but a human with artistic talent must inevitably design a program that recognizes certain triggers and acts upon them. Thus, artificial intelligence is inherently artistic because it is the idea of designing something to act like something else, which cannot be expressed solely using equations. Second, it is so prevalent to the future. Many movies have debated the idea, artists have formulated ideas of what the future might hold for this technology, and currently it is already sweeping the nation with ideas such as interactive art, computers, and robots.
I'm a guy. I have played tons of video games. The AI in video games is almost ubelievable; lifelike figures have life like movements and lifelike reaction speeds. In fact, AI has changed the video game revolution because it's as if you could sit down at your compute and live a very realistic alternative life of something you probably couldn't do normally (such as become a member of a SWAT team, fire futuristic, non-existent weapons, or pretend you're a fish or other animal). I believe this type of research and more specifically, art form, holds the key to the future of technology.

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Week 4 - Boris Lipkin - Futuristic Art

This week’s classes weren’t quiet as interesting as past weeks have been. While Edward Shanken’s talk had some novel ideas neither Brazil nor Victoria’s lecture had much value to it this week. I think my biggest complaint with the last few lectures has been that instead of talking about concepts or ideas relating to the topic of discussion, all that we talk about are examples of artists and artworks in the topic. While these are valuable as examples it’s hard to understand how all of it relates without any prelude that connects the ideas in this class. I’m not sure if there is enough information out there about some of these topics but the examples without the bigger ideas make the class hard to follow.
Anyways, in this blog I’ll try to talk more about the part of this week’s class that I did enjoy, Edward Shanken’s lecture. He really seemed to have a lot of experience talking about a lot of the ideas of perception and artistic interpretation. Before his lecture I had never thought about how artists view the future and how closely it does or doesn’t mirror reality. When I started thinking about this topic, George Orwell’s 1984, which was written in 1948, was the first thing that came to mind. While of course there were some things that did not mirror reality a significant part of the novel did come true and that might be why it is so famous around the world.
1984 is just an example of a work in this genre but looking at the bigger picture is even more intriguing (at least to me). When you write (or paint, sculpt, etc.) about the future you have almost endless leeway for your imagination, especially the farther you go into the future. With this much freedom however, comes a lot of scrutiny. While at the time that the work of art is made the artist or writer probably has as good of an idea of the future as anyone else, it is if his or her work survives the test of time that people will look back and see the flaws in the work. Thus the further into the future the work of art tries to go the more freedom the artist has in their ideas. However, the flip side is that each idea of the future increases the chance that the work of art will look completely ridiculous if read in the time that it is set in. 1984 was able to withstand the test of time because it was very realistic even when looked upon twenty years after the time it was set in.
You can also connect this to last week’s topic. This is the artist’s perception of the future and invention before it happens. Some ideas might never come true while some might even inspire scientists to create the outrageous inventions found in these works of art. Thus art and science might be even more connected than we looked at before. Art and science does not have to connect by artists working directly with scientists. Scientists can inspire artists in a different time and artists can also do the reverse. While artists and scientists are working further and further apart today, they continue to work together just not always in the same time frame.

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It's an analogy, not a definition (Kelly Banh, Week 4)

This past summer, I was enrolled in a philosophy class at UC Davis titled “Minds, Brains, and Computers” which set a foundation for the study of artificial neural networks with a lesson on the Turing Machine. The Turing machine processes a series of commands, performs the coded actions, and repeats the steps until it reaches a coded stop command. It did not occur to me that this has or will have anything to do with art.

Above is an illustration of the Turing Machine at work.

Right from the jump, Philip Galanter’s interview presents his definition for generative art: “Generative art refers to any art practice where the artist uses a system such as a set of natural language rules, a computer program, a machine, or other procedural invention, which is set into motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art.” From Galanter, the algorithms and mathematical codes used in the Turing Machine can then be supported as artwork. It is common to view art only based on this dictionary definition: “the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.” And it is easy to forget that art also refers to: “the principles or methods governing any craft or branch of learning: the art of baking; the art of selling.” If we take the second definition, the Turing Machine can also be more appropriately labeled and accepted as art. Art, therefore, is not referring to the final product, but the process developed to reach a final product.

Take, for example, this exhibit of compact MAC computers.

Known as Hyperscape 1, these eight MACs run on a Hypercard program which manipulates images and communicates among each other on which images to accept or reject and as a result, display. Created by artist, Richard Bolam, the display is not only meant to show how humans process information, but also to display random and abstract images as art. Bolam’s Hyperscape 1 can be comparing to the Turing Machine. The Turing Machine accepts codes and prepares to perform the coded action. Hyperscape 1 accepts codes from the main computer and chooses to either accept or reject an image. The Turing Machine actually performs the coded action (i.e. print, move to next strip on the memory tape). Hyperscape 1 displays random images on its eight screens. These processes require communication, something that is not governed directly by the human creator, but programmed into the machines by the human creator.

Another interesting example I found was Jonathan McCabe’s “generative art from neural networks.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neMQMNFlMIo

"The patterns are made by repeated foldings, rotations and shifts, and then each point is coloured depending on its positions during the operation. A process of artificial evolution was employed to develop the final images, involving repeated variation, selection and "cross breeding" of the recipes used to generate the images."

The patterns represent the interconnected processing elements found in neural networking. But that’s exactly what they are: representations. The art is inspired from science, and provides a concrete analogy for the actual scientific process. An actual neural network, as shown below, in my opinion, is not art.

On a final note, I’d like to recall the folding paper and paint activity we all did as children in preschool or kindergarten.

Generative art or not?

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The Art of Imitation, Week4

Although I had previously not through of artificial intelligence research as art, the Stephen Wilson article does convince me that it is indeed an art form. Artificial Intelligence research that focuses on creating human-like intelligence, like many other forms of art, force exploration of what it means to be human and forces ordering to be made of human behaviors. This is the only way that this intelligence and behavior can be recreated. In fact, throughout history, art has focused on recreation. During the Renaissance, art work focused on recreating the world as perceived by the human eye. As soon as photography was invented, this became obsolete. Just as Renaissance artists used mathematics to create images that mimicked reality, computer scientists can use behavior sciences applied to computer science to mimic human intelligence. The art is in creating a program with the appropriate algorithms so that the machine can act just as a human brain does.

There is nothing magic about human intelligence that cannot be recreated by a machine. Once order is given to all human behavior at the chemical level, there is not reason that artificial intelligence can equal human intelligence. The processing power of human intelligence is governed by all the same physical limits as electronic devices. Since we are reaching the physical limit of processing power and memory in a given amount of matter because of the atomic nature of matter, we must be near or have already passes what is needed to create human intelligence. Humans go through decades of self-programming through exposure to the world to reach the adult state of intelligence. If a computer were programmed appropriately to learn as humans do, there would be no reason that a computer could not reach the same state of intelligence. In Turing’s article on computer intelligence, he states that the amount of memory contained in a human brain is somewhere between 10^10 and 10^15 bits of data. Already, we have devices that can hold many more times as many data as this. Thus, there is no reason that a computer cannot program itself to have human intelligence after years of “learning.” Responding to the argument that a machine could never produce art, the link http://artbots.org/2003/participants/MEART/ shows a machine that can actually produce art. The robot in the link is semi-living, meaning that the art relies of living brain cells. However, software is used to read and stimulate the brain cells, creating the art.

Whether strong AI, intelligence that is conscious and has a “understanding” of the information that is processes rather than just uses rules and algorithms to process the information, can exist is a different debate. First of all, it must be determined if there is such a thing as consciousness and if human intelligence is no different from computational intelligence. The human brain maybe running on a program based upon rules and algorithms that are just like the program that controls a machine. None the less, the art of artificial intelligence research is able to explore these questions.

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The fine line between human and robot - Week 4 - Chris O'Leary

The concept of artificial intelligence which we discussed in class and in discussion really challenged my thinking of the definition of “intelligence” and how it can be considered something unique to humans. As I further considered what I was learning in my science courses about how neurons work in the brain, how we are made up of tiny, inanimate molecules, and the circuitry of our bodies, I struggled with distinguishing the boundary between humans and AI. If robots can be wired to respond according to what we say and to function with some autonomy, how are they that much different from us?

I took a physiology class this year in which we examined body parts every week to learn the bone and muscle structures – whole arms, legs, torsos, heads. I did not associate any of these separate body parts with being part of a once living, feeling, functional human being. Rather, as we examined the bodies, it was as if I was examining a piece of meat. It boggled my mind that these pieces, when put together, could create a human capable of thought, constantly changing response, an ability to love and adapt, etc. This is similar to the concept of emergence, which we discussed in lecture.

So if we could be composed of these mechanical parts, how could it be impossible to create a robot that could have those same characteristics? It completely astounded and stumped me how we can be created completely out of carbon atoms and other such nonfunctional components. It even frightened me as to the degree in which we and robots are comparably similar. Less so that robots might be able to attain our standard, but more so that we could be lowered to the status of metal and circuits. We are so used to considering ourselves as the apex of the life pyramid—making scientific discoveries, creating poetry, erecting great structures, etc.—that it scares me to think that we might actually be able to lose that uniqueness of soul.

As we discussed this issue in section, we made comparisons of differences between us and AI. One idea we came up with was that robots are not like us in that they only mimic what they are taught or programmed to do. For example, with ELIZA, it detects certain words that are typed or certain sentence structures and responds accordingly. It only does what it is taught to do. But as I considered this difference more, I realized that we, in fact, are a product of similar programming. We are raised in a particular environment, trained to respond to various situations in a specific manner according to etiquette, learn to say the same words as our parents, and have a train of thought that is shaped according to those we come into contact with. Essentially, we are “programmed” to have certain qualities, although we do not recognize or acknowledge this form of learning as programming. But nevertheless, there are still some differences between us and robots: our ability to adapt as well as various complexities such as wit and humor. We constantly adapt to our surroundings and adjust our responses to what we hear and see. Even with the difference of adaptation however, there are growing numbers of inventions in robotics that give machines the ability to adapt. How far this will go, I don’t know, but the idea of humanity versus robotics continues to grow finer and more complex.

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Artificial Proof and Art

I really liked the guest lecturer this week, Edward Shankin. Several things that he said really hit home for me. The first was what he said about art and interpretation. I know from the experience of attending an arts boarding high-school that, when it comes to the visual art medium, things can be pretty abstract and, at times, they can seem “pointless” and just plain “weird”. When professor Shankin said that most people aren’t able to as specifically interpret art as they are other things, it struck me that this was why visual artists are seen as “weird” and their art as wildly passionate but lacking purpose. I can recall countless exhibits, both at my old boarding school and in the art galleries of UCLA and Cal Arts (where I visit almost every week) in which a first glance appeared to be randomness or abstractness for the sake of it. I believe that the reasons for my interpretations are that I am not accustomed or used to analyzing things that have no real concrete basis for which to start an investigation.
1. In writing, you start with words and what they mean and what they don’t mean. Then you move on to the sentences and, after all meaning is examined (with a dictionary) you explore what ideas they could reflect.
2. With music you can analyze the harmonic movement and compare it to the common practices of different eras in musical development. Then, you can examine the modality and the nature of the melodic lines and rhythmic elements. 3. With movies and animations you can examine actions and dialogs and examine the first with the expectations and stereotypes that are present in society and the second with the same technique that is used to examine literature. All of these forms of art have concrete ways that all people already have a solid grasp on (language, sound, and chronological, real-life actions). When we come to visual art, however, there is suddenly almost nothing present that is familiar enough for most people to examine it with. Often the single thing that people will use to interpret a piece of visual art is the title, because it is in a language that they understand.
The second point that professor Shankin made ties in now. He said that art and science often have parallel ideas and arrive at the same resolution, but that art rarely gets credit or recognition. I believe that this is because the fundamental language of art is more foreign to people than the hypothesize>test>report method of science. In fact, I cant even tell you the equivalent statement for art. Maybe its realize>develop>display, or hypothesize>rephrase>reveal. What I do know now is that I need to look a little closer at the next art exhibit that I habitually approach as an abstract stab in the dark.
The other topic that I have been thinking about lately has been that of artificial intelligence and the relationship between biological and computerized systems. I personally believe that computers cannot become intelligent by virtue of their complexity. I think that the source of human awareness needs to be discovered before we can know how it may be artificially achieved and reproduced. In the current approach to making an intelligent machine, code must be written that a chip them compiles into binary and is executed. I think that this is the fundamental barrier that must be overcome before we get computers that are really self aware an intelligent. By design, programming languages are based on the need for reactions, limits, parameters, and computation orders. Because of this, no computer will be able to connect two abstract ideas or think for itself. They will only be able to choose a correct response out of stored responses that were already thought of. New approaches to programming languages are needed. I think that some type of language that can be continuously revised by the computer based on its experiences and encounters is needed, but such a language would need to be able to reference things and know how to use references. In a sense, an aware program would need to have included in its script all knowledge and experience that can be absorbed and developed in any person between infancy and adulthood (or have the ability to acquire them). The code would have to be able to judge actions and reactions not solely on winning and losing or gaining and giving (standard languages only know addition and subtraction). These are the barriers that must be crossed before we have truly intelligent machines.
The majority of artificial intelligence websites define AI as “the area of computer science focusing on creating machines that can engage in behaviors that humans consider intelligent.” The problem I see here is that we are judging intelligence on things that we consider to be behavior that an intelligent being would exhibit. Not only could our perception of intelligent behavior change, but intelligent behavior alone is not proof of intelligence.

One such website is here:
http://library.thinkquest.org/2705/
it has lots of info regarding AI, its history, and numerous approaches at creating it.

I believe that AI can and will be created, but all the research i have seen and the attempts i have read about have jumped to the conclusion that our programming languages are sufficient and our knowledge of where our intelligence comes from and what intelligence is are correct.

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Andrew Modlin, Week 4,The Future

Ever since I could remember I always was obsessed with robots. When I was young I would have been so excited to have a robot that would interact like a person. My favorite TV shows of all time and still to this day is The Jetsons. The 60s idea of what the future would be like is still something perfect to me. Rosie the robot was the most incredible character ever. She could do your homework, play sports or do just about anything. Another amazing Jetsons invention was the foodaracacylce (that is how its spelled), a machine that by the push of a button could make any food you desired. The futuristic life of the Jetsons was a humorous one. The characters would continually complain of how they had button-pushing finger because they had to push so many buttons in their daily lives. Yet they didn’t have to do anything else so their lives were not actually that bad. This reminded me of what was talked about in lecture on Monday. The idea that technology while it may be helping our lives, it may also be hindering them. But I feel that in most of the situations it does more good then bad to it’s worth the trade.

This idea of the future is drastically different from of the movie Brazil. That movie portrayed the future as dark and grim. While the technology was supposed to be advanced it was very old and ruined. This was seen when all the computers were very dust. In the Jetsons everything is shiny and new. There was never anything that looked old making the society look like a utopia.

The guest speaker Edward Sharken talked about the idea of consciousness. He talked out the theory that once there are as many computers as there our brain cells that the mass amount of computer connections would cause the consciousness to possibly form. This idea reamed me of a scene from the movie The Last Mimzy. In the move the doll is actually an artificial life robot. When they take a microscopic slice from the rabbit they see that on the molecular level there were individual Intel processors. There for the robot is actually made up of billions of processors.

An art piece that I was reminded about from this idea of interconnection and life is Jeff Koons Puppy. For this project coons had a giant metal frame that supported it. The outside of the puppy was covered in plants and flowers. This is connected living form. The inside is filled with a complex sprinkler system that would water it. As much as it is alive it could also die. When it was first shown it was completely bright and colorful. Then after a few months the plants under the chin and neck started to die. This was because they were upside down and they were unable to get light. This made the sculpted beautiful in a different way because it showed how it was alive. The dead trees appeared to be a beard on the dog as if it was ageing.

http://www.kaldorartprojects.org.au/pastproject.asp?idExhibition=32&idArtist=137&idImage=549

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Claire Benson-Week 3-Imagining the Possibilities of Relational Aesthetics

I wanted to begin by responding to Einstein’s comparison of imagination and knowledge because, while I agree that imagination is crucial to the success of progressive thought, it is the combination of the two which has created the most lasting and important work in human history. Imagination cannot fully function on its own; it needs knowledge to flesh out and bring creative ideas to life, because without having a firm grasp of the past, there is no way of concretely engaging with the future. While I’m sure that he wasn’t trying to suggest that the two were mutually exclusive entities, I guess the difference in our understandings lies in the assumption that knowledge only refers to that which is currently known or has been in the past. I see imagination as the use of knowledge from applicable sources to create new and innovative ideas or combinations of previously existing materials, processes or objects, and, thus, inextricably linked concepts. Honestly, though, I feel silly being nitpicky with Einstein.

