Week 2: Math + Art

In Professor Vesna’s lecture, math influences art in many ways, from allowing art to appear more realistic to expanding the different forms of art. For example, the vanishing point, developed by Brunelleschi during the Renaissance, has allowed a two-dimensional drawing to have a three-dimensional appearance. Leonardo Da Vinci utilized the vanishing point to create a Renaissance masterpiece, Last Supper.

Last Supper by Lenoardo Da Vinci
https://www.leonardodavinci.net/the-last-supper.jsp

Furthermore, the use of math has allowed art to be represented in a variety of forms beside a two-dimensional artwork that most individuals are familiar with. Among them, origami, architecture, and music are three art forms that I identify to be representative of the novelty and innovative elements that math adds to art. Robert J. Lang is considered a pioneer in the cross-disciplinary field of math and art because he uses math to produce symmetrical 3D objects from paper. It is a difficult to draw a 3D object onto a 2D canvas, yet it is another challenge to produce a symmetrical 3D objects from a piece of paper.

Taiwan Goldfish: Opus 716 by Robert J. Lang
http://www.langorigami.com/artwork/taiwan-goldfish-opus-716-0

Another individual, Alysia W., a high school friend who is studying architecture at USC, shares her senior project on Instagram. When first viewing the picture of a 3D building model that her team assembled, the first word that came into my head was “a modern artistic masterpiece” rather than “a well-designed building.” The reason being is that architecture can offer a more personal and emotional perspective to an infrastructure beside its functionality, making architecture also a form of art. In addition, a similarity between modern day architecture and Maurits Cornelis Escher’ artistic works is the incorporation and manipulation of the geometry of space to create visually stimulating art.

Alysia W.'s final project
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bhh5-qEHmTB8hMoNL1TalkgblysFk9GrXj-DKg0/?taken-by=mecrazymoose


Lastly, another stimulating form of art is music. Music owes much of its beauty to mathematics because without math being integrated into music theory, there will be musical dissonance. For example, the use of fractions and ratios allow musicians in an ensemble to collectively produce sound that moves the heart and mind. This effect of music is representative of the novel perspective that math offers to art as mentioned by Professor Vesna in lecture. To elaborate upon this idea, painting which is symbolic for art has three main components: drawing, coloring, and proportion. Mathematic is a tool that applies the component of proportion to establish balance and harmony within music.

Sources:
"The Mathematical Art Of M.C. Escher". Platonicrealms, 1997, http://platonicrealms.com/minitexts/Mathematical-Art-Of-M-C-Escher/. Accessed 15 Apr 2018.
Frantz, Marc. "Lesson 3: Vanishing Points And Looking At Art". Cs.Ucf.Edu, 2000, http://www.cs.ucf.edu/courses/cap6938-02/refs/VanishingPoints.pdf. Accessed 15 Apr 2018.
Gaab, Nadine, and Jennifer Yuk. "Is There A Link Between Music And Math?". Scientific American, 2017, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-a-link-between-music-and-math/. Accessed 15 Apr 2018.
Lang, Rober. "Robert J. Lang | Robert J. Lang Origami". Langorigami.Com, 2004, http://www.langorigami.com/artist/robert-j-lang. Accessed 15 Apr 2018.
Vesna, Victoria. "Mathematics | Perspective, Time | Space". Youtube, 2012, https://youtu.be/mMmq5B1LKDg. Accessed 15 Apr 2018.

Comments

  1. MichelleApril 16, 2018 at 9:06 PM

    I enjoyed reading your blog and I especially liked how you used architecture as an example. When I first looked at your friend's building, I was surprised as to how different it was from what I consider a typical building- there was no unifying rectangular structure and a lack of symmetry. As I continued looking at the picture, I realized that it really is a work of art- it redefines what a building is, yet still manages to overcome the force of gravity and stand upright. I agree with you that it is a work of art, but I also believe it is a well-designed building as well.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 8: Nanotechnology & Art

Image
This week material can be expressed through the lens of Dr. Jim Gimzewski and Dr. Victoria Vesna in the article, “The Nanomeme Syndrome” Blurring of fact & fiction in the construction of a new science,” in which they highlight that nanotechnology is part of the third culture that embraces both the art and science to produce new inventions, which ultimately blur the lines separating art and science (Gimzewski and Vesna). Nanotechnology has a plethora of applications, from advancing medicine to producing new commercial products and artworks. Nanotechnology has advanced medicine through learning about the drugs’ physical and chemical properties and examine the manipulations that can be done using nanotechnology to improve/optimize drugs. For example, Abraxane, a drug to treat breast cancer, is known for its low toxicity level in compared to other drugs used to treat cancer because of its nanoparticle formulation (Zhao et al.). Also, in the
Read more

Event 3: The Postgenomic Condition

Image
Dr. Jenny Reardon's talk about her book and implications My Own Image I attended a talk given by Dr. Jenny Reardon from UCSC, called “The Postgenomic Condition: Justice, Knowledge, Life After the Genome.” Her enthusiasm for the topic and her intriguing viewpoints caught my attention. Before, I only had a general idea about what The Human Genome Project (HGP) is, a project focusing on the determination of the sequence of nucleotide base pairs that make up human DNA. However, after listening to her talk, I learned that the current direction of The Human Genome Project highlights the diverse applications of this project as well as the issues arisen due to unequal access to the genome database.             A strong connection that I made with the diverse applications resulting from this project is in the lecture “Biotech + Art.” I believe that the key machinery/driver of the Human Genome Project is the machines that do the sequencing (National Human Genome Research Institute).
Read more