DESMA 9 FALL 2013: November 2013

Saturday, November 30, 2013

EVENT #4: Natural History Museum

On November 27, I visited the Natural History Museum, unfortunately located directly adjacent to the rivaled university. I have always been in love with animals and so interested in nature and every species of organism, so this trip was very fun for me! The diorama halls of the animals from different continents of the world were, by far, my favorite. The exhibits were incredibly detailed and arranged in a way that the animals were placed in lifelike movements, had realistic terrain, foliage, and other animal props, and had a three-dimensional backdrop that completed the look for a world that seems to actually go infinitely beyond what you initially see in front of you. Each exhibit truly was an artistic, delightful masterpiece that was definitely worth seeing, and also educational if you read the display descriptions like I do.

Look guys, I fed some elk! (;

My other favorite exhibition was the one on gems and minerals. “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”, as the saying goes, though when I walked through this hall, I was glowing with envy by the beauty of every single gem and mineral there. These formations of nature are art forms that are miraculously naturally created by the Earth. Every mineral glistened from the light, and every mineral amazed me, such as the glow in the dark rocks, of course all of the gold, and minerals and gems with very unique designs and shapes to them. The birth stone collection was behind vault doors completely blew me away – the opals (my October birth stone) were composed of collages of every color that shined brightly in the light, and the diamond jewelry was made out of the largest diamonds that I have ever seen, including the largest red diamond naturally formed.

Dinosaurs, who once ruled the Earth, were also a main attraction at the museum. Their bones (both real and artificial) were carefully constructed together to form the entire bodies or portions of a prehistoric species. This is an art to master, especially uncovering fossils that must be identified and carefully cleaned and modeled to form the remnants of what was once a living organism. Overall, this was a very rewarding place for me to attend, since it displays the big picture of the world around us, and preserves many important and fascinating specimens and historical artifacts.

Favorite display!!!

Friday, November 29, 2013

EVENT #3: Hammer Museum

First time at the Hammer!

Living in the heart of Westwood, it is easy to visit the Hammer museum. I viewed the current exhibitions: “Forrest Bess: Seeing Things Invisible”, “James Welling: Monograph”, “Mark Leckey: On Pleasure Bent”, and the Armand Hammer Collection. “Seeing Things Invisible” was an interesting exhibition to say the least, especially since I did not know what to expect when walking inside the room of an artist that I was not familiar with. The paintings at first glance were very abstract, and very plain, with random dots or figures, compared to art that you would normally see and compared to the actual title and description of the artwork. As you continue looking through the exhibit, you notice that Bess had created his own symbols, in which the viewer can decipher by a chart posted at the exhibit, that he incorporates in his artwork that represent different aspects of uniting males and females – their inter-sexuality – in my opinion, an unorthodox topic to base all of one’s artwork on. Bess not only painted his visions, but also experimented on himself in terms of integrating genders.

One of Bess' pieces depicting streptococci; unfortunately, I was not
allowed by the staff to use my camera to take more photos ):

"Glass House" by Welling

Welling’s exhibition portrayed photographs, such as “Glass House” portraying Philip Johnson’s house and living space with sunlight shining through and overlapping filters of the images. Leckey’s artwork was complete with an aspect of technology representing each piece. Flashing, bright, colored lights and shadows dominated his pieces, which represented the effects that drugs have on the mind relative to what you see during the high. The Armand Hammer Collection was very different than the modern art exhibitions that filled the rest of the museum. This collection was filled with famous artists’ original paintings, such as those by Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Rembrandt, Edgar Degas, and others. I believed that this was the most rewarding exhibit to view, because of the prior knowledge and exposure that I have of these famous artists, and the chance to see the actual well-known paintings by these people, which I thought was pretty cool!

Geometric shapes incorporates math in the art

Technology and art of Leckey's art

Van Gogh!

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Blog #8: Space & Art

The notion of space and art is collectively a combination of every theme that we have learned in the class - science, technology, math, nanotechnology, and more. There is a large category of movies, television shows, and novels are based on science fiction of space, apocalyptic Earth, other dimensions, extra terrestrials, evolved humans and other organisms, and/or futuristic technology, such as "Star Wars", "Star Trek", "Elysium", War of the Worlds, and many more. These attract readers' or viewers' attention because they are topics of mystery and curiosity to society.

Neil Armstrong's famous mission, Apollo 11, indicated the first human landing on the moon and return back to Earth, a goal set by President John F. Kennedy. Armstrong described the event as "one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind", as the American flag was planted into the lunar ground. Although, despite the different forms of evidence of footage, photography, and terrain samples, many people question the validity of the mission, believing that an artistic and carefully designed hoax was created to falsify the landing.

The International Space Station has galleries of photography taken of astronauts, their stations, and of masses, planets, and space, from many expeditions. These photos are amazing to view, especially those of stars, planets, and galaxies since we can observe the cosmic beauties of the unknown and unreachable.

The CubeSat project is an international collaboration with universities, high schools, and private firms. The initial goal was to enable graduate students to be able to design, build, test, and operate their own spacecrafts similar to that of Sputnik. Goals include making simplified satellites, with easy designs, low costs and maintenance, able to quickly exchange payloads, and able to launch at short notice.