ashaagarwal_DESMA9

WALL·E is a childhood staple in most homes across the country. I myself have watched it so many times I’ve now lost count. The beauty of this movie comes from the idea that a robot, a seemingly simple assembly of metal and gears, is a complex being capable of real emotions like joy, curiosity, compassion, and love (“Character Design”). WALL·E is incredibly inquisitive and finds art and beauty in the objects and trinkets around him, otherwise deemed as trash. Orr, Christopher. “The Movie Review: 'WALL·E'.” The New Republic, 26 June 2008, https://newrepublic.com/article/62739/movie-review-walle. What is so interesting about this movie as well is its commentary on how humanity responds to greater mechanization and the increasing amounts of technology in their midst. In WALL·E, humans use technology and robotics in a negative way, allowing robots to do everything for them and letting their lives pass them by. This film “mobilizes the masses” as described by Walter Benjamin to explo...

I recently attended the first of three From Forces to Forms events and was blown away by the intricate balance represented between the sciences and the arts. The event was centered around the contributions of six artists central to the exhibit being displayed at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery. We first heard from Ellen Levy, the curator of the exhibition, as she introduced the artists that explored the deeper connection between art and science and highlighted the pieces of life commonly ignored (“Pratt Manhattan Gallery”). The first artists who spoke were Adam Brown and Robert Bernstein on their invention mimicking Stanley Miller’s experiment from 1955. I was enamored by how they brought the inanimate to life and could quite literally create life in the flasks shown below (Brown, et al.). A screenshot taken from the meeting of ReBioGeneSys 2.0 by Brown and Bernstein This presentation was followed by the work of Janet Echelman on the laws of nature. Shown below, her masterpiece was an inst...

What I found so interesting this week was the idea that artists feel pushed away from science by math and scientists feel pushed away from art by their draw to math. In reality, math is the big commonality between these two worlds. As we learned in lecture, a unique perspective is that all scientists and artists, regardless of their like or dislike of math, use math intrinsically in their use of computers. In addition, artists use math constantly when it comes to perception, depth, or proportions. Equations are not just for science. As discussed in Flatland, perception and point of view change scenes drastically depending on the viewer, a tool capitalized on by artists (Abbott). Shown below, an artist’s knowledge of depth perception and the related equations allows for a 2D image to appear much more expansive. Surrence, Matthew. “Depth Perception, What Exactly Is It?” The Zenni Blog, 25 June 2020, https://www.zennioptical.com/blog/depth-perception-exactly/. In addition, the inve...

    I am a neuroscience major. I identify very strongly with the persona of a STEM student and my classes are almost exclusively on UCLA’s South campus.  Before this class, I wholeheartedly believed in the deep separation between the arts and the sciences, similar to the idea discussed by Snow expressing the distinction between two primary cultures.  However, through greater reflection on this topic prompted by enrollment in this class and the idea of harmony between the two cultures, I have now realized how much artistic appreciation exists in the sciences and vice versa.  To me, the brain is beautiful.  Not only does it hold the ability to make us thoughtful human beings capable of learning and communicating at a higher cognitive level, but anyone who has seen the brightly colorful images of axonal connections can attest to the beauty in the field of neuroscience. “Can Computers Use Brain Scans to Diagnose Psychiatric Disorders?” Science in the News,...