On the other hand, I think that his statement that imagination embraces the entire world is not only a sweet metaphor, but a very apt concept for the emphasis of our class. The large majority of the artists, scientists and innovators that we have looked at-or heard speak- have been advocates of such a principle. This is especially apparent in the work of individuals who have sought out collaborative environments and practices. With this in mind, I felt Sean Dockray’s talk was very appropriate, even though there wasn’t much specific emphasis on the robotics theme from lecture. I really admire artists that can create pieces that exist is some sort of middle ground between conceptual, contemporary art and the experiential business of living and cultivating relationships. His piece about what it meant to be an expert, and subsequently, what a group of “experts” would do with moderate amount of cash, touched on the theme of relational aesthetics (which I like because it often seems like art as an excuse for hanging out with fun people). The sense of humor with which he talked about and created his work was great and the talk reminded me, tangentially I guess, of Peter Sellers’ lecture earlier this year (in the WAC Department) and his emphasis on the importance of communication between people with very different life experiences. Sellers had a more socially conscious agenda than Dockray, whose interest seems to be more about a sociological examination of group dynamics, but the end product of his investigations almost always brought his participants and audiences together. Essentially, my feelings about relational aesthetics boil down to the fact that the art world very often divides people and, therefore, I find myself often liking work that is about bridging, rather than creating gaps in understanding.

Nicolas Bourriaud- coined the term 'relational aesthetics' (hopefully he's not always this alone)

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I wanted to begin by responding to Einstein’s comparison of imagination and knowledge because, while I agree that imagination is crucial to the success of progressive thought, it is the combination of the two which has created the most lasting and important work in human history. Imagination cannot fully function on its own; it needs knowledge to flesh out and bring creative ideas to life, because without having a firm grasp of the past, there is no way of concretely engaging with the future. While I’m sure that he wasn’t trying to suggest that the two were mutually exclusive entities, I guess the difference in our understandings lies in the assumption that knowledge only refers to that which is currently known or has been in the past. I see imagination as the use of knowledge from applicable sources to create new and innovative ideas or combinations of previously existing materials, processes or objects, and, thus, inextricably linked concepts. Honestly, though, I feel silly being nitpicky with Einstein.

On the other hand, I think that his statement that imagination embraces the entire world is not only a sweet metaphor, but a very apt concept for the emphasis of our class. The large majority of the artists, scientists and innovators that we have looked at-or heard speak- have been advocates of such a principle. This is especially apparent in the work of individuals who have sought out collaborative environments and practices. With this in mind, I felt Sean Dockray’s talk was very appropriate, even though there wasn’t much specific emphasis on the robotics theme from lecture. I really admire artists that can create pieces that exist is some sort of middle ground between conceptual, contemporary art and the experiential business of living and cultivating relationships. His piece about what it meant to be an expert, and subsequently, what a group of “experts” would do with moderate amount of cash, touched on the theme of relational aesthetics (which I like because it often seems like art as an excuse for hanging out with fun people). The sense of humor with which he talked about and created his work was great and the talk reminded me, tangentially I guess, of Peter Sellers’ lecture earlier this year (in the WAC Department) and his emphasis on the importance of communication between people with very different life experiences. Sellers had a more socially conscious agenda than Dockray, whose interest seems to be more about a sociological examination of group dynamics, but the end product of his investigations almost always brought his participants and audiences together. Essentially, my feelings about relational aesthetics boil down to the fact that the art world very often divides people and, therefore, I find myself often liking work that is about bridging, rather than creating gaps in understanding.

Nicolas Bourriaud-coined the term 'relational aesthtics' (and hopefully isn't always this alone)

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Christopher Flannery - Week 3

I was overwhelmed by the material this week because we covered so many different topics, and mostly only on the surface. A lot of the class time, I felt like I was scribbling notes too slowly and the slides changed before I could fully digest them.
It was interesting to look at industrialization and modern thought from the viewpoint of the artist. Having been comfortable with the idea since childhood, it’s hard to imagine that people lacked understanding of perspective. It makes me wonder how differently they perceived other things like music, taste, and literature. How much do we comprehend? Art can invoke a lot of philosophical questions (like how Descartes was mentioned in class). The history we covered in class tied in to Buckminster Fuller’s article describing how man spread across the globe and learned. His description was very removed and broad; it was more a metaphorical commentary on human nature and attitude towards our planet and each other.
Like most other people on this blog agree, I don’t think that the artist being a step removed from the actual production of the composition takes anything away from the worth of the project. Creating art for mass production should be thought of as distinct from what is called “fine” art. I see it as having more in common with engineering and architecture, along with a lot of artistic insight. With modern tools, every object we create is a product of art and technology. Technology amplifies the art.
It’s kind of odd reading two articles written generations ago about the present. I feel like a lot of the points that Walter Benjamin made in his essay were learned early on by my generation. We all learned that photography and film are forms of art and it doesn’t occur that they may be any lesser because of the different processes and media. The current generation accepts technological art equally and easily.
Searching the internet, I found this forum called ARChives, and a particular post discussing mass-produced art, including skillfully hand-made copies of classic painting and other machine-made art forms. The author’s points include the utilitarianism and precision of the modern techniques.
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2003/Best_of_ARC/best1.asp?msg=588&forumID=27

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What is art? - Week 3 - Section 4

During discussion last week the question of “What is art?” came up. It makes me wonder if anything with a creative touch can be called art, but just like how beauty is in the eye of the beholder, art is also subjective.

I really like the idea of teleart, especially the telegarden introduced to us last week in lecture. It mixes the classic beauty of flowers in a garden with the scientific aspect of a robotic arm. I also like the concept of how the garden is managed by hundreds of people through the internet. Without cooperation between all the users the garden would not bloom. It is an interactive kind of art that puts the user in control of the piece. They can pick the flowers and have to take care of them, which ultimately determines which flowers grow and don’t. It’s has taken kinetic art to the 21st century.

While searching for more examples of teleart on the internet I came across TeleDoodle from Toys-R-Us (http://www.toysrus.com/sm-tele-doodle--pi-2335105.html#prod_prodinfo). It’s a doodling machine for little kids that allows them to create art on the TV. I think it’s pretty cool for kids to have different ways to express their creative side, especially since that generation is already so tech-savvy.

I loved Ken Rinaldo’s robotic sculptures that involved the interaction between the beta fish. With the augmented fish reality I thought that from far away the structure itself could serve as a modernized plant pot/aquarium. But then up-close and while in motion it becomes a little robo-vehicle for the fish. Just like the telegarden, this installation depends on interaction, just this time instead of users on the internet; it’s the fish in the bowl.

Honestly, I’ve always had a traditionalist viewpoint on art. Sculptures, paintings, photographs, etc. in museums where you look and don’t touch is what I have previously considered to be art. And I am guilty to have looked at non-traditional art and think “That’s weird. Who thinks this is art?” With this class however it has really opened my eyes on what could be considered art. With kinetic art, teleart, and interactive pieces I have discovered a sense of amazement and awe. I love the idea of interaction and how the audience can be a piece of the artwork, even in a little way, such as the telegarden. I think I have a new found appreciation for how versatile art can be.

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Daniel Baker - Week 3 - New Forms of Body and Mind

In response to Walter Benjamin's article, I find it very interesting that the methods once used to reproduce art are now being used as inspiration for new art. The systematic processes implemented at one time to show no creativity, now offer new modes of creation. It is an interesting comment on what is art. By simply changing "why" something is created, without changing the "how," one is able to transform a reproduction process into an art process. This, I believe, is true creativity. It does not demand a large production cost or special equiptment, but instead displays the art of the everyday; it uses things that we take for granted and uses them in different ways in order to make art.



It becomes apparent that this belief is present in the artists work this week. The works of Leonel Meora and Harold Cohen, with their painting robots is an excellent example. Their pieces use what appears to be modified Roomba's in order to create art. Now, the question becomes what is art? Can art be made by machines? Personally, I think that the product becomes less of an art piece than the process that it took to produce the result. Art, up until now, has been something that humans create, and so I think that this stereotype (if you could call it that) has been impressed upon me. It will take some time until society comes to accept that computers are capable of producing art on the same level that humans are, and it will be interesting to find how long this will take, if is possible to reach that point. But for now, the part most widely accepted as art would be the human involvement, and so the programming of the robot becomes the art. The paintings the robots create seem to just be the icing on the cake.



The theme of body and the mind seems to be very fitting when discussing these pieces. Going back to the robotic painters of Meora and Cohen, one may ask if the robots become an extension of the artist? Since the programming of the robots could be considered as the "mind" of the artist, a simplified and very focused version at least, then one may be able to say that the robots become the body of the artist, carring out the wishes of the artists mind. The robots act as the artists hands, following the rules the "mind" has created for them. In much of the same way that Stelarc uses robots that are physically attached to him, Meora and Cohen's art use robotics in a similar way. The only difference is that while Stelarc's machines are truely connected to him and respond to his movement, Meora and Cohen's respond to what the artist has written. Both could be considered forms of extension to the artist's body and controlled by the artist's mind; in each piece the product is a cyborg like mixing of the body, the mind, and the machine.

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ROBOTS ARE OUR FRIENDS (and more) -> week3 -> megan daalder

Machine and humans are friends nowadays. Everyday I see them ported around in pouches with the same tenderness a mother kangaroo shows to a baby Joey; they’re our constant companions. Our minds flow into the machine through our fingertips, a McLuhenesque extension of what’s usually contained within our skulls. The machines that once sucked us into their oppressive clutches like they did Chaplin in modern times, have since been redeemed by the computing devices and pacemakers that have proven themselves worthy of being inside the home, and the body.



It seems most people are comfortable with the wide variety of cyborgs who walk among us on a daily basis, you could go as far as to say that anyone who drives a car becomes superhuman the minute they step into the beast and speed off at 60+ miles per hour without breaking a sweat (unfortunately the environment is feeling that energy being expended right now in a much more severe way than your average muscle ache). In any case, it’s interesting to see how humans and machines are growing more comfortable with one another. In Japan, heaps of time and money go into developing robots that are not only cute, but also capable of caring for the large population of aging individuals, from robot therapy, to robot sponge baths, to cleaning robots, to (ehem) spoon-feeding robots (cough, modern times?).



Though I am being slightly idealistic (that’s slightly) about our future with robots, I think some of the most interesting artwork, research, etc to come out of our current relationships with machines is collaborative, as opposed to one taking control of the other. If the industrial revolution marked a period of mechanic enslavement, than today represents a period of computational collaboration. Reas is one example of someone working with the machine to produce works of art, Ken Goldberg uses robotics and the web to create a community garden for people living in disparate regions of the world, the wifiSense bag embeds the transient connectivity that we travel trough daily into a wearable item, the WhereIsGeorge? project allows a community of people to track their money as it travels through hands and across the country. It’s all about the connection of people, ideas, objects and translation of data that is invisible to something that is visible, or tangible in some way.



Though the Transhumanists and Stelarcs of the world may want to leave their bodies behind and live in the machine, I think the machine can be used to heighten ones experience of the physical world. Machines can do many things that people cannot, and likewise, people can do many things that machines cannot, so why not take advantage of emerging technologies that allow us to get the best of both worlds.



Ah, this is the zenith of creative potential! I want to build a communal thinking cap - put EEG sensors on 10 people’s heads at once and feed it to a computer, then somehow output the data, put them on different tracks in some custom music editing software and sonify them and play them as a sweet sweet song. That’s not the very best idea, but there are many, many many many and I’m excited to be here.

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John "Matt" Ko - Week 3

The Industrial Age played a huge role in forming what we now know as art. Things like the printing press, factories, and eventually even computers all change the way we use, look at, and treat art. The printing press was the first opportunity for men to easily reproduce their writings. But along with that I would say that this was probably the start of type as art. I would venture to say that at this point people arranging the type for the printing presses were thinking about how to make the print visually appealing. And so the type would have been designed a specific way, arranged a specific way, and so on. You could also say that this led to what we see today in advertising and the use of type in graphics design. One website that I know of that uses type in a creative way is http://www.typorganism.com. It gives browsers the opportunity to interact with type art, experiencing it at home.

This wouldn’t have even been possible were it not for the invention of the computer, and the internet. No one thought that computers would become such a common household appliance. They used to take up entire rooms, but now just about every household has one. With the introduction of the internet, computers then became tools to easily broadcast works of art from the convenience of the home. One no longer has to travel to a gallery to view famous works of art. Computers are also used to compose works of art. From things like graphics design, computer animation, and web design to things like Casey Reas’ work.

Machine shops, another product of the industrial age, also bring new light to art. There are aspects of design in the production of anything from water bottles to cars. Not only that, but mechanical production brought to mind the idea of the robot, and has inspired many art forms. Robots have been portrayed in things like comic books, and many have produced metal works that are supposed to resemble robots, though they do not have any automated functions. However, there are certain things that actually are robots that I’m not so sure should be considered art. Things like the mechanical third arm and that big machine show of destruction maybe useful or entertaining, but I don’t think that I would consider them to be art.

I’m more interested in machines like the mechanical wooden mirror made by Daniel Rozin, or the LED art by Paul Klotz. Things that just either change the way traditional art is made or the medium it is presented on can be called art to me. These are welcome advancements to me. This is probably because of my desire to view things aesthetically pleasing.

I also found the concept of circuit bending interesting. Taking what one would normally consider music, and changing it in various ways. Again, I can’t bring myself to fully validate it as art, because it is not as pleasing to the ear as regular music, but the creativity is definitely there.

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Week 3-Eddison Lai-Industrialization to robotic art

In high school history classes, I learned about industrialization. But it wasn’t until this week that I viewed it in as the advancement of art. It started with things like steam power and textile manufacturing. Then, the second industrial revolution came with the electrical power generation and assembly lines. I was taught to believe that the technology only benefited the economy but I have come to realize that if the technological advances that came from the industrial revolution hadn’t come forward, a great faction of art would not be available today.!!! Nowadays, in addition to the classic arts, like painting and sculpting, and many other art forms, we have kinetic and robotic art. Kinetic art is said to be sculptures that contains moving parts. People believe that the “Bicycle Wheel” by Marcel Duchamp was the first piece of Kinetic Art. He and many others who followed took already existing parts and put them together, making a connection between audience and artwork. I believe that these early interactive pieces have paved the way for much the modern work we see today including Stelarc’s human machines and Ken Goldberg’s “Telescope Garden.” I like kinetic art because it takes art to another dimension. It requires more senses than just sight to appreciate it’s significance. It brings in movement and audience interaction that paintings and photography cannot.


Robotic art uses a lot of computer programming, sensors, and actuators. In the movies, we see a lot of artificial intelligence. “Star Wars” was good example with R2D2 and C3PO. Although many movies had the idea of robots and androids, they consisted mainly of humans in suits pretending to move robotically. In real life, we aren’t that close to Hollywood’s version of artificial intelligence.
Much of the robotic art in today’s society is focused around toys. Sony has a line of AIBOs, which are robotic pets that interact with each other. Honda came out with the ASIMO, a life size robot aimed to give schoolchildren an insight on engineering. http://www.honda.co.jp/ASIMO/

Other sectors of robotic art include such pieces as Survival Research Lab’s shows and robotic painting. I for one am not particularly pleased when I hear the destruction and chaos that SRL shows have to offer. They may be considered art but I am for sure not a person who would enjoy this kind of art. Robotic painting on the other hand is quite amusing. It is not very artistic in terms of the final product; most of it is just random colors and marks, however, there are a few pieces which I can appreciate for it’s attempt of spontaneity.

