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E! Network's Television Show "Botched" The origin of plastic surgery was the material that most influenced my understanding of this week’s topic on Medicine, Technology, and Art. My knowledge about plastic surgery up to this point was from what I learned from popular culture. Shows like Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Dr. 90210, Botched, and Nip/Tuck have shown us the artistic capabilities of plastic surgery in television. Living in West Los Angeles, I have been exposed to many people who have had plastic surgery procedures done to them. Plastic surgery to me was a way of staying young and making alterations to a part of you that you may not be comfortable with. In many ways, the cosmetic nature of plastic surgery is its primary function in contemporary society. This is not how plastic surgery was intended to be used when it was created.  Examples of Reconstructive Facial Surgery during WWI             Techno...

Earlier this quarter I attended the ARTSCI event that focused on the Eco Materialism and Contemporary Art. The Workshop that I decided to participate in was titled “Totally Warm: The Materiality of Heat.” In this workshop, participants “discovered the cosmic extremes of heat on planet Earth by foraging and preparing sweet drinks ‘cooked’ by the sun, micro-organisms, rocks, and minerals.” Out of the many workshops offered that day, this was the one that seemed to be the most interesting. The presenter of this workshop was Iain Kerr, and I was eager to learn about the characteristics of fire and heat.  To my surprise, this workshop was completely different from what I imagined it to be. We started the seminar inside where Iain lectured about various types of fermentation techniques that utilized heat for cooking. One notable example was the usage of the heat found in kitchen compost to soft-boil eggs. After the brief lecture, we went outside into the courtyard to sit in a circle o...

Professor Machiko Kusahara presented us with a new perspective on Robotics. This lecture compared and contrasted the robotic cultures in Japan and the United States. Kusahara taught us how robotics and technology were commonly used in Japan in art. Engineers had a fascination with making humanoids which varied from the Western fascination of using robotics to fuel the industrial revolution.  Astro Boy, Vol. 1             I learned that robotics and art were popular subjects in Japanese animation and Manga. She uses the example of Astro Boy to show Japan’s fascination with cybernetic biological organisms. Astro Boy was a cyborg that had human emotions and ethics who became a cultural basis for artists in Japan. By showing human emotions and ethics, we can see how robots are seen as friends in Japanese culture. Seeing robots as friends is something that is not common in Western culture. Often in Western films, robot...

From the first lectures and readings, the main focus was on locating the third culture that connected the huminites and the sciences. In this week’s readings, I learned that the medium that connects the two (art and science) is mathematics. When we think of computers and other electronics that we use on a daily day basis, we do not think about mathematics necessarily. At a deeper level, these forms of technology utilize complex mathematical systems for their operation. Mathematics is critical in the field of the visual arts even if we are aware of it or not. Anything from drawing or sculpting requires the use of math to calculate dimensions. In the reading “ The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art ,” Henderson emphasizes the paradigm shift in Euclidean geometry that led to the creation of this fourth dimension. By including a higher dimension of space, artists were able to transcend their standard forms of expression and occupy new mediums. Writers could now “dep...

A cartoon depicting C. P. Snow bridging the gap between the Two Cultures (Audiobook Cover Image)  The article “The Two Lectures and the Scientific Revolution” was a lecture given by C. P. Snow at Cambridge University. Charles Percy Snow was an English Author and Physicist. Given his background in both literary and natural sciences, C. P. Snow is the perfect candidate for discussing these “Two Cultures” in education. By holding both perspectives, he was able to give us a rich conceptualization of the relationship between these two seemingly contrasting fields. When talking about the two cultures, I am explicitly referencing humanities and the sciences. As a Philosophy major, I primarily concern my studies with humanities. As a transfer, I have not taken any science courses at UCLA. Most of my coursework is upper division requirements for my major.  Charles Percy Snow This quarter I am taking a class on the Philosophy of Medicine that attempts to bridge the gap betwe...