Unit 3 - Robotics and Art

This unit gives an overview of art's transformation into the modern age. With machinery and robots allowing different avenues to create art, we can see this era causing a shift in the production of art. As Benjamin Walter said, "To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility."

Walter's rather convoluted statement describes the effect of industrialization on art. In an era where the virtues of mass production are being realized, with lines of identical Model Ts rolling off the production line, people also strove to apply these industrialization principles to art. This heralded the beginning of movies, where a film could be shot once and identical reenactments could be broadcasted in theatres all across the country.

"Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art."
These first uses of machinery to drive art eventually grew into art we see today: art that is heavily driven by machines, or is a machine in itself. One example of a modern day machine that, while not conventional art, could still be considered art, can be seen below.

Of course, modern day robots in traditional art are very common. Computers are essential for both computer graphics and computer vision, both of which are cornerstones of animated films. Pixar and Disney animated films are entirely works created through computer graphics.

References
"The Very First Motion Picture (1889)" Youtube. Youtube, 16 Jul. 2008. Web. 19 Apr. 2015
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDmAxdLvdQ4>

"The History of Motion Pictures" The History of Motion Pictures. Web. 19 Apr 2015.
<http://faculty.washington.edu/baldasty/JAN13.htm>

"Useless Box with Surprises" Youtube. Youtube, 5 Oct, 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2015
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apVR5Htz0K4>

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.

"Behind ‘Big Hero 6′: How Disney Animation is taking on their first Marvel property" Andrew Sims. Web. 19 Apr, 2015
<http://www.hypable.com/big-hero-6-san-fransokyo-disney-marvel-adaptation>

Week 2 - Math and Art

In this week's readings, we look at how mathematics influences art concepts. Speaking from experience, I know that mathematics has quite the role in computer graphics. Using matrices to manipulate the size, shape, and position of objects is central to computer graphics. Expanding on simple manipulation of objects, computer graphics aims to create some sort of realistic scene; in this, notions such as vanishing points come into effect.

Vanishing points is a concept not unique to computer graphics only. In fact, vanishing points occur in any piece of art depicting "parallel lines" put into perspective. For example, take the drawing "Road do Schlessheim", by Theodore Clement Steele:

This drawing depicts a road stretching off into the distance. We know that roads consist basically of two parallel lines, but the concept of vanishing points makes it so that these two lines converge when put into perspective. The mathematics behind where the "point" should be are clearly defined for use in computer graphics and is one example of how math is used in art.

Another example of math-turned-art is fractals. Fractals are repeating patterns that appear across different scales. Due to this, creating fractals may seem to be a task uniquely suited for computers. However, many artists create fractals; for example, Jackson Pollock creates fractal paintings by using a drip technique that creates repeating patterns at different sizes. 

One of Pollocks paintings. While it may seem random, if you look closely, you will see that it is made up of repeating patterns.

Tesselations are another example of math in art. Tesselations are described as "regular division of the plane" that "completely cover the plane without overlapping and without leaving gaps." Once again, we can see that since tesselations are governed by predictable patterns, we can use math to generate them. 

Tiles in the Alhambra, a tesselation

From these examples, we can see that mathematics are important to many aspects of art, whether it be creating the entire artpiece itself, recognizing a pattern in the art, or determining how an object should look within the piece of art. 

Resources:

Road do Schlessheim - Theodore Clement Steele - The Athenaeum (Road do Schlessheim - Theodore Clement Steele - The Athenaeum)

http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=121540

Full Fathom Five - Jackson Pollock - WebMuseum, Paris

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/pollock/pollock.number-8.jpg

Ouellette, Jennifer - Pollock's Fractals Discover Magazine May 2015

http://discovermagazine.com/2001/nov/featpollock

The Mathematical Art of MC Escher - Platonic Realms 2015

http://platonicrealms.com/minitexts/Mathematical-Art-Of-M-C-Escher/

Frantz, Marc - Vanishing Points and Looking at Art - 2000

http://www.cs.ucf.edu/courses/cap6938-02/refs/VanishingPoints.pdf

Unit 1 - Two Cultures

My friends and me (on the right) at the top of Mammoth Mountain.

Hello! My name is Victor Sia and I'm a senior at UCLA majoring in computer science. I aspire to work developing some leading edge computer software technology in the coming years; from the looks of things, I am looking to score a job in the cloud computing industry. 

Being a computer science major, I have spent a vast majority of my university career holed up within the deep, dark, and wifi-less confines of Boelter Hall. As such, my last recollections of north campus is that it is a magical wonderland filled with rainbows and butterflies. Indeed, studying what is considered one of the "south campus-iest" majors makes the "two cultures" phenomenon readily apparent. This class will hopefully help me expand my understanding of both arts and science.

The prison known as Boelter Hall.

Snow's "The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution" describes the two cultures that Western society has split itself into: arts, "the literary intellectuals who incidentally while no one was looking took to referring to themselves as 'intellectuals' as though there were no others", and science, the ones that are "shallowly optimistic, unaware of man's condition." These two cultures have a distorted view on the other, sprouting from a lack of understanding. UCLA's division between north and south campus epitomizes this split: north campus is the home of arts, filled with peaceful gardens to lounge in and elegantly designed buildings, while south campus represents science, complete with utilitarian buildings, lacking any traces of whimsy or wonder (or wifi).

The blissful wonderland of north campus.

Vesna introduces a third culture into this mix: the cult of technology. As a computer scientist, this is a culture that I hold dear to my heart, and my wallet. This culture, eloquently named by Kevin Kelly as "nerd culture," is a culture aimed not at discovering truth, but novelty. Any wayfarer of the internet seeks new ways to entertain himself, while also keeping in the back of his mind the mantra "never believe anything you read on the internet." This third culture seeks to shed light on the human condition not by philosophizing as students of art would do, not as studying the natural world as students of science would do, but by essentially creating their own reality within technology and exploring its depths.

Exploring each of these three cultures is sure to be quite the journey.

Resources
Snow, C. P. “Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.” Reading. 1959. New York: Cambridge UP, 1961. Print.

Kelly, Kevin. "The Third Culture." Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2013. <http://www.sciencemag.org/content/279/5353/992.full>

Vesna, Victoria. "Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between." Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 121-25. Web.

"UCLA Boelter Hall" Digital image. Web 5 Apr. 2015
http://www.bruinwalk.com/listings/manage/detail/boelter-hall-entrance/1142/

"Coastal Environments" Digital image. Web 5 Apr. 2015
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/geog/walter/geog163/Methods%20Workshop.htm