Even though Professor Sean Dockray was totally off topic in his lecture, I do appreciate his work. Through much of the lecture he basically just showed a lot of pictures and videos. I like his pieces where audiences get to interact, especially the cabinet piece. I appreciate what he showed us on circuit bending and also was amused by his insights on collective intelligence. I am curious to experience whether it is true that a group’s median is better than a expert’s word. Circuit bending seems like a promising art. It isn’t as painful to hear as SRL’s shows. Also, circuit bending only takes memory, common sense, and a few toys to get started. !!!

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The Message of Art (Kelly Banh, Week 3)

This week, I chose to identify one specific idea that stood out to me from Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In passage two, he wrote, “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership.” This quote was significant to me because I feel that as a painter, even my finished works of art continue to be a blank slate. Most cannot comprehend this. However, Benjamin’s quote conveys exactly what I mean by this. He basically says here that an original piece of work captures the experience of the artist, and perhaps their every mistake that makes the piece unique. Obviously, original pieces are far more valuable then replicates. For example, an original painting versus the prints that a company may reproduce for sales. His mention of time and space in this quote, for me, refers to the influences of the stimulus present in his environment that may have played a huge role in the creation of the piece. Often, due to the environment in which I choose to paint, my pieces will appear to take on the atmosphere of the location I am in, my mediums will change based on the weather, temperature, and time allowance, and how meticulous I am while composing will depend on the mood I, myself, am in. The last line of this quote means that a traveling piece of art, whether through time or through owners, will carry along the physical imprints that it receives from each phase of “life.” Only the original can capture such a quality. I know this firsthand because the paintings I mail home to my mom will often endure indentations and scratches from poor packaging and luggage damage during air travel. In that, we can remember from looking at those scratches and indentations that they were gifts to my mom which I mailed home to her from school. Therefore, the scratches and indentations represent the event of the separation between my mom and I while I am away at college. This is a rather simplistic explanation and example for Benjamin’s quote, but I feel that it delivers the same message. Every change which a piece of work takes on physically after it is already done continues to add to the meaning of the artwork. This is what I meant by “even my finished works of art continue to be a blank slate.” Art is never truly at a resting state in my eyes. We are used to hearing about people adopting new interpretations of pieces of art, but very rarely do we note the physical changes that artwork undergoes and the fact that that, too, gives artwork a new meaning and more stories to tell. Art delivers a message.

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alexfleming - Week 3 -Technologies Contribution to Art

Week after week this class has me questioning what is art? My perspective has completely changed. I used to see art as a painting, photograph, drawing... but now it seems almost anything has some artistic form. Last weeks Mathematics and Art completely changed how I viewed art and also how I viewed math. I had a greater appreciation for both. I was able to realize how closely related the two subjects can be.
This weeks Industrial Age, Kinetic Art and Robotics topics have done the same; opened up my eyes to an entirely new perspective of art. Along with the Industrial Age and advancement in technology has come the advancement in different forms of artwork. Technology is being used to not only create art but new forms of art as well. The topic of a relationship between Robotics and Art was hard for me to grasp in the beginning but after doing some research on the Internet I came to find that it was actually quite common.

I found that there was a Robotic Art workshop where people could come watch and interact with robotic art.

Kinetic art, a form of art connected with the industrial age, was easier for me to understand. I was also surprised at how many books, websites and photographs I found pertaining to the subject.
Benjamin Walters article, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" again raised the question of what is art? Now that artwork was becoming so easy to replicate, and replication were becoming more exact, what was the importance of original artwork? Is authentic artwork special anymore? I believe that because of mechanical reproduction and its ability to exactly replicate original art people have lost appreciation to those authentic pieces. The art is available to the masses, it looses its uniqueness and therefore is depreciated by the public. Reproducing artwork causes a lack of appreciation towards the original artwork, and also causes the original artwork to loose its unique specialness because it is available to masses.
Reproduction of Art, Technology of Art, Kinetic Art, Robotic Art...has all greatly changed my opinion of what I believe art is and how I value art. Human talent and creativity shown through work is admirable art in my opinion.

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Ross Goldman - Section 3

Honda's Asimo robot has become nearly iconic by some standards as today's image of a humanoid robot. Perhaps more interesting than the technology itself is the way in which Honda's marketing has been focused on portraying Asimo as the "People-Friendly Robot" that comes in a "small, useful size." They are very careful not to frighten or threaten humans by using this kind of language, yet after seeing what Asimo can do (and understanding the AI behind it), it is a little scary at the least.

You can learn more about Asimo here:
http://world.honda.com/ASIMO/



Another interesting robot, though lacking the fame and stardom of Asimo, is the Sawfish. This unique robot saws down trees under water with its 54-inch-long chain saw and then hauls them off to dry land. Not only is the process cheaper than traditional logging, it is more environmentally sound. Typical deforestation contribtes to global warming, among countless other issues. Underwater logging lacks many of these harmful effects.

And finally, one last note on fractals: one group of artists who continue to astound and entertain with their hybrid art-science performances is the Blue Man Group.



Although some may argue that they are simple money-hungry entertainers pandering to the masses, there are many brilliant uses of science and technology that can be found in their art. From the simple - PVC pipes of different lengths and diameters make up a new instrument, to the complex - synchronized, interactive LED displays in the audience and chemical-based drumming, they innovate. Interestingly, they have dedicated a large chunk of their research and performance to fractals. Their performances are not to be missed.

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Alexander Yeh; week 3 ; Guitar Smashing Art

I was not very impressed by Professor Sean Dockery’s works at first with his circuit-bending exploits. It did not seem to me that his piece was innovating nor did I consider it to be art. It was very predicable exactly what sound would be created when he connected two circuits together. Any electrical engineer would be able to make the calculations necessary to do this. He was merely undoing much of the signal processing that is done by the original engineers of the keyboard to create his “new” sounds. However, I was much more impressed by his installation with paper tape and President Bush’s speeches. The piece truly takes advantage of interaction with the audience and the cranking of the machine by the audience cannot be replaced by a motor while having the same effect.

Furthermore I do not consider the Robot Paintings to be true kinetic art. To me, it was more algorithmic art than kinetic art. The instructions that the robots have when painting as well as the algorithms that the robots use in painting the pictures could be considered the art. The robots that paint might as well be computer printers. Given the same set of instructions, just like a printer, the robots would create the exact same piece.

What impressed me most was the loud, destructive art from artists such as Survival Research Labs. The pieces really show society’s fixation with destruction. I had not thought before that a German WWII V1 rocket being ignited in public could be considered art but thinking about the reactions of the audience, I believe that it is in fact art. Gustav Metzger’s Manifesto on Auto-Destructive art tells what destructive art is all about. The most notable portion of the manifesto is the part, “Auto-destructive art is the transformation of technology into public art. The immense productive capacity, the chaos of capitalism and of Soviet communism, the co-existence of surplus and starvation; the increasing stock-piling of nuclear weapons - more than enough to destroy technological societies; the disintegrative effect of machinery and of life in vast built-up areas on the person,...” I believe that destructive art is the most effective art form in showing the true nature of what society has become with its new capabilities with industrialization. According to the site http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr225/jones.htm, Gustav Metzger came to the United States as a refugee from the holocaust after his whole family was exterminated in the holocaust, and this is what probably led to Gustav’s criticisms of society. The site http://vienna.metblogs.com/archives/2005/05/gustav_metzger.phtml tells that most of his art works centered on the nuclear arms race in the 1950s and 60s and environmental destruction. Metzger did not only tackle the high profile topics of society’s self-destruction, but also focused on practices in the art community. For example, he once added a layer of acid in a painting to so that it would slowly disintegrate in order to protest the replication of art. His influence was wide. Interestingly, it was also Gustav Metzger who inspired the guitars smashing of Pete Townshend in the band The Who.

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Lisa Yang - Week 3

Coming into this class I had no background in any art whatsoever, so I thought. As the class progresses however, I am discovering that art can take many forms, shapes, styles, etc…

I never really thought about math playing a huge role in the field of arts. But after lecture last week I’ve learned that math is fundamental to certain forms of art. I took basic computer programming in the past so I do recall using very basic math to create very basic programs. It is very intriguing to me that with that very basic math I was using or perhaps just tweaking the numbers and operations a little, certain forms or patterns can be created, thereby producing a work of art. Even that is considered art! So perhaps I do have some background in art with the little programs I wrote that produced those very basic shapes, figures, and forms.

Moreover, as society progresses we will likely see the advancement of technology and with that, the advancement of human life. Artists are even utilizing these new avenues to produce new forms of art, like those videos we saw in class for example. But more specifically technology advancement is helping reduce human effort all around. Whether that is a good or bad thing, I am not sure. But we saw this during the industrial revolution when Ford began to use programmed machinery or some form of “robotics” on their assembly lines. And these new technologies even fall into the field of art.

I was most amazed by the concept of the telegarden. For this “robotic” garden to be considered art is hard to grasp, but the telegarden could be considered a fusion of art and science. As art progresses also, it is being produced and intermixed with all other fields. We talked about this in both lecture and discussion. Whether art will lead science or vice versa, only time can tell, but meanwhile the idea of robotics as an art is indeed fascinating.

By just typing in robotics into a search engine on the net, I got plenty of hits. What I found that most fits along these lines (art/science/human advancement) is how NASA has its own department devoted to robotics and what it can do for space exploration. The website is here: http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/

I find all of this to be interesting, considering that I came into this class not knowing what to expect and not knowing how to view the different types of art forms that we’ve discussed so far this quarter. I always looked at art being the traditional artwork worth millions of dollars to be mounted on the wall for display with pride and joy and not even thought about it as computer programmed machinery that can produce certain types of art or the programmed machinery itself being an art form. This goes to show how much impact art has on human life.

What is art then? It can be many things as we’ve learned. There is traditional, classical art, then modern art, and now with robotics and cybernetics, even more modern art? Whatever it is, this new era is still unfolding with new artists like Professor Sean Dockray and I’m excited to see what else can be deemed “art.”

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Jamie Summers - Week 3

The interesting question of robotic art was raised in lecture this week. In my opinion, these works are still art. You might say that art is created based on inspirations and things that move somebody, so when a robot creates art, is it not in fact art because a robot cannot be emotional moved by anything. I disagree.

Just because a robot is doing the actual brush strokes, somebody had to make the robot, and somebody had to program the robot so that it knows what to do. So, according to this argument, robotic art is in fact still art produced by the programmer. For example, lets say that a painter paints a painting. This painting is so exquisite and so beautiful that he gets many offers to buy it. He wants to sell the painting to everyone who gave him an offer, so he hires a programmer to program a robot to replicate his exact brush strokes. With this, the painter himself is allowed to paint another picture, as well as the robot. The robot in this case is just replicating the art that was originally created by the painter. If one says that robotic art is not art, then in this case they are saying that the painting that the painter painted is not art. A second example is the assembly line for cars. Cars can be considered a work of art. Even if you disagree, you must agree that a car design is intricate and requires a large amount of creativity. Car assembly lines produce anywhere from 40-70 cars per hour during production, and without the help of robots, this would not be possible. Since robots aid in the production of cars, and a making a car is considered art, then robots themselves are making art. Even if you do not believe that a car is a work of art, you must admit that the initial inspiration and creativity of the designer is not lost simply because the car was made by a machine.

On a completely separate note, I found a related exhibit not of art created by robots, but art created out of robots. http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009466.php I suppose this exhibit utilizes the innovations of the industrial age as mentioned in the reading “The Work of Art in the Mechanical Age of Reproduction” as well as the innovations of the information age as a new medium for creating art.

In this particular piece, I feel like the artist is creating a connection between the unemotional, mechanical world of robots and the emotion-driven world of humans. I find it to be a bit disturbing because although it seems as if the robots are locked in a passionate embrace, it also looks as if the machines behind them are forcing them to kiss.

It seems as though they are being pushed together against their wills. It is interesting that such a stereotypically unemotional machine can be used as an artistic medium that can evoke such strong emotions in its viewers.

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Jacob Janco - Week 3- Section 3 - Consciousness, Robotics, and Stellarc

The guest lecturer on Wednesday, Sean Dockray, while a bit scattered in his lecture materials, I believe drew a great bridge between the robotics and art we have dealt with this week and next week’s lectures on artificial intelligence. One of his main points was the emergent properties of smaller pieces and particles. He touched on the issue in a number of seemingly disparate examples of ant colonies being treated as organisms, the inherent complexity in traffic networks, and termite colonies among other things. Taking his eclectic exploration of emergent property to the next level, linking it to robotics and artificial intelligence and art is quite simple. Emergent property is indeed a “weird science” as Dockray eloquently put. Quantum mechanics break down once you begin to move into the macroscopic world, a cookie certainly tastes better than its constituent ingredients. Similarly, our brains are vastly complex networks of neurons that function in ways that have yet to be understood, but somehow from this mass of fat and neural tissue arise consciousness. The guest lecturer on Wednesday, Sean Dockray, while a bit scattered in his lecture materials, I believe drew a great bridge between the robotics and art we have dealt with this week and next week’s lectures on artificial intelligence. One of his main points was the emergent properties of smaller pieces and particles. He touched on the issue in a number of seemingly disparate examples of ant colonies being treated as organisms, the inherent complexity in traffic networks, and termite colonies among other things. Taking his eclectic exploration of emergent property to the next level, linking it to robotics and artificial intelligence and art is quite simple. Emergent property is indeed a “weird science” as Dockray eloquently put. Quantum mechanics break down once you begin to move into the macroscopic world, a cookie certainly tastes better than its constituent ingredients. Similarly, our brains are vastly complex networks of neurons that function in ways that have yet to be understood, but somehow from this mass of fat and neural tissue arise consciousness.

The classical robot is one that obeys the laws set out for it to follow. It can walk, jump, skip, and talk, but only if told to do so by a human programmer. Even random mathematical algorithms only offer an illusion of spontaneity as manifest in the robot’s actions. Humans are what we refer to as sentient beings. We make our choices based on complex sets of experience that are by no means able to be delineated into laws nor are they at all random. This is where artificial intelligence comes into play and the idea that robots can attain sentience and consciousness. It is the nightmare of Frankenstein and the dreams of today’s science fiction writers and movie directors. Is consciousness just a byproduct of the complexity of neural networks, or is it a separate entity in and of itself? Is consciousness a property that must be quantified with a new branch of science? These questions are as much a part of neuroscience today as studying, say, the neuroanatomy of a schizophrenic patient.

There is quite a huge debate over what exactly consciousness is. If we were able to fully understand the processes governing the construction, maintenance, and utilization of our brains, could we potentially create life forms or mechanical objects that have a “soul?” If we could work out the processes and cast them into fiber, metal, and plastic would we be able to synthesize a human? Conventional science answers this question quite simply. If we could know all there is to know about the human body, more specifically the function of our brains, then it is absolutely possible to create a life form that possesses our conceived notions of consciousness and awareness. It is an eerie prospect to be certain.

While on the topic of bridging the gap between robotics and artificial intelligence, it is impossible to forget about the crazy Australian Stellarc. He is indeed years ahead in his thinking, and furthermore entertains ideas that create a new sort of bridge. His bridge, much like how art and science look to be integrated, consists of a connection between the body and the mechanic. He takes this to the extreme level by saying that the “body is obsolete,” which is foolish, but his 20th century consumer electronics rhetoric certainly incites some controversy. The idea of robotic implantation and integration of man and machine is the stuff of science fiction writers, but as mentioned in lecture these outlandish ideas so often materialize in reality. Stellarc’s work is that of a butcher, the integration is rudimentary and shocks rather than forwards scientifically his ideas of embracing the machines that we have created. These body implants are already evolving. Monkeys can control dots on a screen with electrode implants in their brain. A recent, and more exciting development is that of aural and visual implants that can cause the deaf to hear and the blind to see. The one shown in class, the visual brain implant, is extraordinarily rudimentary, but is still considered cutting edge science. Basically, the implant stimulates the visual cortex and the patient “sees” the input of the electronic eye. This input consists of phosphene dots against a black background. They allow the user to discern between different physical objects. I take the same attitude toward this as I do to the mechanization of flight. A seemingly useless, short flight at Kittyhawk led to mind boggling amounts of change to our world over one century. I myself hope to contribute to this field in some way as a neuroscientist and possibly surgeon. I find it fascinating, and as mentioned in lecture, the field certainly does scratch some of the itches that science fiction has placed into my head.

Back to consciousness as a lead in to next weeks lectures. Here is a proposal for a Theory of Consciousness by Crick and Koch, the former is the famous discoverer of DNA structure. Most of those I have talked to would not consider consciousness to be debatable in the realm of science- that is an endeavor relegated to philosophers and to some degree psychologists. Consciousness is indeed a huge, looming shadow that evades proper quantification and is a problem for neuroscientists exploring the function of the brain.

http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/SC/B/C/F/D/_/scbcfd.pdf

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Tygue Luecke-Week 3- Art, Robotics, Opinions, Etc...

Before I go into a discussion of this week's material, I would like to make a quick note on the idea of stereotypes. At Mendelbrot's speech on Monday, I could not help but notice all the stereotypical mathematicians and "mad" scientist types. Anyone else happen to notice that? It is unfortunate that such stereotypes should be so negative when they are so often rue, or at least often based firmly on the truth. Maybe if they just weren't used for in negative ways...

Now onto the robotics- I noticed in section how much the question of What is Art?" came up. And I just don't know what to do with that, considering how pointless it would be to try to define art. Still though, when we discuss huge, pointless machines destroying each other for an audience, once can hardly question what it is that makes art art.While, as I have mentioned before, this notion is deserving of discussion, I feel like far too many artists devote their work to just that idea. I suppose it may teach us something to test a society's idea of art and compare it to that of another societies'; however, I just don't think we can learn a whole lot more from all the overabundance of artists who still insist upon basing their work on this unanswerable question.

This brings me to the work of Stelarc. Excuse me if I offend anyone, but I just cannot approve of his work. First of all, while I mostly understand the point he's trying to make, I'm pretty sure the body is NOT obsolete. Just because he is able to make machines that can perform the work of the human body does not mean that he no longer needs his body. The day that he is able to build his robots without the use of his body is the day that he can claim that the body to be obsolete. And what was the point of hanging his body from hooks? That proves NOTHING, save that he's a bit crazy. I just don't get it. So please, if someone DOES know what was up with that, let me know.

Check out this article:



Here's JUST another artist pushing the boundaries of art. REALLY, this is NOT necessary. Now, whenever this question comes up again, I am going to be tempted just to say no. NO, it is NOT art. What is the point in pushing it this far? Back in the day when art was seen ONLY as paint on canvas and sculpture, asking this question would have ACTUALLY been relevant. But in the days when people put blood and urine in a jar with a crucifix and call it art, the point is LOST!

Really, though, what do you people think about this? Do you guys think there's any point in asking the "what is art" question? What can we do with this nowadays? I'm sorry. I'm just so sick of it now. Well, this blog has become just a bit too opinionated. I apologize. I will make sure the title reflects this.

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Andrew Modlin, Week 3, Section 2, Kenetic Art

Ever since I was a child I have always had an interest in kinetic sculpture. One of my favorite artists has always been Alexander Calder. I remember going to museums around the country with my father to see his works. My favorite works of his were always the circus animals. For some reason they always seemed to be just so random that they were incredible. I would assume that this is some of the earlier form of kinetic sculpture. I have found these to be so amazing because of the way that they were constructed. All hand made out of wire and metal, they are meticulously configured to get the perfect type of movement and balance.

Here is a preview of the Circus http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/counting_on_art/popups/calder.avi

When Calder would perform the circus a lot of crazy things would happen. He would have wire animals jump out of the air and land perfectly on a single wire. Or fake traipses artists swing across the stage and grab hold of one another. These feats seem impossible but though the precision Calder put into these pieces it could happen. I always found this type of art interesting because it was so different from any other sculptures that were being shown anywhere. Also the amount of effort that must have gone into perfecting a figurines jump must have been extraordinary.

This is how I feel about all of Calder’s works. I have also been fascinated by his mobiles. To see a Calder mobile in person is a magnificent experience. The way the move thought the air with perfect balance is an extraordinary sight. It is extremely impressive the Calder was able to do all these sculptures with out the uses of computers or anything; it was shear skill that allowed him to prefect these works.

I found these works to been very different yet similar to Stelarc’s works. In many of the projects on Stelarc’s web page it can be seen that his works are mostly robots. He has taken kinetic art to the next level. The way he has introduced machines is fascinating because it appears that his art is more advanced already then a lot of technology that is in the world already. Stelarc is both progressing the art world and the science world so it is very fitting that we would learn about him in this class.

I do disagree with his stance on the outdated nature of the human body. I find this to be a really hash and wrong statement. While machines are more powerful and have a great potential they cannot replace a human. Scientist still know very little about what actually make our brain work to produce cognitive thought. Therefore we are still unable to produce artificial intelligence leaving human to the superior then robots. Machines and robots still need the human to be built and be kept in working order, so with out us they are nothing.

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Jacob Karp - Week 3 - Resenting order and defying bodily limitations

This week’s lectures revealed a very unconventional approach to scientific art/artistic science. The inclusion of robotics and “cyborg-like” technologies in art is one that undeniably branches art and science. The works of STELARC and Survival Research Lab are unlike anything I have ever been exposed to before. Survival Research Lab’s utilizes crude robotic machines and Tesla coils in their crude, violent, mechanized performances. These performances entrance the audience watching it with its explosions and synthetic lightning (tesla coils) in what is seemingly a state of mayhem. These huge industrial mechanical contraptions are the work of Mark Pauline.

Mark Pauline’s creation is aimed to create “resentment towards the forces of order”. The show includes robotic frightful beasts like tyrannosaurus and medusa moving to metal grinding industrial music and during some performances crickets are released into the crowds to induce more resentment as was the aim. I find it interesting that the entire aim of the performance is for the crowd to turn against industrial growth/modernization and technological advances that bring order and structure. I find this interesting because these artistic performances are employing science as an artistic medium but the idea being conveyed is against the very medium of innovation used.

http://www.streettech.com/bcp/BCPgraf/CyberCulture/SurvivalResearchLabs.html

Stelarc, I found equally interesting. His work is all based on “enhancing the body” by using technological extensions (like artificial limbs) and suspension by hooks that pierce into his skin on his back. He feels that the “body is obsolete” and we must move towards enhancing our beings through technology. His ultimate conception is that of cyborgism. He puts his body through intense pain to realize his physical and psychological limitations of his being/body and he then searches for technologies to enhance the body’s abilities. The skin is the divider that separates the soul from the world and by mutilating it through piercing and tearing, Stelarc feels he is dissolving this divider. Stelarc serves as his own subject of his performances. These performances aim to incite thoughts that the body is limited and by introducing technologies we can increase our potential and rid ourselves of limitations. I thought this was interesting because we do employ artificial internal body parts be stronger than we normally would be. Take defibrillator or prosthetics or replacement joints of steel, these things rid the individual of its limitations and don’t compromise our view of the individual as a person. So by integrating technology into our bodies we become stronger (as we become more and more a cyborg being) but we remain a person our soul unaffected and no longer blocked from the world by our skin and bodily limitations.

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/stelarc/a29-extended_body.html

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Mayra Perez-Week3-Industrial Age, Kinetic Art, Robotics

In his book, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, Buckminster Fuller makes a call for the innovation in human technologies. He asserts that the specialization in education, and other fields, is inefficient. That is, specialization is not in the best interest of the whole of society. Moreover, Fuller states that the men that first created watercrafts were not specialized in watercraft building, that they were “extraordinarily effective” with the sword as well. In other words, these men had a great number of skills and talents.

After reading Fuller’s book, I googled the term “specialization” so as to further my knowledge on the subject and to truly evaluate Fuller’s argument. It was then that I began to contemplate the context of “specialization.” I came up with a long list of possible meanings to Fuller’s idea of “specialization.” Was this word pure applicable to education? The economy? Or the body? It was with the latter that Stelarc and his radical work came to mind. I began to consider his idea of the body as “obsolete.”

This idea of the “obsolete body” took me back to my previous anatomy and physiology courses; the extremely complex and specialized design of the human body. I always admired the human body and all of its independent yet interconnected systems. Sure, I always considered it flawed to some extent, but never obsolete.

After giving the abstract concept of an “obsolete body” some thought, I wanted to gain a thorough understanding of the implication of such a concept. Does the human body also suffer from inefficiency because of high specialization? Are the human body’s systems really interconnected? Is the human body really suited for its environment? I thought about these questions long and hard and I tried to conceptualize Stelarc’s idea.

I reflected on Stelarc’s argument that the body is obsolete because of it’s lack of modular design and recalled an article from an evolution course I took a few quarters ago about the human body and its incompatibility with its environment. If I remember correctly, the article asserted that our bodies were designed for hunter-gatherer lifestyles and because we had sedentary consumer lifestyles, we suffered from diseases such as diabetes, obesity, etc. In the words of Stelarc, the human body “is biologically ill-equipped to cope with its new extraterrestrial environment” and so the human body is “obsolete.”

As far-reaching as Stelarc’s ideas are, they absolutely convincing. Most importantly, they represent perhaps the biggest shift in paradigm in any of the two cultures.

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Allen Wang Section 2 - Robots, A Second Age of Technology?

Technology has always been second nature to man since about a centruy ago. Technology has really affected our live for the better and for worse. Robotics had made life more efficient and well as more pleasurable. Yet, we are always in doubt of whether robots ever develop their own subconscious mind or that the human race would grow more lazy because of its dependancy on the robots.

As robots has become to represent humans more and more, we can see how advanced technology has become. Soon, robots will respond not just to a remote control and some buttons, but they will become somewhat independent and would act on their "own will." Robots will still be a tool that humans woudl utilize, but as robots create their own wills, the wrodl woudl become a more dangerous place. Computers and other advanced technologies have always been known to degrade and glitch. Because of the unlimited amounts of possibilities of scenerios that can occur, we, humans, can never determine what woudl happen when technology becomes to advanced for humans to handle.

With the wide range of robotics avaliable now, our life is very dependent on technology. Heck, even this post and this blog would not have been created without the help of technology. Technology has shaped our lives so much that we cannot even imagine a life without technology. As such in this picture, we can see an almost primitive technology compared to the technology of a human robot. This technology would have been very advanced just a few years ago.

In addition to creating technology, humans have become deft at manipulating technology as well. Such manipulations can be seen during circuit bending. With this manipulation of sound, new innovative creations can be created. Circuit bending brings out the creativity of its creator and can turn a very dull piece of intrument or toy into a very complex and interesting tool that creates an assortment of sounds, none of which are exactly identical. With unlimited possibilities, humans woudl continue to discover ways to entertain ourselves with anything and everything.

Technology has created a sort of mystery in the lives of humans. With technolgy, everything is possible and we can look forward the future with the anticipation of the unknown. Never knowing what can be created, we can only rely on the imagination of the creative mind of humans to shape the future of humans.

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One of the most intriguing topics of last week’s lecture series was circuit bending as introduced by Sean Dockray. The idea is completely bizarre and its geek factor allows the practice to stand out and take shape among enthusiasts and onlookers alike.

Wikipedia defines circuit bending as, “a creative short-circuiting of low voltage, battery-powered electronic audio devices such as guitar effects, children's toys and small synthesizers to create new musical instruments and sound generators, emphasizing spontaneity and randomness.”

The idea of taking apart a working electronic device and forcing it to short circuit (effectively breaking it) is a noble pursuit and seems as if it would be more prevalent among engineers and scientists – not artists.

In this sense, circuit bending is a prime example of the closing bridge between the disciplines of science and artistry. Experimenters are literally using scientific methods to modify and produce new machines with the sole purpose of exploring artistic potentiality. By itself, the “instrument” has no intrinsic value – it is up to the experimenter, or artist, to change the way the machine functions.

This brings up my primary question, though: can circuit bending be considered art when the artist does not necessarily know what sounds he will be producing or if those sounds can be replicated or repeated again?

The best way that I can explore this question is through a more familiar analogy: if I decide to take a painting that a fellow artist recently completed and I arbitrarily paint over it and make slight modifications, but the changes I make are not permanent nor replicable, is what I did considered an art form? This leads to the discussion of kinetic art.

Kinetic art contains moving parts and is usually moved by motors, wind or human interaction. To some extent, this is exactly what circuit bending is – a way of modifying someone else’s art temporarily in a way that is irreparable and irretrievable.

circuit bending: a beginner’s guide

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Kiesha Nazarenus- Week 3- Ken Feingold

This week one particular artist caught my eye above all the others. As our professor flashed through websites she stopped at one that struck me as interestingly unusual. Various pieces all containing heads…just heads…both realistic looking and dummy looking. Well the artist is Ken Feingold and after reading through his works I fell in love with what he is doing in regards to art and technology. The pieces he did that I particularly enjoyed had to do with heads that engaged in dialogue either with themselves or with the audience. None of the dialogue is pre-recorded rather it is created through computer programming that develops individual personalities for each of the “characters”. The amount of technology put into the pieces is pretty cool but the artistic meaning behind each piece makes it completely interesting. In the piece If/Then there are two identical heads that speak to each other while doubting their own existence. The conversation focuses on existence and whether or not they are the same person and whether or not they will really ever know.
Is this life?
Imagine being me.
Do you see things clearly?
How do you feel?
Sometimes I feel very confused.
Can I control my feelings?
I feel like I exist.
I feel like I am inside my head.
What does it feel like to be inside your head?
Inside my mind I can sense that there is an I that is something that’s not the one who is sensing.
Why?
Why do you look just like me?
No, I don’t look just like you - I am accidental.
Sinking Feeling is another single head who is convinced of its own existence, but desperate to know "Why don’t I have a body like everyone else?" or "How did I get here, what am I doing here?"
Another piece with two heads is similar in that the heads look identical and question whether or not they are the same person since they look alike, blink at the same time and sound alike. This piece, What If?, has one figure speaking into the other’s ear which brings about questions: Is one putting thoughts into the other’s head? Or is the other one hearing voices? Are they really the same person? They worry endlessly about what they don’t know, can’t remember, or don’t want to think about and they tend to repeat themselves.
-what if I’m imagining this?
-what if you are dreaming?
-why does this keep going on?
-what do you want me to tell you?
-how can you describe this?
-what if this is a big joke?
-what if we are just pawns in our own game?
-it is not easy to understand this.
-what if we were analytical?
-what if this is all there is?
-what if i catch on fire?
-what if you catch on fire?
In a more political piece, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, three floating heads discuss several basic questions regarding humans and nature
M: All of the small particles work together – there are more of us than anything
A; Are we the only ones who think about the future?
M: We don’t think about mind.
A: Hah hah hah, what a laugh!
V: Do animals love vegetables?
A: We are the ones who can reflect on things and make them change.
M: Can reflect on kings and make them change? Don’t ask me!
V: When one thing kills another so that it can survive, isn’t that violence?
You is a piece with two identical heads laying next to each other…but one is male and the other female. They argue with each other about their relationship, then make up, then regret their argument, and begin to argue again. Each time there dialogue is slightly different but generally in a similar way. The message sent to the audience is to see how phrases can have little real meaning, but a lot of power to do harm.
Feingold also has certain pieces that interact with the audience. Box of Men explores the idea that those who decide the guilt or innocence of others may be acting in frighteningly arbitrary and seemingly random ways.
Jimmy Charlie Jimmy is a dummy head that is constantly talking to himself until someone comes up to him at which point he stops talking and if the viewer talks to him he starts repeating the words of the visitor until the visitor steps away.
I really enjoyed reading through Ken Feingold’s various projects. His way of portraying his ideas is unique but entirely effective.

