--- Week 10 --- Section 2 --- John "Matt" Ko ---

This week we talked about space and space exploration. The next frontier. A lot has happened in space in the last 50 years. We've orbited the earth, landed on the moon, sent satellites to the outer reaches of our solar system. Because of the all of the advances in technology, so many things that seemed impossible are now very possible. Though there are still many things scientists hope to accomplish, they have already accomplished many things already.

Even before venturing into space, people have been fascinated by the cosmos. Astrology played a huge role in prehistoric and early historical times. People based their lives on what Astrologers could read from the stars. While astrology is now widely accepted as unscientific and often totally fabricated, people in those days took it extremely so seriously that kings sought the advice of the stars before taking any action. And today, though few believe that the stars will guide your life, just about everyone is still fascinated by space.

So much of today's pop culture has been influenced by space. Star Wars, Star Trek, Apollo 13, E.T., The X-Files, and many other movies and TV shows have all been influenced and inspired by space exploration. Many venture to the northern regions of the world, just to see the Aurora Borealis. It is not uncommon for people buy telescopes and go to observatories just to see Venus as large as a quarter. Thats not even that great and people go see it. They buy art and photographs of various planets and galaxies. Just recently, many people have joked about the now-no-longer-a-planet Pluto. People are obsessed with the concept of extraterrestrial life and UFOs. Websites about aliens are widespread throughout the Internet. Anywhere you go today, its very hard to go too long before running into the idea of space.

Just the vastness of space is incredible. Not only that, the universe is so complex that its hard to even pretend to comprehend it all. What Professor Geckelman shared with us about plasma just complicates the universe more! And yet we love it! The idea of plasma creating a network throughout the universe baffled me. I never knew that the universe was so organized, what with so many different galaxies floating and spinning around in what seems to be random patterns. I just assumed things drifted around aimlessly in space. But in reality, plasma and all of the magnetic forces created by it moves the universe. Its amazing!

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--- Week 8 --- John Matt Ko --- Section 2 ---

This week we went over transgenic art and what it implies for society. Transgenic art is what Eduardo Kac calls his projects. The basic idea behind it is the creation of hybrids, though not in the typical manner of crating hybrids. Prior to the great advances in medicine and technology we have today, hybrids were made primarily among plants, and other times among dogs and cats. Hybrid plants are made by grafting different stalks onto each other and on the basis of dominant and recessive traits, things such as seedless lemons and oranges are made. In dog and cats, hybrids are made through the process of interbreeding. Essentially, any non pure-bred dog or cat is a hybrid. However, now that technology has come as far as it has, hybrids can be made straight at the root, the genome. Things that normally couldn’t be made, like hybrids between different animals or humans and animals, can be made. While these hybrids aren’t usually the kind of half-horse half-man you might think, the implications are pretty scary. It may even be possible to create things like centaurs and chimeras someday.

I for one, am not totally against what Kac is doing. Creating a green rabbit using GFP is a great advancement for science. It signifies the fact that we are now able to read the genome, and are on our way to fully mapping the human genome. And the concept isn’t foreign to me either. I had already heard of green mice from my friend in a Life Science class. However, deciding to call it art is the point at which I disagree with Kac. It’s a science experiment and that’s it. Perhaps there is beauty and creative expression in using the advances of science to create something new, but this happens in labs all over the world all the time, but none of these people call it art. To them it is their research, career, or even life’s work. To call Kac an artist would be to call these scientists artists as well. But to these people, this is work to advance science, not to express themselves artistically. So I don’t quite understand how Kac has the freedom to call himself an artist when he does exactly what scientists do.

Another thing we discussed in discussion was the development of actually growing cells into steaks, so that we don’t have to kill animals anymore. This I also feel isn’t art, though I would say it is closer to being art than Kac’s rabbit. I have somewhat of a problem though with doing this in the first place. Mainly because you don’t know about it’s consciousness as a living object. We can’t know that it doesn’t feel pain when you kill it, and if it does, it would be just as cruel as killing any other animal. I don’t have any problem with it myself, but if the issue is the animal cruelty, the problem I think is still there.

