Event 3: Jeanine Oleson: Conduct Matters

           Last week, I went to Hammer Museum, and saw the exhibition from Jeanine Oleson. Jeanine Oleson is a New York artist working with photography, performance, film, video, sound and installation. Also, she explores themes in many different areas, such as audience, language, spirituality and music. Oleson is interested in certain materials and their transformation through process, such as copper. She is trying to explore the relationship of language to matter and matter to body.

            The title of this exhibition is Conduct Matters. Oleson was interested in copper as an elemental material of great mystery, also she thought copper was also a product of late capitalism’s design and control. In this exhibition, there is a video at the first, and the video is about a three – channel work that follows four characters as they explore caves, refineries. This video shows how late capitalism has isolated workers and disconnected them from nature and the land. After this video, a character gives a speech outside of a mine, and she speaks about site specificity and geological time. In the speech, a question asked by Oleson over and over again, which is “what dose it mean to feel with our bodies?” To explore this question, she and her colleagues set a textile on the floor, a television screen and a clay speaker, all of which are connected through copper wires. They tried to connect everything together.

            The Conduct Matter exhibition was fantastic. I am a biology major student, and before I saw this exhibition, I only know that copper is a conduct matters and it used in our daily life. I have never considered it can also as a conduct that can connect out body to the nature and everything. Actually, after this exhibition, what I understand is that Oleson are trying to find a matter that can connect everything together, not only limited by copper. Also, through this matter, human can fulfill that people can involve themselves in the nature and society, and they can know their value in this society. Also, she is trying to eliminate discrimination in the whole world. No matter what the job are you doing, you have the position and right in the society. No matter what the society structure is, people should have connection with the nature and society, and no one can be isolated from the world.

NanoTech + Art

           With the development of science, nanotechnology is a hot topic now. Nanotechnology is science, engineering and technology conducted at the nanoscale, which is about 1 to 100 nanometers. As we all know nanotechnology can be used across all the fields, such as chemistry, biology, physics and engineering. In this week’s lecture, we can see that nanotechnology affects out daily life a lot. Before this week, I only think nanotechnology is only used in science fields; however, what I did not realize is that nanotechnology and art interrelate.

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/nanotechnology-illustration-royalty-free-illustration/545863891

            Nano art is a combination of art and nanoscience. Some artists use this in their works, such as John Hart, a mechanical engineer from the University of Michigan. He made a nano portrait of President Barack Obama, called Nanobama. It is hard to finish this kind of portrait. Another application of nanotechnology is nanorobotics, which is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to the scale of a nanometer.

http://www.revolutionfibres.com/2015/11/nanotechnology-in-art-and-film/

            Although the development of nanotechnology brings us a lot convenience in our daily life, there are some cons for nanotechnology. For example, the nanorobots can be used as dangerous weapons by the terrorists, as these robots are nearly untraceable. Also, because the particles in nanotechnology are very small, problems can actually arise from the inhalation, and people might inhale some asbestos particles. Nanotechnology changed our life, however, there are many pros and cons for nanotechnology, when we develop nanotech, we should consider all the situations for that, and try to eliminate the cons.

https://www.slideshare.net/sayak007/nanorobotics-41469835

Reference

"Nanotechnology in Art and Film." Revolution Fibres. N.p., 01 Nov. 2015. Web. 28 May 2017.

"What Is Nanotechnology?" What Is Nanotechnology? | Nano. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 May 2017.

Wpadmin. "Pros and Cons of Nanotechnology." HRFnd. N.p., 15 May 2014. Web. 28 May 2017.

"Nanorobotics." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, n.d. Web. 28 May 2017.

"Introduction to Nanotechnology." Introduction to Nanotechnology RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 May 2017.

Week 7: Neuroscience + Art

After this week, I know more about art and science is related. The article titled "Neuroculture" by Giovanni Frazzetto and Suzanne Anker impressed me a lot. Obviously, prior to reading it, I knew about the importance of neuroscience in the contemporary culture; however, only after reading it I was able to develop a broader perspective on the issue. Thus, I understood that the scientists have gathered a considerable amount of information regarding the processes that take place in the brain (Striano and Reid 16). That is why it is safe to say that modern scholars have become closer to unraveling the mysteries of it. What is even more important is that the advances of this science will also help people take a new perspective on mind-body dualism (Feinberg and Shafer-Landau 213). 

After all, this is the problem that has fascinated people for centuries. One should note that this fascination with the brain has been particularly popular in the course of the recent decades. One might recall that in the end of the twentieth there have been several movies that explored the role of the brain. Thus, "The Matrix" opened a new perspective on reality, arguing that it is possible to recreate reality by affecting the brain only (Grau 123). People use movies to explain neuroscience to audience, which can make audience more understandable, and also movie sometimes use exaggerate to show that.

Another good example is "Johhny Mnemonic" - that movie shows that it is possible to use one's brain as a flash drive (Packer 155). Recently, the interest towards the secrets of this organ resulted in the movie "Split" that explored dissociative identity disorder (Moline 29). All this shows that the public is really fascinated with the role that brain plays in lives of the people and this is reflected in various elements of culture, particularly entertainment such as movies.

Works Cited

Feinberg, Joel, and Russ Shafer-Landau. Reason and responsibility: readings in some basic problems of philosophy. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2017. Print.

Grau, Christopher. Philosophers explore The Matrix. New York, NY: Oxford U Press, 2005. Print.

Moline, Ronald A. The diagnosis and treatment of dissociative identity disorder: a case study and contemporary perspective. Lanham, MD: Jason Aronson, 2013. Print.

Packer, Sharon. Neuroscience in science fiction films. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2015. Print.

Striano, Tricia, and Vincent Reid. Social cognition: development, neuroscience, and autism. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Print.