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Christine Dang - Week 3 - Robotics, Detachment, and Art

Even in the earliest incarnation of robotics in the machines of the Industrial Revolution, they have always been associated with an intense sense of detachment. With the advent of interchangeable parts and the assembly line, workers no longer had any connection to the final product. All they knew was their specific part and the mindless, mechanical task that was assigned to them. This detachment continues on to all forms of machines, robotics, and in fact nearly all aspects of technology. Even that to which this detachment does not apply continues to be viewed as such. For example computers can now be used for many kinds of communication, and yet there still remains this cultural connotation of computers with isolation.




Furthermore, robotics and machinery are closely tied to engineering, a largely math-based field which is generally considered as coldly logical a profession as can be.

This then leads to an interesting contradiction that lies within the concept of robotic art. Robotics and machines are considered to be these cold, impersonal, and emotionless objects. Art, on the other hand, relies greatly upon the ability of a piece to form a personal connection with its audience. Thus, robotic art manages to somehow connect with its viewers on an emotional level because of its emotionless nature.


The reaction to robotic art is generally one of disturbance and unease. Commonly, the more human-like these creations are, the "creepier" they are perceived to be. This emtoional response is enhanced if the robots additionally perform or art in some human fashion. This organic nature of something that is decidedly inorganic triggers a great reaction in a fair number of people. In this way, intruigingly enough, that which is emotionless can generate emotion

However, at the same time, robotics in art can also enhance the level of human interaction with art. In fact, even the earliest examples of interactive art relied on machines, such as the old coin-operated strength tests and other such machines often seen in carnival games.



In modern times, robotics and artificial intelligence offer such a vast possibility in interactivity. For example, these Robot Actors created by Carl Pisaturo can not only run off a pre-written program or be controlled by an operator, but they can also interact with their environment as well as with one another, Furthermore, through these interactions, the robots can actually expand their vocabulary and knowledge by learning from their environment.



Then there is also the other aspect of things, that of art of robotics. As discussed in the article "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" by Walter Benjamin, mechanical reproduction of art has been long since in development. However, some artists have taken this a step beyond the norm of simple reproduction and onto actual works of art created by robots. In Monday's lecture, AARON was presented. This robot, programmed by Harold Cohen, does not merely replicate already existing pieces of art, that can be done well enough with the use of a high quality scanner and printer. Instead, AARON's artificial intelligence allows it to creatively devise and paint its own pieces of art. However, this then brings up a very important question: Is the robot actually capable of artistic thought and ability, or is it merely the medium through which Harold Cohen creates his pieces? At this point and level, who is the actual artist? As the technology advances, this line will in all likeliness simply become increasingly more blurred.

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Julie Fair- Week 3- Robotics in Art

The pieces presented this week really opened up a new art genre to me. Prior to this week's lecture I had known very little about the field of robotics as an art form and had had absolutely no idea that this field had developed as far as it has. The one main idea that I took away from this weeks presentations, was how diverse the field of robotics has become. Sure, all the pieces we saw this week can fall under the robotics category, but they all achieve such different things with their use of robotics. Two drastically different uses are Leonel Mora's work, where he designs robots to produce paintings, and the work of the Survival Research Lab, which uses robotics to create a large scale show where the machines are performing. Each uses machines, but to achieve very different final products.




I found it very interesting to see the directions artists are taking with technology. Many are going in suprising ways as with the painting robot. Mora is not only using technology as a tool to aid in his painting, but is actually making it possible for the robot to create the art completely on its own. This is interesting because it appears that for Mora, the creative aspect lies not in the painting but in the creation of the robot. This is a very different focus than that of most traditional art forms. I find this interesting because I feel that it forces me to re-think my definition of "art." And basically it has just made realize exactly how difficult art is to define.
What I have come up with is that the concept of art differs apon one's position. For someone viewing art, the focus is on the aesthetics of the piece and the type of resonse a piece warrants. For the artist, the focus is on the construction of a piece which has significance to the artist.


I think in the case of robotic art, the pieces can much more be seen as art from the creator's point of view. I personally do not find robots, such as the large constructions of Chico MacMurtrie, very aesthetically pleasing, as many viewers might not. However, the artist creates a piece because he or she enjoys it and sees it as significant in some way. I respect this aspect of robotics and find it interesting to see what amazing things these artists are capable of doing with technology.

I thought it was interesting that when talking about one of the artists, it was noted that the government wanted him to come and work for them but the artist refused to. I find it interesting that although some of these artists have the means to make huge profits through the use of their technological knowledge, they have chosen to use their skill for creating art pieces. As I look at some of these pieces I see potential in the machines to do so much. They could be used in medicine to help people or in other industries to make money and I just find it very interesting that these few individuals have chosen to use their skill artistically.



This week, I also really enjoyed the guest speakers I heard present. First there was the Mandelbrot lecture. I went into that lecture really not knowing what to expect, but basically with low expectations, since math does not interest me all that much. But I ended up really liking the presentation. I thought it was very interesting how comfortable Mandelbrot was in speaking about both math and art. I liked that he approached the topic of fractals from both positions and how he included other artists in his examination of fractals from the artistic stance. He pointed out fractals in pieces I would never have noticed before, such as in the clouds and waves of Hokusai's pieces. Visit this site to see his wave painting: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/ukiyoe/fujibig.gif


I also really enjoyed Sean Dockray's presentation, and although he didn't think he was talking much about robotics, I thought his presentation was very relevent to this weeks theme. His work with circuit bending demonstrated a new artistic area where robotics can play a part: music. Certainly circuit bending uses robotics of a sort and it can easily be seen as an art form. It is interesting to see the range of sounds that are withheld from the audience during the normal use of a device. I also thought his idea of certain aspects of humanity as being robot-like was very interesting. Like how he was taking about the way a society functions as being sort of robotic. In a sense, society is similar to a machine. Individuals can effect it, in a sense giving it the parameters by which it will function, but then it takes those parameters and creates something unpredictable, similar to some of the machines we have been examining, such as the work of Joshua Davis: http://www.joshuadavis.com/. I just thought it was an interesting way of looking at society that I would otherwise, never have thought of.

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Nolan Bennett - Week 3 - Inefficiency to breed success

The study of robotics has to be one of the oldest fantasy-driven veins of scientific research, by which fans of 2001: A Space Odyssey or Star Wars have always been enticed by the prospect of an android of sentient mechanical being. This fact alone is incredibly pertinent to the crossbreeding of science in art in that it demonstrates a field in which intentions and innovation make or break the connection.

A good example of such a phenomenon is the work of Stelarc, in which the man proclaims “the body is obsolete.” Depending on the context by which one perceives Stelarc’s work, two different conclusions can be drawn. Were Stelarc intent on his performances being nothing more than the aspiration for science with absolutely no message or commentary on society, it can be surmised that his experiments would be treated as shoddy quackery by the scientific community. Although he has undoubtedly made progress with his bionic arms, faux stomachs and curious multipedal vehicles, it is a grander question still to ask if he has contributed more to science than he has to social awareness of the science and the nature of his queries. Viewing his work in the context of performance art one might suggest he is brilliant, challenging onlookers to consider the importance of appendages and those extensions we use in daily life through his demonstrations and performances.

From this it seems that if an artist-scientist like Stelarc has two goals (one being to push an idea, another being to progress a science) that he will not necessarily succeed at the latter if intent on the former. Looking at other robotic aspirations such as Honda’s Asimo or the Einstein robot, which are considered more in the vein of pure science, it is easy to see how shifting the perspective changes what is expected of the artist-scientist. The beauty of art is that expectations are few, other than those held by fellow artists. In science not only do other scientists expect progress but the public does as well. This is not to say that Asimo is not artistic nor that it does not suggest something about the human form and scientific progress, however its intention as a work of science alone means the creators must uphold the highest levels of quality to maintain integrity as progressive science.

The Survival Research Labs are an excellent complement to this notion of expectations within a context – for someone viewing their performances with the mindset of pure science, how does a buzz-bomb engine or a shoddy 2x4 chucker move science forward? It may be that their inefficient caterpillar robot works poorly to suggest something of the science it emulates, but given a science perspective it is essentially a failure. Perhaps that failure is the message itself; however, in science failures do not continue to get funding and tend to suggest other avenues of experimentation required to arrive at success.

Within the process of scientific experimentation it is consistently important to respect the method of trial-and-error. Just as trying an experiment despite its failures may perpetuate some notion about how we interact in society, a success too can be considered in light of its suggestive contributions to society in lieu of those material. I only hope that the seemingly pervasive mechanical inefficiencies inherent to the artwork of SRL and Stelarc are indicative of more than just a message and that actually brilliant scientists would not perpetuate failure to successfully progress an ideal.

However, this leads us to question what good science entails…

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Jacob Karp - Week 3 - Resenting order and defying bodily limitations

This week’s lectures revealed a very unconventional approach to scientific art/artistic science. The inclusion of robotics and “cyborg-like” technologies in art is one that undeniably branches art and science. The works of STELARC and Survival Research Lab are unlike anything I have ever been exposed to before. Survival Research Lab’s utilizes crude robotic machines and Tesla coils in their crude, violent, mechanized performances. These performances entrance the audience watching it with its explosions and synthetic lightning (tesla coils) in what is seemingly a state of mayhem. These huge industrial mechanical contraptions are the work of Mark Pauline.

Mark Pauline’s creation is aimed to create “resentment towards the forces of order”. The show includes robotic frightful beasts like tyrannosaurus and medusa moving to metal grinding industrial music and during some performances crickets are released into the crowds to induce more resentment as was the aim. I find it interesting that the entire aim of the performance is for the crowd to turn against industrial growth/modernization and technological advances that bring order and structure. I find this interesting because these artistic performances are employing science as an artistic medium but the idea being conveyed is against the very medium of innovation used.

http://www.streettech.com/bcp/BCPgraf/CyberCulture/SurvivalResearchLabs.html

Stelarc, I found equally interesting. His work is all based on “enhancing the body” by using technological extensions (like artificial limbs) and suspension by hooks that pierce into his skin on his back. He feels that the “body is obsolete” and we must move towards enhancing our beings through technology. His ultimate conception is that of cyborgism. He puts his body through intense pain to realize his physical and psychological limitations of his being/body and he then searches for technologies to enhance the body’s abilities. The skin is the divider that separates the soul from the world and by mutilating it through piercing and tearing, Stelarc feels he is dissolving this divider. Stelarc serves as his own subject of his performances. These performances aim to incite thoughts that the body is limited and by introducing technologies we can increase our potential and rid ourselves of limitations. I thought this was interesting because we do employ artificial internal body parts be stronger than we normally would be. Take defibrillator or prosthetics or replacement joints of steel, these things rid the individual of its limitations and don’t compromise our view of the individual as a person. So by integrating technology into our bodies we become stronger (as we become more and more a cyborg being) but we remain a person our soul unaffected and no longer blocked from the world by our skin and bodily limitations.

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/stelarc/a29-extended_body.html

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Duy Phung - Week 3 - Robotics and Art

This week we have witnessed many great things. First it was the excellent lecture "The Nature of Roughness in Mathematics, Science and Art" by "the father of fractals" Benoit Mandelbrot. Second the evolution of robotics and art has developed and advanced during Industrilization discussed by Prof. Vesna. Third Prof. Sean Dockray lectured on robotics and art from his experience and perspective.
In the beginning of his lecture, Prof. Mandelbrot pointed out the nature of the rough and the smooth. While most things we've encountered in real life are rough, the smooth is very rare and most of it exists in mathematics. I was surprised to know that some fractals do exist in nature (the Cauliflower), in architecture (the Eiffel tower or an African village), and in painting (“the Wave” by Katsushika Hokusai). The latter part of his lecture focused on the discovery of fractals, which were involved with a lot of mathematical equations. I’ve got to admit that I didn’t understand about the Brownian loop and cluster and how he came up with the idea of fractals derived from it. However, it was quite good to see one of the greatest mathematicians in person and hear him talk.
In class lecture, Prof. Vesna discussed about the history of industrialization, mostly in America and how the development of robotics has shaped contemporary art. My favorite parts were the Australian-based performance artist Stelarc and the Survival Research Labs (SRL). Stelarc deals with mind-body problem and tries to push the human limit to the extreme. Moreover, he builds machines that enhance human physical ability. Personally I don’t like his work. They don’t look interesting, and I don’t see their practical application. The image of his whole body hanging in the air with the hooks actually piercing through his skin gave me an irritable feeling. SRLs were a different story. Watching their festival show in video was an enjoyable experience. There were all kinds of weird war machines, each with different design, movement, sound, and of course… gunfire power. The atmosphere was terrific and everybody at the show all got excited. I couldn’t help thinking about war video games I had played when I watched it. I called this SRL “art” because their distinguished designs existed not only in paper or computer but in real world, where hard-working designers have successfully drawn the audience together and completely got them through their work. Human-human interaction and human-robotics interaction make the difference.
The interaction between robotics and society was also the topic in Prof. Sean Dockray’s lecture. Unlike other guest lecturers we’ve met so far, Prof. Dockray discussed many interesting topics which many of them were not involved in robotics at all. His experiment on the movement of ants was an example of social interaction. I loved watching these ants moving around and the way the Sean presented his idea on ants’ antenna. From there, he moved on to show us the movement of cash and his $150 experiment. Although the experiment was unscientific, it was a good way to test human thoughts in modern society and human-human interplay. I’m pretty sure we could anticipate the outcome: lottery, throwing money away, buying drinks, and happy ending for all participants. It seemed that society has shaped our thinking and acting behaviors and we in turn have exerted our influence to each other and society.
I was fascinated to figure out that we don’t have freedom at all when we’re driving a car. I always had thought when I got a car; I could go any place I wanted and was pretty much free. I was wrong because as the Prof. Dockray pointed out, we were controlled by traffic light. This is the most obvious example of how robots controlling human beings.

I choose the Soccer Robots to present the idea of how people use robotics to entertain ourselves without any commercial momentum.
I was lucky to be at the RoboCup in 2003, and it was actually entertaining to watch the Soccer Robots playing against each other team. Although the speed was very slow because the Soccer Robots had to sense the ball position and executed their actions on their own, seeing cube-like players on wheels competing lying-dog-like players for the balls was a freshening experience. Colorful and funny players, designers’ reactions, and spectators’ uproar when there was a goal all contributed and gave me a memorial night. To me that was robotics and art all about.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/06/0617_020617_TVrobots.html

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Sara Saadeh, Week 3: Recording History through Photography

This week we studied many different forms of art that incorporate or are greatly influenced by mechanical reproduction. My most favorite form of art has always been photography because of the many ways in which one can minipulate an image to create a wide range of different versions. Just as two people looking at the same scene can interpret it in completely opposite manners, photography allows its creator to sculpt a piece of art from often times a very simple moment captured on film. In some cases they can even tell a story.
One specific artist that did just that was a man named Eugene Atget, who was mentioned in the Walter Benjamin's article, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", for having recorded the history of Paris, France around the 1900's through photography. There is a remarkable truth in the age old saying that "a picture is worth a thousand words" because we can read all about France's history in a textbook, but the reality that is portrayed in a photograph can feed our imagination that much more. It can bring us back to that time and it becomes more alive when we see the people living at that time and the condition of the city in all its rustic beauty. No amount of flowery rhetoric could provide as rich a visual as that of the life captured in a photograph.
Taking a closer look at Eugene's work, he is described as not being interested in the "art photography" movement but his work was a "complusion to preserve natural environments from the destruction already visible in the industrialized northern districts of the city, and, in the same way, images of working individuals may have been made to record distinctive trades before the changes in social and economic relationships already taking place swept them away"(Rosenblum, Niomi). So, he literally used photography as a means to record the history of this very historical city, but in such a way that one can literally look through his photographs and feel as if they are taking a tour of the city. The only perspective he used in these photos was that of a person on foot, which added to personal feel of the photos. He also used toner which brought out a lot of detail in his photos and created an old looking feel as well, which is what I get when looking at them. On one of the websites I researched, they compared his photos to that of the same buildings as they look at present day. It is quite remarkable to see the difference in the two as if you can see time pass by through the pictures.

It was very interesting to see that Eugene Atget disregarded most of the rules of photography to use it as a tool for a project he felt compelled to create. But, in this way he was able to create a whole new approach to photography that expanded this incredible form of art.

