Week 3: Robotics + Art

Both of this week’s readings gave us a view of how the technology provided a new way for art. Actually, I am not an art person. The only thing I contact to art was that I like painting when I was young. I had no idea about how technology influence art and how technology help art until this week.

What I interested in is the topic about film from Walter Benjamin. He came up with a question, which is “How does the cameraman compare with the painter.” The author did an analogy with a surgical operation, which is interesting. He said the surgeon represents the polar opposite of the magician, which is like the cameraman is the polar opposite of the painter. The magician did not change anything for the nature, and they only let the audience have some visual illusion. On the other hand, the surgeon did exactly the reverse. Like cameraman and painter, painter maintain the real world distance, but the cameraman goes deeply into its web.

http://guides.lib.unc.edu/afamfilm

Also, film and art has some relationship that is important for the development of film and painting. As Andrei Tarkovsky said the graphic art which can be transferred to the screen, and it is not even good quality graphic art. Another way that can show the relationship between film and art is the special effect in film. In the film, we can see some screen that not exist in the real world, and it is necessary for the film presentation. Those screens can be present by special effect. As we all know, some Hollywood film use lots of special effect and they provided us a feast of visual.

http://cinefilmacts.blogspot.com/2010/11/avatar-film-wallpapers-hollywood-2.html

http://www.wonderslist.com/top-10-highest-grossing-hollywood-movies

The development of photographic and the internet leads the development of film, also the development of film promotes the painting.

Work Cited:

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

Kristie.Mass-produced Art at Ikea. Digital image. Swedish Freak. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2012.<http://www.swedishfreak.com/2010/ikea-swedens-answer-to-walmart/dsc05285_web/Links to an external site.>.

"Film And Youtube." Odyssey. N.p., 20 June 2016. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.

Khan, Ejaz. "Top 10 Highest Grossing Hollywood Movies." WondersList. N.p., 13 Aug. 2016. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.

"AVATAR FILM WALLPAPERS (HOLLYWOOD)-2." :::CINE FILM ACTORS: AVATAR FILM WALLPAPERS (HOLLYWOOD)-2:::. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.

Sinclair, Mark. "Andrei Tarkovsky: Film and Painting." Creative Review. N.p., 13 Mar. 2008. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.

Week 2 Math and Art

Before I take this class, I only knew that mathematics is intertwined with art. When I was a little child, I knew the famous painting “Mona Lisa” by Da Vinci. At that time, I did not have much mathematics background, so I did not realize there was mathematics principle in this famous painting, and I thought the reason the painting was famous was the excellent painting skills. However, when I was in middle school, I learned math, and I knew the golden ratio. When I took art class, I found that there were many places that used golden ratio in “Mona Lisa”. For example, Mona Lisa’s face is a golden rectangle. That was the first time that I realized mathematics and art cannot be separated. However, after this week’s lecture and reading, I leaned the progression of spaces. The article “The Fourth Dimension and Non – Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art” by Linda Dalrymple Henderson introduced the development of art techniques and their relation to science. The techniques in the portray allow the paintings being more realistic and believable.

Actually, different math principles are used in the arts. The concept of golden ratio in “Mona Lisa” I mentioned before is one of the examples. Not only in art, math is used in everywhere in nature. Honeycombs are symmetrical, and each little cell is a perfect hexagon. An ancient scholar named Marcus Terrentius Varro conjectured “the hexagon is the shape is the shape that most efficiently breaks flat space up into little units, which makes honeycombs that hold the most amount of honey while using the least amount of wax”. The assumption was proved by Thomas Hales. Therefore, we can see that mathematics are in everywhere in the nature.

https://mathmunch.org/2013/06/18/natural-geometry-hex-and-sacred-geometry/

The juxtaposition of mathematics, art and science becomes easier when both mathematics and arts development. The development of science give more principles that can be applied in art. Also the development of art can give people a new perspective to explore the mathematics. The concept of "Fourth Dimension" is an interesting topic which can illustrate this. The development of the fourth dimension also change the way that artist worked on the painting.

Reference:

"Natural Geometry, Hex, and Sacred Geometry." Math Munch. N.p., 18 June 2013. Web. 16 Apr. 2017.

"The Myth of Golden Ratio -." RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2017.

"The Fourth Dimension and Non – Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art" Linda Dalrymple Henderson http://www.jstor.org/stable/1575193?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents