Baraka Beckett DESMA9

When going over this weeks material the main concept that I found that was most interesting to me was the idea of plastic surgery. Through my whole life my parents have drilled into me that plastic surgery is wrong and that the body god gives you sacred. However I have always been fascinated by plastic surgery and the way it can interlay change how you look. Though I understand my parents perspective towards plastic surgery after viewing the material from this lab I believe plastic surgery to  simply be another way for humans to express themselves and that its not wrong in anyway. In lecture 3 when professor Vesna talked about the origins of plastic surgery it was enlightening to me because I had always thought that plastic surgery was just a cosmetic option for the affluent. However learning how it was used to help injured people who fought in the war changed my perspective on plastic surgery entirely. The story about Arlone I found to be disturbing for m...

For my first event, I attended the meteorite lab in the Geology building at UCLA. I found the experience to be rather enlightening particularly in the way it tied into art and science. The Lab included different meteoroids that were found through the world and facts about them. Though the lab was rather small, there was still a lot of information there to be learned about meteorites. One of the first things that I noticed when I looked at them was that all of the meteorites had an intrinsic beauty. This surprised me because I came in with the expectation that my visit would be purely scientifically informative. However, after noticing the beauty it made me start thinking about where the lines are drawn between art and science. It made me ask the question, can a work of art contain scientific value? And also, can a scientific object hold artistic value. It's in our society's nature to want to put things in boxes and portray something a...

Industrialization in our society is often portrayed as being negative, with a lot of people associating it with lack of freedom and overall social conformity. I find this concept to be best portrayed in the Black Mirror episode titled 5 Million Merits . In this episode everybody in the known world lives in a giant facility where they peddle on bikes to earn "merits" which is a form of currency in their world. People then use these merits to improve there lives in anyway possible. This is the daily life of most of the people excisting in this world. However they don't know why they are peddling or the purpose that it serves, essentially making them cogs in a machine   Most of the people that live there have presumably excepted the reality of their situation and aim to live there best lives within the rules of the system. A character named Dustin seems to be enjoying his life despite the repetitive nature of it. However the main character Bing is quite unhappy with the sys...

When you think about art and math, people generally assume that they are not connected. Art is viewed as being more creative and expressive while Math is perceived to be systematic and calculated. While both Art and Math embody these characteristics when taking a closer look at certain art pieces you are able to notice how mathematics play a huge factor in there visual appearance. In the Flatland reading the penny example helped me understand how math can change the way we perceive things visually. When looking at the United States Treasury building shown to us in the lecture it finally clicked with me the relationship between math and art. Professor Verna describes a golden section which is a mathematical method used to create compelling art. Being able to be priciess with what your doing in any art piece allows overall makes it better to look at. When looking at "The proportion of the human figure" by Leonardo Da Vinci as seen in the lecture video I immediately noticed ...

C.P Snow's findings paint a picture of a socity that is divided between the cold and calculated individuals using the left side of there brain and the more artistic free thinking people using the right side of there brain. However, how much of this divide has to do with the differences between humans but rather the way we are educated. The idea of there being two cultures is a concept that I have been told through out my life by multiple teachers. Teachers would always tell me about how certain people are naturally better suited to math and science while others are better suited for writing and creative thinking. This concept was told to me at an extremely young age. Since I was first told this the idea, it has always stuck with me. I consciously started viewing my life from the perspective of myself being a person with a more art suited brain. Given this I would shy away from taking and classes or do any activities involving math. This lead to my math skills natiurally dete...