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/A/atget/atget.html#photographs

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Monica Tse - week 3 - What are the boundaries of art?

Considering the interaction of art and robotics made me think a lot about what “art” really is. If machines, programming, the growth of a garden via electronic technology, among others can be considered art, couldn’t anything be considered art?
The first things that come to my mind when I think of art are drawings, oil paintings, Greek sculptures, and architectural structures. I tend to link “art” with personal and direct interaction between the artist and the art he/she creates, something that the artist expends sweat and blood on in order to create the final masterpiece. For example, the marble statues of the Greek gods must have taken weeks of meticulous and painstaking labor to create, and it took at least a couple of years for the paintings created collaboratively by Reuben & Bruegel to be completed. You can see up close the rounded curves sculptors chose to form or the specific brush strokes painters chose to make. I feel like I am connected with the creator of the piece of art and have a glimpse into the artist’s personal perspective of what art means.

Therefore, when I read about robotic painting, such as the Robotic Action Painter, it was difficult for me to accept it as art. Still not being able to define what exactly “art” is, I saw the paintings created by these electronically programmed machines as straying far from the hand-created works of traditional artists. To me, this was much more impersonal and seemingly uncreative. I saw a piece of metal that was formed to obey particular algorithms that would allow it to draw precise circles and lines; to me, there was no sense of creativity. I guess there were two reasons why I did not view robotic paintings as art:

1) It is directly created by a machine rather than a human. So there is a disconnect between the art created and a living, feeling, unpredictable creator.

2) Because the robots are created via equations and commands, there is no creativity involved; the art created seems to be set in stone with no room for spontaneous alterations.

In my eyes, I saw the robotic process as lacking the ability to alter choices of what is drawn, which is linked to a disconnection from the human soul (something that is crucial to creating art) and the emotions and thought process that come with it. I think it is the direct human involvement that makes me see art as art.
However, the more I thought about the means by which the robot was created, the more I saw that there was human involvement. The artist is the one who is creating the robot which paints the paintings, so in essence, the human person is still the one creating the final piece. He or she chooses what abilities the robot has to create images and so the artist’s personal input is in fact a part of the mechanical piece of metal. I saw more how the robot was simply a middleman between creator and creation. I still don’t know how we can define “art”, and it is still difficult for me to see the art in robotics at first glance, but I better understand how the interfaces meet and mingle

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Juliet Lee - week 3 - Robotics & Art

Attended the lecture put on by IPAM for Benoit Mandelbrot’s The Nature of Roughness in Mathematics, Science and Art. I feel like a lot of what he said went over my head, but I enjoyed hearing him talk about the work he did on fractals and how he had found them before he knew what it was that he was looking at. It must be an incredible feeling to discover something, only to realize that it had been around you for a long while. Mandelbrot also talked about Brownian loops and clusters and islands. I did not understand what this was, but apparently the Brownian Island is created by a looping Brownian Motion function and it creates what looks like a realistic two dimensional island image. He referenced a few artists as well when he spoke of fractals, like Salvador Dali and Katsushika Hokusai. What I think he said was that Hokusai was had fractals in his work in the shadow of the clouds on Mount Fuji. Even though I am slow in connecting the math to the art, I appreciate how these mathematical equations create art. I can understand a function creating a pattern and if you add color it is basically the same as taking a pen to paper. What I do not understand is the work of those such as Stelarc. He declared that the body is obsolete and is now growing an ear on his face and has a third arm. Why is this considered art? He sounds like a scientist who has tendencies towards masochism. In my opinion, art should be able to be appreciated by others and not just the artist. Let’s say that a traditional artist who painted pictures dies and leaves all kinds of work behind in his studio. People could go in there later and see the completed works as well as those in progress and understand what was going on. But say Stelarc dies and someone went into his studio. What would the average person think about the things that he is doing to himself? Maybe the Department of Defense would have to be called in to investigate what was going on like in the case of Steve Kurtz, but more importantly, would anyone be able to appreciate what he did? If I walked into where Stelarc had worked, I would think that this person was mentally ill and probably thought that he could change the human body into a robot and killed himself because he did not understand the complexities of the science. Here I must stop and reflect a moment, because I am always writing how I do not understand something that is considered art. This class has been difficult for me in that I am not the creative type and I have a hard time thinking outside of the box. But it does not mean that I do not know where the artists are coming from. I say that I don’t understand Stelarc and yet I do see the artistic value he could have to some people. I think I have to be more patient with myself and with the artists that we look at in class.

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Michael Nguyen - Week 3 - What is the human role?

If one accepts the idea that digital creations are works of art, then it is reasonable to question who the real artist is. Sean Dockray’s Ameising 1 and 2,500 One Dollar Bills are eye opening works that rely upon formatting acquired data into a visual representation. While the data is supplied by ants or participants of wheresgeorge.com, Dockray is deserving of credit for developing the software behind the animations. This situation isn’t controversial but how about something like this:

The website I used to generate this image was http://automatic-art.net/ using software written by Kelvin Luck. The individual images within the collage were scrapped from random Flickr contributions. All I did was give the program a word (waves) and pressed a button while everything else was automatic. It would now be difficult to decide who the real artists are.

These challenges arise as a result of the industrial revolution where production became automatic and the skill factor was taken out of the equation. In this week’s reading, Walter Benjamin states that the difference between an authentic work of art and a reproduction is the passage of time and change of ownership. In an age where bit for bit copies of digital art can create an indistinguishable copy, his argument no longer holds.

We are then left to question, what is the human element in art that cannot be produced by machine? I think that it’s our ability to perceive ideas and situations in unique ways. What I mean by this is that we can show others how to think about a situation whereas a machine cannot. Dockray saw ants crawling on the ground and made the video which lead us to question whether each ant is an individual or simply a “cell,” a single element, of the whole. Similarly, in photography the artist captures a moment in time yet the manner in which they present it to the audience reflects the unique perspective of the artist. Sure, the camera influences the focus and exposure but beyond that there is no greater meaning which it imparts on the image. In the face of automation and the verge of full artificial intelligence, art still exists. This means that there must be an element that is intangible and irreproducible. As technology advances, so does the specific human element, but machines will forever be merely tools.

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Michelle Baba, Week 3 - Our Third Industrial Revolution

Learning about robotics and biorobotics reminded me a lot of all of the movies that I have seen. Just off of the top of my head:

Data from Star Trek
Johnny 5 from Short Circuit
Terminator
R2-D2 & C-3PO from Star Wars
RoboCop
Inspector Gadget
I, Robot
Bicentennial Man
A.I. Artificial Intelligence

For an even crazier list of movies (since 1980) visit:
http://turtlemeat.com/robot/list-of-robot-movies/4/

… the list could go on forever and the robots vary from those created to help humans perform calculations and various tasks (as in R2-D2 & C-3PO from Star Wars) to human beings that have undergone some sort of severe trauma/body damage and require some reconstruction with mechanical part (ie. RoboCop, Inspector Gadget, and Will Smith in I, Robot). In the case of healthcare, is there a certain point at which we must draw the line, when people are becoming too artificial? Are we going to find a way to prevent the break-down of the human body? I ask this because, at the rate that we are going, with all of the technological advancements and scientific breakthroughs, it seems that we are seeking immortality.
Today, we may not see robots on every corner as often portrayed in many futuristic movies, however, robots have been around for quite some time (after all, the word was coined in 1920). We currently use them to explore outer space, aid doctors while performing surgery, and have invented ways to make them wearable – thus “improving” our very own bodies. As seen below, even prosthetic legs, have been consistently improving throughout the years.




One of the current trends in design are exoskeletons to makes us faster, stronger, etc…


And the latest creations, which, quite frankly scares me (since it is available to the public) is the Land Walker. It’s gigantic, and it has a machine gun attached to its side…





for more information, visit:
http://www.gizmag.com/go/4004/


or to watch it in action on youtube: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/robots/wearable-robot-suit-complete-with-side-mounted-gun-for-sale-191651.php
I know it’s a little forward thinking, but what if one day we are virtually indestructible? (I’m sure there must be at least one movie about something like that…) Who knows, maybe one day in the future (when people have robots to do work for them and everything is automatic) this era of robotic-design will later be referred to as the Third Industrial Revolution…

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Annie Wu- Week 3

It is definitely really interesting to see how art has transitioned from being traditional and realistic to being industrialized and robotic. This great shift reflects the changes in cultural values, as well as, the constant motion of art. The Industrial Revolutions really spurred these changes in art, as there were the assembly lines and new technologies. It’s funny how things that we would have considered earlier simply to be purely functional or mechanical can now also be categorized as artistic.


Kinetic art is a great example of this transition of artistic values. Sculptures had traditionally been used to glorify the human body, or public figures. They were usually carved from marble or cast from bronze; basically, sculptures were made from heavy and durable mediums so that their monumental size and significance would stand out to the viewer. However, this is not the case for kinetic art. In kinetic art, the sculptures have moving parts, and are composed of different materials. They are machine-like, and their motion is provided either through natural forces or mechanical means.

Marcel Duchamp’s “Bicycle Wheel” was the first kinetic sculpture. His sculpture is also a readymade, meaning that the parts of his sculpture were already made and available to him—all he really did was stick things that were already created together. “Bicycle Wheel” is just a bicycle wheel attached to a stool. Both these items are so common and were probably made from assembly lines in factories. This leads me to question then, “What is art?” If Duchamp is able to create “art” with such everyday, manufactured objects, then is there really such a thing as a standard for art? Couldn’t everything be considered as art then?

It’s also interesting to me how robotics is considered to be an art form now. New technologies are constantly being more and more developed, and even though something such as robotics may not seem to be inherently artistic, it really is, because it forces people to look at the world in different ways. To me, “Robotic Chair” is a really cool example of how robotics and art can go hand in hand. This chair randomly collapses, and after it falls apart, it manages to autonomously pull itself back together. It is a robot because of its ability to self-assemble and it’s computer “brain.” Simultaneously, it is an art piece because of what it demonstrates and represents.
Robotic Chair

While I do think that robotics and industrialization have without a doubt helped art to achieve new levels of creativity and expression, I’m not so sure that these new technologies have only affected art in a beneficial way. From robotic and artistic creations such as the “Telegarden,” it seems as though these new technologies can make society more impersonal. Rather than interacting directly with the garden itself, people are communicating through the Web. Even though they gain this new technology and method of communication, they are still losing the personal aspect of this activity. They don’t get to enjoy directly working with nature and have instead become more caught up with technology.

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Kevin Yackle - Week 3 - why we need art to need robots

After listening to the talks and lectures this week about the integration of robots and art, I thought that using robots in art could allow artists to do things that are truly unique. The reason I thought so was because of the diversity of robots in our culture. Robots can mean so many different things:

1) in one sense robots are the epitome of the advancement of our society. Showing how we have progressed. I think a good example of this is how in movies the scenes of the future are always filled with robots. It seems that in our society, we judge societal progression now based upon how advanced our robotics is getting.

2) Robots could also represent the laziness of our culture and our cultures movement to mass production. Robots are necessary for businesses and factories in order to mass produce consumer products. In this sense, robots have replaced humans as workers and I think that robots represent how our cultures has adapted and changed, allowing robots to do jobs that people would not necessarily want to do. I can see how this could be both good and bad.

3) I also think of robots as representing destruction. Robots have been in TV shows where they battle in gladiator style arenas to the “death”. Robots are also used in combat now. It is interesting to think that a war now constitutes people pushing buttons to shoot missiles and flying drone airplanes.

In these three senses I think it reveals how closely robots have become integrated within our society and in some senses represent how advanced our culture is. However, what they mean exactly changes depending upon their context. They can represent advancement and death; it just depends on when and where they are being used. Because of the ambiguity of their relationship with society, I think that they are perfect thing for artists to explore in order to perhaps more thoroughly investigate this relationship.

Stelarc is a good example of an artist who is investigating this relationship. He does the bodily transformations with robots and has even gone as far as to say that the human body is not necessary. I think that this is definitely an extreme considering that artificial intelligence is such a controversial subject, but HUMAN intelligence is definitely no controversy. But I think that Stelarc is a good example of an artist who is using robots in order to explore their potential and explore their relationship with humans.

Another good example is the survival research labs. Their giant shows which are very violent show the potential of robots to create massive amounts of destruction. It is interesting because they are building these enormous and advanced robots and then just using them to destroy each other. SRL is basically exploring how robots are considered an image of how advanced our society is, but then they are also exploring how these advancements can be used to create our own demise.

When I was searching online for interesting things about robots, I came across this interesting website that is very satirical. I really got a kick out of it and I thought that it was a perfect example to back up my arguments here. The website is: http://www.iamlost.com/features/robotporn/ This website is a fake porn site that instead of men and women depicts robots. It just seemed so funny to me because as a society we envision robots as the image of our advancement and because of this we are constantly associating and integrating robots in our society. This website reminded me of the show the Jetsons where they have robots as maids. Perhaps they even had robots as sexual objects? It seems so ridiculous, but that is why I think it is so perfect. To us today it seems ridiculous, but who knows, in the future perhaps robots will become such a strong part of our society that website like this will no longer be jokes.

I think that robots are a good art technique for artists to explore because there is such an ambiguous relationship between robots in our society. All that can be definite is that robots are an integral part of our society and that we envision them to become more and more important in the future. The relationship with society is constantly evolving and our society needs artists to explore robots in order to help reveal what we need to be excited for and to fear.

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Boris Lipkin - Week 3 Robotics and Art

For this week's blog I would like to address three different topics: one brought up by the reading, one brought up by Victoria, and one by Sean Dockrey. It seemed to me like the four sources that we had this week gave a comprehensive view of the industrialization of art but each focused on completely different ideas and topics.
From the reading entitled The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin certain sections on the authenticity of photography and film really interested me. On page seven, the article states: “From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the ‘authentic’ print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice—politics.” I really disagree with this analysis of photography. While today even a negative is hard to find, the importance of authenticity for photography, and art, is still very vital. In an age where magnificent works of art can be drawn on a computer and a photograph can be edited to increase contrast, change the cloudiness of the sky, or change dozens of other things, the definition of authentic photography has shifted to mean “without or with minimal computer touch ups.” With this new definition, finding the moment and taking an authentic picture of it under the correct settings has remained something that takes skill, patience, and sometimes a bit of luck just like many of the older art forms.
At least to me, film and photography are the only art forms to have been created since the industrial age that can be classified along the lines of the artforms created before that. The advancement of photography and film has made it possible for everyone to create great works of art even if they are not artists by trade. However, the other forms of art that Victoria brought up in class did not really qualify as that for me. In his article, Benjamin sometimes used beauty interchangeably with art and I tend to mostly agree with that definition. The magic that art creates is through its beauty and awe of its viewer. That’s why I, personally, don’t consider the Survival Research Laboratory or most of the other works that Victoria brought up in class as art. Until robots can draw like Sonny does, in I, Robot I really can’t see their products as art.
Moving on to Sean Dockrey’s lecture, I would first like to say that I found a lot of his projects very interesting and creative. His art, just like Steve Kurtz’ and Victoria’s is definitely a product of the late 20th and early 21st century as the mediums through which he makes art were simply not available even 50 years ago. Looking back at Sean’s, Steve’s and Victoria’s work what stands out to me in it is that all of it is based on interaction with the viewer or more often the participant. While the forms of art that we are used to are the artists interacting with you by showing you an image, a sculpture, a video, artists in the 21st century are creating art that depends fully on its participants in order to be art. Thus a lot of the art that’s being brought up in this class is more of a social analysis making the human mind its medium instead of a canvas or a roll of film.

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Cui H. Cao--Week 3--Robot?

"They're crazy... the fire, the noise, and the fight...what is the sense of building these robots and making them fight with each other?"

I was confused.

However, right after my words dropped on the ground, I realize that my critics were offensive.

What is Art?

There is no definition, but ways of understanding.

Struggling... for knowledge.

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Kelley Lonergan - Week Three

During third week, I was more interested in what was talked about in section rather than in lecture. It seems that what we talk about in lecture always brings up the question of “What is art?”
So, what is it?
Whatever her purpose was, the statuette Venus of Willendorf has been dated back to over 22,000 BCE, over a thousand times older than our current ages. If “art” has been around so long, and we still have yet to decide on a clean-cut definition, perhaps we should start believing that art really is indefinable.

