Extra Credit Event 1 -- The Museum of Jurassic Technology

As a lover of all things dinosaur (as evident from my blog's background) the word Jurassic immediately drew me towards this museum. Even though it had nothing to do with dinosaurs, it was still a fascinating place and a great experience. Unfortunately once inside I was informed that picture were not allowed, so all of the pictures below have been taken from the museum's official website and cited below.

My favorite exhibit by far was a collection of floral stereoradiographs by Albert G. Richards. I grew up surrounded by gardens and colorful flowers, and as a result have always been extremely fascinated with them. This collection was an entirely new take on their appearance. Radiographs are typically associated with the medical field and employ radiation, typically e-rays or gamma rays, to produce images. Stenographs, like the ones at the museum, use multiple radiographs from different angles to create a stereoscopic effect. The use of medical technologies to create art was, in my opinion, one of the most interesting intersections between art and science that we have learned about in this class. As such, it was incredible to see such spectacular images first hand.

Another fascinating and incredible exhibit was a collection of micromosaics by Henry Dalton. These pieces of art were created by peeling individual scales off of the wings of a variety of butterfly species and positioning them to create dazzlingly intricate, and amazingly small, mosaic pieces of art on little slides. Dalton's interest in science, which ultimately led him down the path to creating those micromosaics, is a prime example of how science can influence art and how scientific tools, like microscopes, can be used in conjunction with classic art techniques. 

This last exhibit, which I could not bare to leave out, highlighted the Dogs of the Soviet Space Program. It featured Laika, the first animal sent into space, a topic I researched extensively after learning about her in the lecture on Space + Art due to my love of animals. 

The Museum of Jurassic Technology was without a doubt my favorite out of the four museums I explored for this class because of its quirky and unconventional nature. I felt right at home with the fun and interesting vibe and it was completely worth the drive (although I would drive even further to visit it again with friends.).

Images:
[1] http://www.mjt.org/exhibits/alRichards/10.html
[2] http://www.mjt.org/exhibits/dalton/slide2.html#
[3] http://www.mjt.org/recentaddtions/creatures.html

Event 3 -- Fowler Museum

Early this quarter I went to check out the Fowler Museum for the first time. I have had many classes in the building's main lecture hall, but surprisingly I had never been inside the museum portion. There were some amazing exhibits, including one that had a direct link to what we've learned in this class.

The exhibit that struck me the most was Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem by Vivian Sundaram. On display were numerous garments made out of medical materials, including pills and surgical masks (as seen below) as well as items like x-rays, bandages, tampons, and many more. The collection was meant to embody a "tension between beauty and illness" but juxtaposing couture designs with practical medical supplies. 

Similar to the way in which the the age old technique of dissection was used a means of better understanding the body for art purposes, some of Sundaram's work included sculptures that had been created using anatomical models of human organs and body parts. The sculptures were a way of highlighting the fragility of the body, the harsh reality of illness, and the beautification of of human anatomy.

The exhibition The Art of Hair in Africa highlighted the beautiful hair accessories and sculptures associated with African hair styles. It was created to celebrate beauty and highlight the idea of ideal beauty and social status in African cultures that has come to be aligned with hair styles and accessories .Many of the intricate combs had striking geometrical patterns which reminded me a lot of the Math + Art lecture in which the geometry as art was a focal point. Most of the sculptures also had geometric patterns painted on them with precise lines and systematic color schemes.

The Fowler Museum was also home to many other exhibits celebrating cultures and their rich visual histories. The Museum itself was absolutely gorgeous, with a small decorative courtyard in the center.   It was a great way to explore local art right on our own campus!

Event 2 -- The Getty Center

I recently went to check out the Getty Center, and was amazed by how scientific elements were used to create or enhance works of art in both the past and present.

One of the exhibits called Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography featured works of art by various artists that played around with chemicals and alternative exposure techniques to create images on light sensitive photography paper. The special paper used to develop images in photography is coded with a unique chemical solution that relies on light exposure to create the images that the camera is trying to capture. These papers, as a result, are extremely sensitive to light. Some of the artists featured in the exhibit used fire to alter the chemical compounds within the paper to create bold and explosive images on the paper. The way in which chemicals can be used to light up and create images where they would otherwise go unseen seemed to be analogous to the ways in which they can be used to light up and intensify parts of the brain that we see in MRI and X-ray images.

Chemical usage in art is not a new concept however, for they were also used to enhance many older works of art in ways that I had never considered. The museum had on display an assortment of glassware from 14th century Europe. The green and brown coloring that could be found in most of the glassware was the result of iron impurities within the glass mixture. Once heated up, the defects of the iron caused the glass to change color instead of remaining clear.

Similarly, some of the vibrant hues seen in their display of Renaissance Illuminations can be attributed to chemically produced pigments. The mixing of natural and readily available chemicals can be credited with producing the metallic gold that was used very commonly throughout art in this era.

Although I have been to the Getty Center in the past, exploring the museum with not only an artistic interest, but with a scientific mindset added a completely new and exciting element to my visit. I was able to appreciate not only the art itself, but the complex background that led to the production of such amazing pieces. It was a great experience!

Event 1 -- The Hammer Museum

A few weeks ago I went to the Hammer Museum with a couple friends. This was my first time visiting the museum, and I was blown away by the complexity of some of the exhibits.

I was immediately drawn to the bright, pixelated colors that greeted us at the Gridwork 1974-1989 exhibit by Charles Gaines. The trees were created in different series. Gaines would start off by using a single color and create a pixelated version of a tree on an acrylic layer that was positioned over a black and white photograph of the real tree. He would then layer a pixelated version of another tree on top of the first drawing. He continued this with multiple different trees, and the end result would be a single cluster of colors, in which each individual color represented a different tree in the series. Below, a step by step account of the process can be seen.

While the colors themselves used by Gaines were stunning, the true intricacy of the works were not obvious unless examined up close. Gaines, in a marriage between Math + Art, used numbers to create a logical and mathematical pattern to his pixelated work. 

Each vertical axis in made up of the same number, starting with zero at the central vertical axis. Each horizontal access is made up of numbers in numerical order, increasing by one, as they get further and further away from the core of the painting. I found the significance of the number zero, which was mentioned and emphasized during the lecture on Math + Art, to be very interesting in this piece as it is the center focal point of which all the other numbers in the piece are determined.

As we walked further through the exhibit, I saw that Gaines had expanded his work with numbers into other forms of art. In his work Faces, Gaines employed a similar technique as with the trees, starting off with a black and white picture of his subject. Next, he used negative space to outline the facial features of his subjects and then compiled all of the outlines in a series into one picture. The pixels were also coded with numbers and the compiled pictures on the very right used numbers to distinguish the facial features by subject.

The Hammer Museum also had on display many other fascinating exhibits that ranged anywhere from medieval portraits to contemporary collections. It was such a great experience and I would encourage anyone, despite their level of interest in the subjects, to come check it out!