Kyle Cuellar DESMA 9 Blog Spring 2017

Week 8 : NanoTech+Art I have never been introduced to the topic of nanotechnology and art until this week, but the topic is very interesting to me. A man named Eric Drexler is responsible for the spread and popularization of nanotechnology. Everywhere we go today we can see nanotechnology being used in just about every aspect of life. For example our phones use small chip like hard drives to store important information that we hold on our phones. The Scanning Tunneling Microscope invented by Gerd & Heinrich is something that is very interesting. This microscope allows people to view atoms at a surface level up close. Today, this luxury goes for 30,000 dollars. They even received the famous Nobel Prize in recognition of their amazing work. When people think of nanotechnology they probably never think about food, but many companies are developing different nanomaterials that are better for us. This also reaches out into the medical field where researchers are developing way...

Week 7: Neuroscience+Art In this weeks learning we learned how the mind plays a huge role in one humans life. In Professor Vesna's lecture number two she explained how Sigmund Freud in the early 1900's developed the idea that dreams are created in the "unconscious mind". What I found most interesting was that Professor Vesna said that 95% of what we dream is actually forgotten, but where does that go? What I also find very interesting is that even though the unconscious mind is very creative and abnormal, how come we find so many familiar faces or settings from our real life in our dreams? We unconsciously in our dreams attempt to fix things that might be going wrong in our life hear on earth. A team of researches from France at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center discovered why some people forget some of their dreams while others can remember just more than one while sleeping. What they found was that the temporoparietal junction is more active while asleep...

Week Six: BioTechnology+Art During this week I have learned how biotechnology and art truly relate to each other. Biotechnology is technology that utilizes biological systems or living organisms to create products that benefit humans. Over the last decade more and more artists have been giving up their studio suites in favor of laboratories. During this past decade more and more artists have become obsessed with bio-art, "artists have cultivated human tissue, bred frogs, assembled DNA profiles, and used modified bacteria as electric transmitters." (Miranda) One particular thing I found super intriguing was the Audio Microscope that was created by Joe Davis, which allows the user to view a particular living cell while at the same time being able to listen to what is happening with that cell. My favorite example from this weeks learning is from Katy High's Blood Wars. What the blood wars is it is a tournament between the blood of different people, where white bl...

EVENT TWO For the second event that we had to attend I decided to attend Eli Joteva's presentation. At first I was a little nervous going to the gallery because I was attending by myself and second off I was not sure what to expect at all. When I got to the entrance I saw some of my teammates standing outside waiting to go in, so I joined them. When I entered the building I was taken back at how the inside was set up and how the layout made it seem like such a real museum. As I walked around I noticed the theme of the slowly melting spheres that were melting slowly. Each sphere contained different elements and they all had a different melting speed, and were only affected by the room temperature. The main point I took away though from this event is what happened when the area became more populated. Once more people came into the room the heat was turned up a notch and the spheres slowly but surely started to melt a little bit faster. I believe that this events idea was to show ...

My  midterm .