As we sit and try to place labels, artists of today are literally stretching the indefinability of art to infinite lengths. During section, a few kids in the class complained that Casey Reas’ work was not truly “art.” A computer cannot be used for art. A simple screensaver cannot be praised. Beauty has to at least come from some amount of effort.
If we could travel back in time to about one hundred years ago, I bet we could find a similar argument used against some of the very first daguerreotypes. A photograph could not really be art, it was a form of cheating, a painting without skill. I am sure some people of today would still agree with that statement. Followers of Cartier-Bresson or Mapplethorpe would probably say otherwise.

In section, we looked at Sol Lewitt’s “Sentences on Conceptual Art.” We elaborated on one sentence that really struck a cord: Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution. I have agreed with this statement for many years, but only now have our paths collided. A friend and I always argued about our tastes in art: she liked strictly classical art, but I did not mind a little bit of modern. She could not bear to look at a Rothko, and could not comprehend what I saw in Magritte, but yet we still shared a favorite time period, the Baroque. She preferred a painting of a tree that perfectly resembled its subject to a mediocre rendition that perhaps used a new technique, or made a statement. Who is to say What Is Art? To be honest, I find the Mona Lisa kind of boring, but that does not mean I will try to criticize the world’s most famous painting.

I am interested to see what people’s reactions are to Sean Dockray’s lecture. I found his presentation fascinating. Some might argue that Sean’s degree in engineering from Princeton has become a waste based on his current profession, but how could that judge that? I am sure people will criticize his work, stating that is not art, just playing with toys. But how can one judge against how clever his pieces were? I may be somewhat biased, again, because I knew someone in his Pack-Man video, but Dockray’s work is undeniably interesting and engaging. We need to open our horizons to what could be the future of art.
Explosions thrill me as much as ancient Greek black-figured vessels, but I cannot complain. Art is art is art. Sometimes comprehension does not always denote skill and beauty. And vice versa.

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jose fernandez, week 3, robotics

This week’s topic on robotics and industrialization impacted the world was by far the most interesting yet. It was interesting to think that robots are considered pieces of art. I never would have believed that art would consist of machines doing things men programs them to do. One aspect of robotics I can designate as art is the process that is involved in creating a robot. Beginning with the artwork design of the model, an artist must become innovative and curious about his artificial human machine. Then the in between process of bringing the robot into form and life becomes the task of an engineer whom can be called an artist in his own right. Just like a painting takes time and patience, a robot requires the same effort. Artists are out to provoke the public eye and robots do this well. They give a look into the imaginary world which can only be seen through science fiction movies, cartoons, and books. They make the audience feel as if they are in another world far apart from their own. I have never been around personally to witness a show put on by robots like the people at survival research lab but from what I have seen in the videos and pictures of the machines I was amazed by the marksmanship and precision that went into them. The shows are amazing and fairly violent. My take on the reason as to why do such a violent show is to demonstrate how humans are becoming killing machines through warfare and destruction of our own humanity and off all other species in this planet.
It is amazing how far industrial technology has come. Robots would not have been possible if not for the first industrial revolution and the progress it has made since. The intro of electricity and the innovative assembly line gave way to what is used now to make robots. These industrial sectors are required for the creation of robots. With out electricity they would not be able to move. There has to be a process for building these robots, just like a car. There is a designated engineer for each of the parts required for the robot. The computer was also a key component. The computer is responsible for giving the robots a “brain” that can store every movement that the controller gives it. The controller thus controls the robot through electrical signals.
A look into the future world of robotics can give people chills. It may be possible that within this millennium the world is going to be operated by robots instead of humans. The creation of highly intelligent robots, like “Aaron-robot painter”, may displace humans and will soon create a mechanical world where many robots can be programmed to do even the most difficult tasks, even those out of reach for humans today. Soon enough robots will be take control of the world and humans will not be able to control them anymore. This looks like the story line of many science fiction books and movies. The dreams of these visionaries might just become a reality.

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Anna Marks - Blog 3

I thought this week’s topic was very interesting and thought provoking. I’ve never considered robotic creations as art but after viewing the presentations from this week I look at robots differently now. I think the Survival Research Lab is a very interesting group of guys that have taken their creative minds and created a new form of art that provokes people’s thoughts and reactions differently than other types of art.In discussion we talked about the meaning of art and what we thought the definition of art was. I agree with the statement that art is the outcome of any creative process but I also think that there are some limitations to art. I think that anything can be art; a photograph of a shoe or a box placed on a table in front of a red painting. However, I think that the quality and interpretation of the art depends entirely on the viewer. Art has a different meaning and provokes different feelings for each person that looks at it and they can interpret it however they want. The audience can agree with the piece or performance or they can disagree, but I think that anything can be art and people shouldn’t discourage and disagree with the fact that it is art. My friend went to Italy last quarter to go to an art school and at a club one night a group was doing a performance and the show consisted of dancing naked for 20 minutes, then having the main dancer perform a enema on themselves. When I first heard of this I was completely discussed and couldn’t even fathom how this was considered art, but my friend thought that it was an interesting way to express oneself and went into a lengthy description of the meaning and purpose of the show. This just shows how different people can appreciate different types of art.
When I first heard and saw the performances done by Survival Research Lab I was disturbed and surprised because I thought it was just a violent, destructive show and I didn’t really think about the meaning behind it. However, as I thought more about it I realized that the purpose was to expose people to the violence that is going on in the world today. The purpose was so surprise and disturb people, but the purpose of that was to shock people and make them realize that the world is not perfect and pleasant, but that there is a harsh and violent side to it. It took people out of their comfort and safety zones to get them to think and express themselves out of their usual ways.
I think a lot of people don’t consider these performances art and I would disagree with them completely. They creating masterpieces out of garbage and used materials in order to put on a show for the public to express their feelings and beliefs. I would say this is almost the definition of an art show, maybe not the traditional art show, but it definitely epitomizes the purpose of art performances.
I found some really interesting sights that promote a different side of Survival Research Lab and help to clarify the purpose of the shows.
http://www.streettech.com/bcp/BCPgraf/CyberCulture/SurvivalResearchLabs.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4609876

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Section 4 Week 3

I was kind of disappointed by the speakers this week and i hope no one takes offense to this. There is one reason why I didn't like Mr. Mandelbrot's and a few why I didn't like Sean's. I came into Mandelbrot's lecture with very high expectations. It was my impression that he would speak very elegantly about the artistic beauty of his set and while he did do that to a degree by showing appilcations of it and "fractal ideas" in artwork and what not, I thought it didn't have the levity or pep that I had expected from it. As for Sean, I felt he didn't put much effort into it. He had a long list of movies and so he didn't have to take up the time himself, and he didn't really talk about the topic at all; he just BSed a connection between our topic and his like a junior high schooler BSing literary analyses and their own. He spoke about his own works and then tied the beginning and end (kinda) to our topic. Circuit bending is interesting but not robotics. A political statement about how traffic lights make robots out of people is about robotics but not a connection between art and robotics. I know I'm being very critical so let me say this. I liked his art because he was very creative and had interesting ideas which is what his lecture was about. However, it just wasn't connected to our topic.
Okay, that being said, I think it's really hard to look at something and decide how much it is art and how much it is science. The reason I say this is because science in art is very much the same as science itself. Take Stelarc for example. While he makes explicit art pieces like "Blender" or "Stomach Sculpture" much of his art pieces represent the frontier of technology. For example, he has created several machines that read skin surface signals produced from nerves to both control and be controlled by technology. However, at the same time, in Japan, the same method has been developed to create a healthcare bodysuit that can double the wearer's strength. (see picture of HAL)
Several scientsts would like to create a prosthetic ear as Stelarc has envisioned but in many ideas, scientific and medical morality are bringing into question this project (as he wants a third ear). Finally, his "Prosthetic Head" project which can reasonably answer all things an "interrogator" says has another name in the scientific commnunity--artificial intelligence. As technology becomes a larger part of the art world, art seems to become a huge part of the science world; breakthroughs in one become synoymous with breakthroughs in the other. Given there were a lot of things that Fuller said in his article, I think one of the things that really struck me was when he used the analogy of horse inbreeding to explain why specialization is detrimental to our society. He said, "We can develop faster and faster running horses as specialists...but in doing so we breed out or sacrifice general adaptability." It occurs to me that this mixing of groups just forms a new group and so as the line is blurred between the art and technology world to bring about a new "technoart," we produce a new arena of specialization. Then we will wish to think outside the box so that we can look to other ideas so that we can be no longer specialists but well rounded people. We will say that people who specialize in technoart are as closed minded as the scientists and artists who refuse to intermingle today and so we will join two other areas of study and then continue doing so until we have an all encompassing subject of technosocioartisticscienligiosophiclinguilaw. Going back to Fuller's quote, we will be, even then, considered "unadaptable." Think of how much we miss out on by thinking there are only these specific groups that we can study. Science, art, religion, history, language, they are all as diverse as technosocioartisticscienligiosophiclinguilaw but we will continue to criticize our specialization in specific groupings and call ourselves closed minded or specialized and not well rounded or "adaptable." There is much to what Fuller says, though, as stereotypes are perpetuated as to who is what and as people play into these stereotypes by becoming introverted and uninteresting.
I suppose I should be ending this as I'm about to hit the word limit but from this lesson, I think I understand now that art is moving into all realms of science, helping to develop it rather than threaten it. I've always felt like there couldn't be an artist more versed in the nature of physics than me but now I realize we're all scientists. An artist's creativity helps us think outside of the box and imagine better worlds.

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James Zavala - Week 3 - Robots

This week’s talks were definitely not as interesting as last weeks were. The readings on the other hand were very interesting although it didn’t teach me specifically about art but other things about it. I liked the fact that there was a reading dedicated to stating that people will not grow without the mentality of stepping out of the box. It begins with a wonderful analogy of someone using the piano top as life raft and that although it might work for that situation it would not be wise to make all boats in the shape of a piano top. Its body led to the conclusion (at least the one that I picked up) that there will be no progression if those engineering the necessary objects do not work together and off of each others ideas. The process of creating should not have a pattern to be followed or have a set rule or limits; it should be a process of creativity and ingenuity.
The other article was very redundant. I felt that its point was something that is original and not made by the hundreds is beautiful, pure and authentic. The point of the story was very true; anything that is made by the big quantities looses its self and individuality. It no longer is a beautiful piece to appreciate being the fact that there are so many that they become repetitious and boring. As dumb as it may sound, my liking is very parallel to this thought although it is difficult to find things that are one of a kind nowadays. (But I digress) I completely agree that things that are made only once are more special but in today’s world with the needs and fast pace making something unique for every individual may not be the best method.
This leads to the talk about the Ford assembly line and how everyone becomes robotic in the process of creating. Although this may be true the creativity of utilizing math, statistics physics and the like to create such ingenuity is remarkable. I definitely would not say that the Ford assembly line is something that could be considered to be art. This could also be said about the printing press. In section it was mentioned that art is a very difficult thing to define but it could be seen that it is defined by its intention. If something is created for the purpose of entertainment it may be considered art oppose to something that it created for practical purposes. In that note many things are definitely art but others may still be ambiguous.
Concerning robotics, the things that were demonstrated may be considered art although they may not be aesthetically pleasing to me, they could be the most beautiful thing that the Joe sitting next to me has ever seen. The idea of cybernetics which stems from being the dictator to me seems a bit weird. It is not something that I understand or really care for, but nonetheless it does not mean that it can not be considered art. Chico Mac Murtrie is someone who created pieces which I appreciated because they are things that can be appreciated for just that they are. It was not looking at the process although the process does not have to be ignored but the final product can be appreciated for what it is. Cohens was very interesting; he created a robot that would paint for him. The pieces that the robot created were very pretty but to able to create the robot is what I would appreciate most from the whole ordeal.
I don’t like nor understand how Sterlac and the presenter from Wednesday could be considered an artist, but needless to say I am not stating that they are not. Only because I don’t understand it, does not mean that it is not art. The whole hanging yourself with hooks, growing an ear on your arm or making weird sounds from circuit bending is not really up my alley. Nonetheless, I will not neglect the fact that others may appreciate it for what it is and it may be the most beautiful piece of art that they have ever encountered. It goes back to old saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
I found a link where they bring up the topic of Sterlac. Here it is.

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Derek Ganong - Week 3 - Invariances, Time Travel, The Eiffel Tower, and Evolution.

I was one of the few attendees to the Mendelbrot lecture who was under the age of 50. While a lot of what he said went over my head, a good deal of it did sink in and started to mean something to me. When he started talking about the smooth and the rough (or irregular as he said it should be called) I was thinking to myself “so things are defined by what they are not, so what?”. As he progressed through this topic he repeatedly spoke about something called an “invariance”. As far as I could gather, an invariance is a function that remains unchanged under any transformation (ie: a fractal). He gave some examples of fractals and people who came before him that would have had to have some concept of scale invariance because of their work. Such examples were the formations of African villages, Salvado Dali paintings, Katsushika Hokusai paintings, and the Eiffel tower (in its initial conception). I particularly liked the brief section on perspective in the lecture. He presented the audience with a picture of what appeared to be a 1X1 foot (or so) plot of sand. The next slide put a person on the sand to show scale, and it was apparent that the size of the plot was on the order of several tens of feet across.
With respect to invariance, I tried to identify things that were both functions and that did not change with transformations off the top of my head. On of the first things that crossed my mind was the concept of time. I know that time does not change in its value, but I do know that intense gravitational pulls or speeds close to the that of light can alter times properties. So I searched for any information that had to do with both time and invariance and I came across the following website:

http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/VVC/theory/timereversal.html


According to this website, not only is time reversal mathematically possible but the collisions between particles is invariant. “This invariance is exact in strong and electromagnetic processes, but not in weak interactions. It is broken in the same processes that break the combined invariance symmetry” So I then came across another invariance and set about determining what it meant.

http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/VVC/theory/chargeconjugation.html

On this website I learned that “invariances, in particle physics, are relationships between different processes.” In simpler terms: the invariance here states that all particle processes are identical to those processes that are mirrors of the processes (all the particles are replaced with anti-particles (all charges are opposite)). In terms of time concept, this means that reverse time is possible with antiparticles undergoing the same reactions that regular particles undergo. The rest of the information regarding this was very high level physics and I did not spend the time required to figure it all out, but I plan to look back over it later because it particularly sparked my interest.

Another topic that go me going this week was the cybernetic and robotic artwork of Stellarc and his mantra that “the body is obsolete” From what I gathered from his website, Stellarc believes that the human body is impotent in its stagnant evolution and that cybernetic augmentations are needed to remain effective in the biological scheme. I happen to strongly disagree with Stellarc in this respect. I think that the human body is one of the most astonishingly tough and well adapted things that biology has produced. Our dexterity combined with our brains has led us to mount insurmountable odds and not just survive, but excel over all other creatures. Through my researching the feats and effectiveness of the human body I came across one astonishing instance here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1804668.stm

In this instance, a bipedal human has beaten a quadrupedal horse in an 80Km endurance race. I don’t know what more Stellarc would need to see to be convinced that the human body is capable of far more than it seems. I believe that the human brain is our most valuable asset. Mental toughness can overcome most physical limitations and allow a level of planning and autonomous action that a robot could never have today. In fact, the majority of military training involves building up a soldiers mental toughness. I don’t see why Stellarc would want a second ear or a third arm if it inhibited his dexterity or capacity with the ones he was born with. In regards to human evolution, Stellarc’s attempts at moving it along are a moot point because cybernetic implants are not heritable and, with modern medicine and health care, wont effect any kind of sexual or natural selection.
That being said, I admire Stellarc for his work with the practical side of cybernetics. One such project is his goggles that he is attempting to help blind people see with. This could very well be the next big thing in modern technology and medicine: full appendage or joint transplanting and an artificial means to help those who cannot see, hear, or speak regain those senses through robotic aid.
It just irks me when someone says something so presumptuous just to get a reaction out of an audience. (which he did!). Stellarc has a very noble cause both in the name of technology and human improvement. I think he should capitalize on that instead of on sparking emotions with one-liners.

