Week 5

CONSCIOUSNESS | MIDTERM PRESENTATIONS

This week, we looked at projects that focused on the human consciousness in contemporary art exhibitions. I found this week's lecture helpful and familiar to my midterm presentation. For my project, I want to experiment with our sense of smell and how it's a strong trigger for memory. It's a mechanism that helps us interact and understand the world around us. Rarely, do art galleries and exhibitions use scents to guide our understanding of the artworks. However, there is an artist named Ernesto Neto, an installation artist who experiments with spices in his work.

Week 5 | Midterm

On Thursday we began hearing presentations for our final projects. Many of my fellow students were influenced by mycelium, and came up with ways to incorporate it into their projects. It was a great intro into giving solid scientific presentations, and I thought there was a lot of good feedback, which definitely helped me and Lilyan prepare ours for Tuesday.

CONSCIOUSNESS : Week 5

Last week, I had already had the pleasure of listening to Cristina Albu give her talk at the LASER event hosted at the EDA as a part of ART SCI. Thus, I have already divulged into a recap of her lecture talk with my LASER blog post last week, discussing her showcase of works from Alex Hay, David Rosenboom and Nina Sobell. What I learned from both her LASER talk and her in class lecture is that all of these artists have a common interest: the use of the body in conjunction with the mind as a medium of which to create art.

Week 5 Blog

This week I thought a lot about the ArtSci Leonardo lecture that took place last week. My favorite speaker was Cristina Albu. Specifically, her book called “Mirror Affect” looks very interesting to me. I have never really considered the implications of an audience seeing their own reflection. Albu argued that artists are experimenting with how the public sees them (the artist) and how they are seen (the audience’s reflection).

 

Week 5: Consciousness

During class, we were presented with various artworks that deal with the idea of consciousness in animals and A-Life. One of the works that I was highly drawn to was Bird Song Diamond by Victoria Vesna where people are asked to imitate the bird motions. According to Vesna, people interacting in the scene began to function as a system where doing similar motions or using the wings as a form of communication.

MIDTERM PRESENTATION | Week 5

This week we looked at many different projects, including some of our own. Each one was unique, inspiring, and helped me think of how to improve or modify my own. Professor Victoria Vesna showed us several projects that she worked on before. One of these is called Noise Aquarium. It is an interactive installation consisting of multiple layers displaying enlarged microscopic organisms. As a person approaches one of these organisms, the volume of noise sound increases and the organism starts to become destroyed.

Traveling Brainwaves

The Octopus Brainstorming was an amazing project by Professor Victoria Vesna and Neuroscientist Mark Cohen that we as a class were able to take part in. I was very amazed by the structure of this project and my first impression in observing this piece was how thoughtful and fun the octopus crowns were designed. But other than the physical appearance of it, the science developed behind it was very fascinating.

Brainstorming Project

This week’s class was very intriguing. We got to experience Professor Victoria’s Brainstorming project in collaboration with Dr. Cohen. What interested me the most in this project was how it based on science but how it was aesthetically appealing as well. I really like the touch of the octopus crown and how it changes color based on electric waves from the brain. Even though we got to sit with the crown and imitated the scenario, I still cannot imagine how it would feel to be in sync literally with someone else.

Brainstorming - the project that will light up your brain

As a molecular biologist, I only have a rudimentary understanding of neuroscience and had to do a fair amount of research on brain waves before being prepared to write this blog. The Brainstorming project by Dr. Vesna and collaborators was fascinating enough to sustain me on the endeavor of reading many neuroscience papers to obtain a grasp on the human nervous system. To my understanding, emotions and behaviors arise through neuronal interactions in the brain. Synchronized electrical pulses that result from neuronal interactions produce brainwaves.

Brainstorm after the Octopus Brainstorm project

This week I had a chance to see and experience the Octopus Brain Storming project. This project is a series of collaborative works between our professor Victoria Vesna and a Neuroscientist Mark Cohen, and this project is talking about the brain to brain communication. The idea is to see the brainwave from the brain to brain communication, the volunteers are stimulated by sounds, images or videos. Participants wear octopus crown, receive wireless signals from the EEG computer, and the color of LEDS have measured the similarity between the participants.

Brainstorming the potential of "Brainstorming"

This week, our class got the opportunity to experience an artistic piece which melds performance art and science. In this collaboration by Dr. Vesna and Dr Cohen, "Brainstorming", Individuals are allowed to wear helmets containing electrodes which record brain activity. The brain activity is then analyzed to illuminate the helmet a specific colour. Two individuals wear helmets and sit opposite from each other.

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