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--- Week 6 --- John “Matt” Ko ---

The midterm didn’t turn out as badly as I had originally feared. When I first heard that the midterm was going to be an in class essay, I sort of freaked, but when it came down to it, it wasn’t that difficult to write. The grade I’m going to receive, on the other hand, is another story entirely. --- Week 6 --- John “Matt” Ko ---
I’m just going to use this time to talk about my view of the class so far. I think that the class overall has been an eye opening experience for most of us. A lot of the things I’ve seen in class are new to me, and though I don’t always fully enjoy the things presented, they are still valuable to my learning. One thing I can’t get over is how much I enjoyed Casey Reas work. I have nothing but praise for his work. And I was so lucky to have him show up on the midterm slides! He was probably the first to introduce the whole concept of generative art to me. Before that, I don’t believe I had ever encountered a piece that “made itself.” I hope to someday achieve the same level of fusion between art and science that he did.
However, I also see some things in class as irrelevant to what we are studying. I’m not saying that these things aren’t relevant at all, but I have a very hard time drawing the connections. For example, I don’t totally understand why we were studying artificial intelligence. Maybe if we were talking about the realm of generative art and artificial intelligence’s part in it, then I would be able to draw the line. But when we discuss the current levels of AI, or the different projects currently being worked on, and all of the advancements there, I feel less like I’m in an art class, and more like I’m in a science lecture.
And I still don’t quite understand how Stelarc can be categorized as an artist. To me, his projects and ideas sound more like science experiments than artwork. It seems impossible to me to make the connection between building yourself a third ear and calling it art. Maybe creative expression, but not necessarily art. To me something needs to be visually appealing in some way to be called art. Dance, design, photography, all of these have visual appeal inherent to them. Music would be the exception I suppose, but instead you would have audio appeal. To be frank, there is nothing appealing about Stelarc’s work. Maybe I have more of a conservative view on what is called art and what isn’t, but I guess I can’t help it. I’m very open to hearing explanations of why Stelarc is art, and if the argument is convincing enough I’m willing to accept it, but until then I will still be of the opinion that he is irrelevant to the subject matter of the class. I hope not to offend, but I hold that opinion pretty strongly.


PS So sorry this entry was late, but I've been having inexplicable technical difficulties this evening... :(

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

This week’s topic was one that I found especially interesting. The phrase “the human body as art” brings up a number of images, each resulting from different interpretations of it. One of the first examples we saw in class was the different “sculptures” of the human body, basically without the epidermis, exposing all of the muscles. To me that was a little stomach turning, especially the thought that real people were used to make them. However, there is much to be admired if you think about how far we’ve come in our medical knowledge and abilities. Another example was the visible human project, which left me with the same basic impression as the other, though I suppose this project was done more to use as reference material rather than to present as art. However, we saw in class the example of the movie that someone made, using the visible human project as part of it.
The body as art could also be interpreted as something like dance. Dance uses the body’s natural fluidity of motion to attract the attention of viewers, to impress them. Dance is great because of all of the creative power that goes into expressing otherwise abstract emotions. Mimes are also great examples of this. Also, if you saw the academy awards this year, you would have seen the group of people known as Pilobolus, who used their bodies to portray objects from several movies. I was amazed at their creativity, making a stiletto high heel, a minibus, and even a gun using merely human bodies.
To me, the phrase, “the human body as art,” means just that. I see the living body, the human body, as one of the greatest pieces of art, in and of itself. Being the creationist that I am, I see the body as one of God’s most complex creations. Just reading Ingber’s article instills this awe in me. With everything about how atoms come together with a natural tensegrity to create literally everything, how can you overlook it? And what makes those atoms come together in that way? Yes, the tensional forces cause certain formations, but why is there tension at all? Architects work so hard just to make arches and buildings that don’t collapse or implode. In the same way, I see God putting in that same effort to make atoms doing the same thing, but on the atomic level, and even on deeper levels than that. He puts in the same amount of effort as an architect just to make sure everything keeps stable, not collapsing on itself.

On Thursday we also saw Roy Ascott, and talked with him about networks. Again the internet came up as an important example. Also, we discussed the possibility of things like placing telephones in our head to enhance human to human networking. I guess I don’t really understand how his lecture really applied to the subject of art. Even though he did present some examples of how they related, I guess I didn’t really understand.

For Pilobolus at the Academy Awards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAKlVwTpnNI

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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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