DavidPriebeDESMA9

  "Space, the final frontier", the beginning words to this week's lectures from Professor Vesna, but also the famous opening to Star Trek, a TV series from the '60s. This series was a very important thing for me growing up. Everyday after school I used to watch the old episodes with my dad as he would tell me stories about what he was doing when they first came out. That was his first introduction to space but also mine and the ideas of space grew in my mind.  Since this powerful series has aired, many children have developed a dream for space and its contents. These children have pursued their dreams to become astronauts and eventually explore space much like Captain James T. Kirk and his crew was able to. Yet, sadly we are not to the level that they are without technology. Where our space shuttles have made leaps and bounds over what we used to have, the ability to go at lightspeed still is not possible. We cannot truly see what awaits us beyond the stars but some  ...

  This week's lecture provided something that was much needed for someone like myself. It caused m to realize that things are never what they seem. The topic of nanotechnology is something that I have heard about and been interested in but never wanted to pursue due to the unknowns surrounding it. It's a field that seemed daunting and scary but actually isn't that at all. Dr. Gimzewski showed me that nanotechnology is something that fills our lives more than we know and is actually a field used much more than we realize.   His comments regarding the idea of a "Top-Down Approach" were something that I believe we use much more than we realize. Taking something significant and slowly making it smaller and smaller is very much like the process of art from what I have learned over the quarter. It always begins with a large idea and gradually becomes hyper-focused on the smaller details of a piece until finally something beautiful is constructed. The foundation is estab...

  Our topic in this week's lecture was something that I previously had little knowledge of. Neuroscience has always been something that I would say has intrigued me but I'd never had the opportunity to learn about it until now. The first intriguing aspect mentioned by Professor Vesna was the idea that consciousness is "one's personal or collective identity". This is something that makes sense but feels strange to me. When you look at previous sections of class such as technology when technology becomes tied to an individual can that be part of your conscious? As we learned about this week, neuroscience is a very vast topic that can lead to a conversation around dreams. The line between the dreaming world and the physical world has become blurred due to advances in art and technology. Now people are using technology to record the dreams of humans to understand the brain further. Technology like this would've made the lives of Freud and Jung much more interestin...

  The Two Cultures is something that still intrigues me this late in the class. The divide that many see between art and science is something that some people struggle to deal with. Finding the proper medium to use can be hard, but in the zoom with Dr. Daniel Jay this past week, he showed us that anything can be used. In his case he used the periodic table for inspiratoin and his creations were wonderful.   The coolest piece for me was his piece using gunpowder to show scenes of violence. Something about the piece felt real to me. By using one of the very components that causes violence, to show violence, was powerful. It was a way to make a statement with the art because Dr. Jay took something dangerous and made it beautiful. He broke down the aspects of voilence and turned it into an inspiring piece.      This simple piece in his collection highlights a much bigger aspect of life: the need for science in the art world. They are one and the same and lost w...

The topic of "BioTech + Art" this week is something that I find very interesting. As time has progressed, humans have discovered new technologies while still being fascinated by deep questions. The question posed in this week's discussion is whether or not life can be used as art. I think this is much more complex than people make it out to be and yet still there are many advances in the field. As discussed in our lecture, there have been considerable advancements in genome studies but also the use of animal experiments such as the Vacanti Mouse. These experiments bring a larger question into my mind: what is the limit going to be? At what point will the line be drawn where scientists are not allowed to further explore animals and humans as art. Now I'm not saying that humans can't be used as art but I believe certain things should be limited. Scientists are now beginning to cross animal DNA with human DNA which feels wrong to me. The exploration began with Dr. Jo...