Extra Credit Event 2: San Diego Natural History Museum

While in San Diego I attended Balboa Park which contains the San Diego Natural History Museum, and this museum contains some of the most diverse and interesting pieces of art, science, and technology that I have ever witnessed.  Walking into this prestigious building you can feel the importance and special vibe that the Natural History Museum contains.

While inside the San Diego Natural History Museum my favorite exhibit was the Ordover Gallery with the Best of Nature Photography Show.  This collection of art was based on the beauty of nature, something that I have always felt a connection to.  Many people try to create art or technology, when all we have to do is slow down and look around us to see some true beauty.  I thought it was interesting that both amateurs and professional photographers could submit art to the Ordover Gallery.  Photography as art allows for anybody to be a part of art, just how it should be.

Inside this gallery there were photos of flocks of birds, many animals in their natural habitats such as bears and elephants, as well as the sky and mountains.  The elements played a large role in these photographs as nothing was manipulated in these photographs, everything was pure and natural.  I would recommend a trip to the San Diego Natural History Museum if you ever get a chance because you have the ability to discover things about yourself you had never known before.  Make sure you walk past the dinosaurs and the fossils to the top floor to see the photographs, because they are worth it.

Extra Credit Event 1: Reuben H. Fleet Science Center

While in San Diego I attended Balboa Park in order to visit the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center where I saw many different exhibits and scientific achievements.  I am from San Diego, so I have been to the RHF Center many times when I was a kid, but this was the first time I have returned in many years.  I now can look at the exhibits with a sense of art and science background instead of just being amazed and questioning how everything worked.

My favorite exhibit that I observed was titled ON THE FLY: Technology Takes Off, which relates to our class in the manner of science as art.  In this exhibition I witnessed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's) fly in the air and hover above the ground.  This was a very interesting performance, and I even attempted to build my own UAV, but it did not quite work as well as the professional ones.  The UAV that I built was my own form of art, and I even tried to fly it in a wind tunnel, but my art form needed a little more science, because it did not work that well. 

The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center is one of the most interesting, diverse mixtures of science and art that I have ever been to in my life.  I would absolutely recommend the RHF Center to anyone who is in San Diego.  I am bummed that I forgot to take a picture of my UAV, but it did not look like the real ones, although I thought it was pretty cool.  So if you get the chance go to the RHF Science Center and let your knowledge of art and science take over and you will have a blast.

Event 3: LACMA

 For my third event I attended the Los Angeles County Museum of Art which is just down the road form UCLA on Wilshire.  I had actually been there a few times before, but this is the first time I attended a scheduled art gallery, and I was glad that I did.  I attended James Turrell's A Retrospective which provided a side of art that I had never experienced before.

In Turrell's show the light projections and different colorful shapes were very interesting, and it was one of the coolest art exhibits that I have ever been to. The way that Turrell manipulates beams of light allows for all of the audiences' senses to be overwhelmed with this astonishing art form.  I liked that the show was timed as well and that I had my fair time experiencing this show.  Another interesting aspect of this show is when he begins to mix colors of light throughout the show.

This display of art really allowed for me to see the true beauty that art creates, and that there may be more art in every day life than I had previously thought.  This exhibit reminded me of a sun set, something that I have always enjoyed, but have never compared it to art.  Now I see that this is a piece of art in the sky, and along with other natural occurrences such as water falls, I may need to step back and enjoy them a little bit more than I do now.  The realization that this exhibit has provided for me is really amazing that I can connect it to previous art experiences that I have never thought of before.  I would definitely recommend this show to everyone, not just my classmates as it may cause you to see the world in a different manner.

Event 2: Hammer Museum

For my second event of the quarter I chose to attend The Hammer Museum in Westwood, something that I have drove by for four years, but had never been to before.  I am glad that I got the experience to attend The Hammer Museum as I would have never gone had it not been for this class.  Unfortunately, we could not take photographs inside the museum, but I was able to take some outside the museum and outside the gallery.

 While at The Hammer Museum I went to two different art galleries, the first was James Welling's Monograph.  His gallery was not just traditional photographs, as they contained an interesting take on his views of the world.  Some of my favorite pieces were Gelatin and the Railroad photographs.  The Railroad photographs provided an interesting take on ordinary trains as they showed the true beauty that these massive machines posses.  The next gallery was Forest Bess' Seeing Things Invisible, which were paintings with oil on canvas or oil on wood.  This was a different aspect of art than the photographs, but still just as interesting.  My favorite pieces from this collection were The Penetrator and Thunderbird.

My experience at this event allowed for me to better understand art as a whole.  Art can be found in many different forms and can be expressed in many different ways.  Welling used photography, while Bess used oil on different canvasses.  I would recommend this as an event for my classmates, because if you have not been to The Hammer, you must go.  This museum has many different art forms, so you get a variety of different experiences all in one place.  The creativity involved in Bess and Welling's work is inspiring and allows yourself to get lost in an alternate world of art.

Space + Art

The Copernican Model of the universe is also known as the heliocentric model with the sun in the center of the universe.  This was the first time in history that the Earth was not seen as the center of the universe, like the false idea that the Earth was flat, it took a great scientist to convince the World otherwise.  This model may be seen as art, and although it is based on nature, or our solar system, we may still construct a form of art in space.    

In Arthur Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise he writes about what the future may look like in the 22nd Century.  His book explores a space elevator that links with an orbiting satellite, and explains the possibilities of a future in space.    







Other examples of Science Fiction was in the cartoon The Jetsons that was based on a family that lived in space, had a space ship type car, and even a robot maid.  These cartoons and novels allowed people to believe in the "what if" factor and also allowed for scientists to dream and explore what may be possible in the future.

One of the biggest events in the history of the world happened when the Russians launched Sputnik, a satellite, into space.  The reality of what Sputnik could actually do was dwarfed by the impact of the inferiority complex the Americans took on. This led to an expansion in American math and science in schools, and also forced space exploration in America to play catch up.  Americans were the first to land a person on the moon when we landed Neil Armstrong in 1969.  Space is a beautiful place that we really know very very little about.  The vast expansion of the many solar systems and planets in the universe allows us an art form of creativity to display what we do not really understand.  This is what the Jetsons and Clarke did, and this is what scientists continue to do as they produce art forms in order to explore the possibilities of the universe.

Sources:
Eames Office. "Powers of Ten (1977)" Pyramid. YouTube. October 26, 2010. December 1, 2013. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0>

Vesna, Victoria. "Space Exploration + Art" Lecture. YouTube. July 29, 2013. December 1, 2013. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZIqTR332l8>

"The Leonardo Space Art Project Working Group" 1996 International Society for the Arts, Science, and Technology. MIT Press. December 1, 2013.

"NASA" Space Station Live. Website. November 29, 2013.  December 1, 2013. <http://www.nasa.gov/>

Forde, Kathleen. "Dancing on the Ceiling: Art & Zero Gravity" 2010 Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center – Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Troy, NY USA. December 1, 2013. <http://zerogravity.empac.rpi.edu/>