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Zara Feeney- Week 3- Robotics and art of the future

In this lecture we learned about how many things influenced the want to use robotics in art including the industrial revolution, Henry Ford’s idea of the assembly line, as well as the second industrial revolution which included electronics.
Throughout the history of Modernism, art has made many dramatic impacts on society. One of the most emphatic movements of Modernism was the Constructivist and De Stijl movement. Constructivist and De Stijl effected politics and social life of the early 20th century in a similar way to contemporary art today.
Constructivism was an especially political art movement in Russia, as it was pre-revolutionary and contributed to inciting political up rise among the proletariat. De Stijl in the Netherlands was political in the way that it expressed a desire for political and social change to achieve a more utopian order in society. Varvara Stepanova’s constructivist costume design is in my opinion the most intriguing example of avant-garde’s desire to bridge the gap between art and life. His rigid costume design was intended to make a uniform society whose ideals were all the same. Stepanova insisted that once art and life could become connected, this utopian ideal could be achieved. If Varvara’s theory was correct, this teaches us now that our society has come no closer to utopia than society of Varvara’s time. Constructivism remains as an example to current society of art’s power to invoke political and social change. In many ways, art today still serves the same purposes.
The Bauhaus group also wanted to reunite creativity with the industrial world by training mainly in industry and handicraft as opposed to drawing and painting, which the academy preferred. This group wanted to unify many different types of art. In his essay, “The Theory Organization of the Bauhaus movement,” Walter Gropius claims that“ the ultimate, if distant goal of the Bauhaus is the collective work of art—in which no barriers exist between the structural and the decorative arts” (311). An artist must know how to stray from traditional techniques and realize a groups potential by gaining new forms of expression. He, as well as others in the Bauhaus movement, believed in the power of a collective effort. He believes that “Only an apparent unity can be achieved if many helpers carry out the design of a single person” (313).
According to the Bauhauists, collaborative work is the most effective when a group agrees on the same ideas of expression. Everyone involved must understand the same principal theme intended for the piece. The group must work harmoniously so the collective effort can become stronger and can have more of an impact than an individuals work. Gropius feels that this group force or spirit “creates for itself a new life other than the life of nature”(313).
Also integrating art and life, Rivera, who led the mural movement in the 1920s and 30s, used mural art as a public, idealogic and didactic propaganda for the proletariat. In his mural Detroit Industry (1932-33), it is clear that Rivera is attempting to analyze mass product assembly, make a statement about the working class ( the worker and the work should be united, and not in an assembly line), give a public message about technology either being good or bad, and use past and present cosmology. This mural is divided horizontally into three sections, the top one medium size, the middle one very narrow and the bottom one the largest. The top section has two simple human forms lounging symmetrically in the foreground, and has five hands ( of different skin tones and ethnities) protruding our of a rock like form. In the next panel, there are a few of earths basic elements that represent the connection between past and present cosmology. Lastly, in the lowest and largest section, Rivera paints a assembly line and a factory using a compilation of angular forms and an endless line of restless workers. In this chaotic mess, there is only one point where thhe viewer can depict a small red car in the distance. There is a separation of the work from the worker, because in an assembly line, a worker can only see what they are making, but do not know what the end product is.

This Website provides a lot of information that explains what artists today are making. http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2002/03/51058

In society today, art serves the purpose of answering the question “what if?” Contemporary artists present new ideas to push the limits to shock, amaze, and otherwise make an impression on society. In a sense, art does and always has attempted to be beyond society in the way it tests the boundaries of what is acceptable and will eventually grow to be accepted.

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Claire Benson - Week 2

Although I admittedly don’t know nearly enough about the specifics of the ratio, I think the formation of a spiral, seen in countless natural forms, is one of the most interesting examples of the link between mathematics and nature. I’ve used the idea of the Golden Proportion in my work before, but am really curious to know more about the particulars of exactly how it’s formed. In one of the videos we saw in class, this was explained and drawn out, but I think I’d need to go back and watch it again to really understand how it works (and, to be perfectly honest, not having taken a math class in three years probably wouldn’t help my attempts).

Personally, I think that technology’s relationship within the interplay between math and nature is rather secondary as a human (and specifically modern human) construct, but interesting nonetheless when exploring such a complex subject matter. Technology from the very beginning has been a way for mankind to harness nature and impose efficiency on the world around us, so I think that placing it within the discussion of math and nature makes for a slightly convoluted relationship. Also, I think that one of the downsides of efficiency is its propensity to categorize and alienate. If thought about in terms of C.P. Snow’s article, the need to make everything efficient is one of the foremost problems with regards to specialization in schools and, therefore, lack of interdisciplinary learning.

Casey Reas’ “drawings” were incredibly beautiful and I loved that he was able to create these organic, whimsical forms purely from the application of equations. He really was a perfect guest lecturer to have as his work spoke to the intersection between all of the many disciplines we have been examining. I found myself wondering if he had ever tried working with sound or other mediums, because the scientific nature of his process seems well equipped to be solid format for shape and media experimentation.

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Julie Fair - Week 1 - Cultures of Art and Science

Professor Vesna has taken an entirely new angle on the concept of culture. It is one that I never payed much attention too before. Now, however after only one week in the class, I have realized the validity of her approach to the concept of the division and distance between the arts and sciences. Now I definitely have come to realize that the division between the two is very real. I have found that the points professor Vesna has raised make perfect sense to me, it is only that I have never payed attention to the topic specifically before. I found the piece my C.P. Snow exceptionally relevant to the central theme of the class and found it to be very explanatory. After reading it I felt that I truly understoond the emphasis of the class and found it be a good tool for demonstrating the direction in which I should direct my effort in the class.
I also found the Snow piece especially interesting because it was written from the perspective of a British scholar. It was very interesting to hear the argument he made about the two cultures in general, and then to look at the comments he made about the situation in Britain specifically. I personally thought that many of the statements he made about his own country were highly relevant to our situation, in the U.S. in general, but also on our campus specifically. This division is so evident on the UCLA campus and pervades so many aspects of our lives as students here. It is present, even in the very design of the campus, with the division of "North Campus" and "South Campus."
This class has specifically made me realize the degree to which this division has become a rivalry. I had never really looked at it this way previously. But now I am beginning to see the rivalry in many everyday situations. I have noticed the difference the most in my GE courses where you get people of both realms coming together. I have noticed in conversations with people from both ends of the campus that people from each culture definitely seem to exhibit a sense of pride about their side of the school. It is rare to find a person from the sciences that is highly enthusiastic about the arts, and vice versa. I found this observation very interesting because I am definitely the type of person that is torn between the two, and pretty much equally enthusiastic about both.
I also found the Steve Kurtz lecture extremely interesting and informative. Going into that lecture I had no idea what to expect. I could not imagine what kind of art he could have been producing that would entail the use of biotechnology. After hearing him speak and present his pieces I understood his work much better and had a more thorough understanding of the type of art we are going to be looking at in this course, something I knew almost nothing about before this. It was fascinating to see the political relevancy of his pieces and the way they forced the inclusion of science in his work and his cooperation with scientists. It was also interesting to see the way it is viewed as so unusual for an artist to be in possision of biotechnology, even to the point of the paranoia of the authorities involved in the Steve Kurtz case. His story was very eye-opening for me.
The article I am attaching is very interesting in the way it is able to capture the way Steve Kurtz innocent actions were so badly misinterpreted. I particularly like the way it mentions this case as a story of the times in which we live because it makes one realize that this really is a product of times in which we are living right now. At no other historical period would we be so paranoid about a situation like this. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8278-2004Jun1.html

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Michelle Baba - Week 2

After this past weeks' lectures, I realized that I had a lot of stuff to research... almost all of the names that were mentioned completely went over my head (as the only people whose names I recognized were Escher and Mandelbrot!). Therefore, I decided that it would be best that I looked up some of the names that I heard and find out a little about them and what they did that contributed so greatly to the advancement of art and science.

When we learned the quote “The further art advances the closer it approaches science, the further science advances the closer it approaches art” by Buckminster Fuller, I did not think much about the man who said it. Later, after I did some research on him, it finally dawned upon me that he was the man whom the Buckyball was named after! Anyways, he was famous for revolutionizing architecture and engineering by creating the first geodesic dome structures (which could amazingly support all of its weight without any internal supports at virtually any size = limitless and efficient). Though the Buckminster Fuller Institute website is currently undergoing some construction (therefore preventing access to some of the information about him), I would highly recommend visiting:

http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/bucky.html

to see the Dymaxion Map of the world, developed by Fuller as the first world projection to show the continents on a flat surface without any sort of visible distortion… personally, I think that it’s completely amazing how he was able to understand geometric figures well enough to be able to literally disassemble them and flatten the “outer layer” into a two dimensional drawing.

(top picture: Richard Buckminster Fuller and

bottom picture: the Montreal Biosphere that he created in 1967)

Here's a an example of his dymaxion map:

Regarding the lecture that Professor Casey Reas gave on 4/11, that was the first time that I had ever heard of Sol LeWitt. I also had to look him up, and found that he was an American conceptual artist and minimalist who created many structures and diagrams/sketches that I actually recognized. (For example, the Four-Sided Pyramid in Washington D.C.) Similar geometric figures are often as optical illusions that are widely available in books and on the internet – resembling many of his structures.

above: the Four-Sided Pyramid

below: an optical illusion (though not quite like the pyramid one that I was thinking of)

On a different note:

I'm pretty amazed that Mandelbrot is coming to our campus tomorrow to speak... after learning about him in my calc class in high school, I honestly thought that I'd never come across his name again (then again, I also never expected to see that same Escher video!). I'm looking forward to seeing him in person and I hope that I can understand at least one thing that he is going to speak about (which is, unfortunately, pretty unlikely...)

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Art and Robotics

Robotics in art is a very thought provoking and inspiring topic. First, it is an interesting merge of science in art in certain respects. It plays upon the idea of not only moving artwork, but the idea of interacting with art or having the audience in a sense play the role of the "artist." In some respects, such as the Telegarden, the designer of the garden only pieces together the framework and the people choosing the seeds comprise the "artists" of the work. In my opinion, not only does this attempt to bridge the gap between art and science but also works to for a higher purpose: uniting people under the principles of both. Robotics in art may be a bridge that helps reveal to the world that science and art must exist harmoniously.

It seems that a general idea that exists in humans is the desire to create a robot that embodies the characteristics of a human. This, to me, shows a duality between art and science. People would argue that the creation of this robot would be purely scientific: a means to create something using a series of mathematical equations for movement and mathematical properties for vision and sound. But is not creating a human out of scrap metal similar to creating one out of oil paints on a canvas? Both are ways to portray a human, yet when identifying a classification one is "scientific" and one is "artistic." I just thought I'd mention this because it relates back to first week.

I thought this picture was very interesting:

It shows where are culture is moving towards. The Telegarden and Sean Dockrey's presentations interested me most this week. Art is meant to spark the mind, make it think, bring about a change within it perhaps. I think the art forms talked about this week excel at making people think or at least getting them involved. I liked the Telegarden particularly because it could bring people together from all over the world with various different backgrounds. It helped unite cultures just as art should appeal to all people.

My interest in these lectures drove me to the STELARC website: http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/, which i found to be very informative and gave me insight into some reasons behind his projects. In fact, in the opening paragraph on his site, he notes that ever since man existed he has been somewhat attached to technology. This is what STELARC explores: the actual attachment of technology to the body. I also found this picture interesting:

I've never really been exposed to new forms of art such as this. In fact, I had never thought robotics to be at all artistic until I found various ways in which they could be used. The first three weeks of this class have really expanded my mind in regards to what can or cannot be art, and the fact that technology and art can exist together, and actually need each other more than I had once thought.

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Christine Dang - Week 2 - Mathematics in Art

On Wednesday, Professor Casey Reas came to present his artwork, created by using a programming language called Processing. One of the questions he received at the end of the presentation really caught my attention. What is it like to work with both programming, an intensely logic-based trade, and art, which most people consider a most definitely non-logical subject. Math and art, two subjects that most everyone agrees are very different and many consider it exclusive. People will refer to themselves as left-brained or right-brained, creative or logical. And yet it is very possible to have both, as seen through this week’s presentations. After Wednesday’s presentation, I decided to do a quick search online for other joint works between math and art, and I discovered much more than I had expected.

The first result was tessellation, an age-old example of art in math (and math in art), that I had actually long since forgotten about. Most everyone learns of this in their young age, looking at images of multi-colored triangles and parallelograms and stylized lizards. It seemed at the time to be so very simple. Take an image, repeat it. And yet in tessellation lay this balance between logic and creativity. There was both a rigid structure and a smooth flow from one image to the next. I found this contradicting balance oh so very intriguing. Even in the earliest example, the Roman mosaics, there was this creation of smooth forms and images through the use of square tiles, a rigid shape.

Others continued in this fashion, such as this image, in which the rigid triangle forms are balanced with the circular rotations of the stingrays.

As I continued to look around online, I came across the website of Helaman Ferguson, a sculptor and mathematician. On his site, he writes of the balance between the two, science and art, and of the mathematics in art. Here he writes “Our society tends to compartmentalize people and professions, maybe with good reasons. Overcoming this compartmentalization has been a continuing battle for me. I refuse to be diminished by being described as just a mathematician, by being described as just a sculptor--I persist in both. Fortunately for me our society is diverse enough to permit both.”

Ferguson’s sculptures are created through a combination of computer programs and traditional handcrafting via hammer and chisel. He utilizes the computer to provide him with “quantitative information.” However, “[his] computer tool position and orientation monitoring system does not do the cutting work, [he does]”. In this manner, Ferguson performs very similarly to Reas, creating works of art through the use of computer programs, which is also that which I am personally interested in, 3D animation and modeling.

Many of Ferguson’s sculptures also have elements involving the balance between the smooth and the rigid, such as the piece called “Ariadne’s Torus,” which admittedly initially caught my eye due to the mythological reference. This piece is at the same time circular and sharp, essentially a hoop with edges, a concept that I am downright fascinated with.

However, I am glad to see that there are many artists who are great proponents of math in art and that the two subjects are not necessarily exclusive and can indeed be used to accent and compliment one another. Furthermore, with the continuing advent of technology, it is only logical that it begins to find its way into all aspects of our lives and culture.

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John "Matt" Ko - Week 2

The two things that stuck most with me after the first lecture were M.C. Escher’s work and the fractals. First on the fractals, when we were watching them in class, I felt like I was watching a computer’s music player visualization mode, like the one in iTunes. The fractals were almost hypnotizing. The formula itself is pretty simple, but to think that it makes something so complex is amazing. However, from the aesthetic standpoint, I don’t think fractals are that beautiful. In fact they’re pretty hideous. Yet, I can’t deny the fact that to an extent they succeeded in combining both math and art.

On the other hand, hearing all about Escher amazed me. His work is so commonplace these days. I’ve seen his work in various art books, children’s books, and even on Family Guy! I was always amazed by the symmetry of his works. And when I see how he makes shapes fit into each other perfectly (e.g. the ducks, the lizards) I wonder just how much work he put into designing those shapes. I know that on at least one occasion I’ve attempted to emulate the geometry he uses, but to no avail. The image of the shells discussed in the video was another great of example of his ability to manipulate shapes. In my eyes he truly possessed artistic genius.

In our second lecture, Casey Reas came as a guest to our class and shared with us his work. He uses programming and I guess what you could call applied mathematics to make is art. He uses very simple commands and very simple mathematical principles and makes art that appears to be much more complex than one would expect. I guess, if you wanted to, you could call it an evolution of sorts, from the simple to the complex. The funny thing is that his work looks so much more beautiful when the program is running than his still image productions. The fluidity, development, and constant change in the piece when the program is running give it a somewhat soothing feeling. This was the case, at least, for the processes he showed us in class. It is no wonder that he was able to use his art form to express the feelings of the concert he was “performing” at. Casey also shared with us what he is doing in the computer science program on campus, and it w