Extra Credit Event 2 - The Getty Villa

Recently I visited the Getty Villa with my parents. To give some background, the Getty Villa exists thanks to the oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, and was built since the other art gallery that he had opened started to run out of room. The architecture and landscaping of the Getty Villa was based on ancient Greek, Roman and Etruscan buildings. These stylistic influences are very appropriate considering the over 40,000 Greek, Roman and Etruscan artifacts and art pieces the museum houses. The Villa also houses jewelry and coin collections.

My Dad and I at the entrance to the Getty Villa

Taken by me

I was most astounded by the location itself. A large fountain stretched out across one of the lawns, glimmering in the sunlight. Fountains with intricately carved faces spouted water as the sharply trimmed shrubbery shone with an electric green glow. Full-size statues of Greek deities stood prominently cracked and weathered by time.

Taken by Me

Taken by Me

However, the most important feature of the Getty Villa is its role as a time capsule. It holds ancient artifacts from a time when science and art were indistinguishable. The Getty Villa is a place where past and present converge. The Villa brings to life a time where science was coming into being and had a reciprocally-dependent relationship with artwork, a time where great philosophers such as Aristotle were using their scientific and artistic knowledge to make sense of their existence.

Taken by Me

Event Extra Credit - Thomas Heatherwick

Back about mid-March, I went to The Hammer Museum for their “Arts Party 2K15: Transferal”. This event was one of the more eccentric events I’ve been to, which made it all the more interesting. A DJ played deep house music in the center of the Hammer Museum courtyard as Desma students’ projection mapping animations were showcased on a gigantic screen behind the DJ. Interesting top-like chairs were scattered about the courtyard. Food and drinks were being sold, there were many booths that encouraged visitors to make their own artwork using different mediums such as clay and bandanas. Additionally, Theo, one of the TA’s for Desma 9 showcased his interactive virtual reality project which incorporated Oculus Rift hardware. It was very interesting to see such a large group of people connect and relate through such an event. I ran into people I knew making a stamp pattern on a bandana and made new friends laughing at how silly our clay sculptures looked.

Desma TA Theo posing for his interactive art piece - Taken by me

While exploring this event I stumbled into an exhibit displaying the work of Thomas Heatherwick, and English designer who has obtained the reputation as an “ideas engine” due to his astounding creativity.  After doing a little research, I learned that Thomas Heatherwick is the founder of Heatherwick Studio, an embodiment of the third culture. Heatherwick  Studio has explored architecture, furniture, urban planning, transportation and many more disciplines. In his work, there is no divide between science and art, rather the two complement each other to create something unique. Heaterwick Studio is a reaction to his frustration with our tendency to categorize different disciplines and isolate them from one another.

One of the first pieces I observed, was a design for a shaded park in Abu Dhabi inspired by the cracks formed in drying mud. This piece not only blends design and architecture, but architecture and the natural world.

Shaded Park Abu Dhabi - Taken by me

Another design was a drawbridge with the ability to roll up. And another design displayed was a model of a Mosque filled with hundreds of little lights. Everything I saw was awe inspiring. Every prototype, design, or structure that had already been built embodied a mixture of functionality and beauty. It was as if he had taken the substance of his dreams and asked himself, how can I make this a reality?

http://37.128.132.134/~hstudio/content/uploads/2013/02/rolling_bridge.1.jpg

http://37.128.132.134/~hstudio/content/uploads/2013/11/garden-bridge_th_500-450x450.jpg

It was refreshing and inspiring to see the success of an architect, engineer, etc, who was not completely logos driven. Obviously, an “efficient” way to build a drawbridge, would not involve going through the extra trouble of making it roll up, but it would rather be a normal bridge with a gate on either end. However, Heatherwick’s work directly contradicts this notion of creating for purely functional purposes. There is something about creating something as breathtaking as it is useful, and Heatherwick has made this a reality.

http://37.128.132.134/~hstudio/content/uploads/2013/10/Bleigiessen-Thumbnail-450x450.jpg

http://37.128.132.134/~hstudio/content/uploads/2013/10/n.ukpavilion-Thumbnail-450x450.jpg

Event 3 - Paul Rosero Contreras' Audiopoesis and 3D Printed Living Forest

After getting to meet Robert Gero, I attended one of the periodic Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous’(LASER) . This was a very interesting event considering I got to meet a number of experts who bridge art and science through their work. It was an extremely interesting atmosphere and I really felt the reality of the “third culture” as all of these different artists and scientists presented, and shared ideas with one another.

Me at LASER (The great Victoria Vesna in the background!)

One of the most interesting speakers was Paul Rosero, who I had the pleasure of speaking to when I bumped into him at Kathy High’s exhibit. Paul Rosero Contreras was born in Ecuador and received his masters in Interactive Media and Cognitive Systems. He is a photographer, sound scientist, coder, bio-philosopher, DJ and more broadly, an artist.

According to Contreras, objects have a natural frequency that is produced when the object is struck or vibrates. Often, these frequencies are not within the range of human hearing and thus go unnoticed. These frequencies can change with time and sometimes only exist until the object the come from changes. Contreras, however, allows us to “hear” or experience these frequencies by moving them into the human hearing range.

http://roserocontreras.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/mg_95771.jpg?w=650&h=433

http://roserocontreras.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/pag91-977.jpg?w=667&h=454

For his project Audiopoesis, Contreras traveled to Antarctica in February of 2013 to record these hidden frequencies from numerous natural objects including glaciers, frozen ground, thin sheets of ice, and stones. Contreras chose Antarctica because he considers it a “great junction of ecosystems” that have to potential to create and harbor symbiotic life.

It is important to remember, however, that the sounds resulting from Contreras’ work are not actually what exist naturally. In this, Contreras has acted as a medium of translation through which the “speech” of inanimate objects may travel into the realm of human perception.

Link to sound of ice: https://soundcloud.com/psrc/paul_rosero_antarctic-ice_12

In addition to an auditory portal, Contreras has also assumed the role of bridging the apparent divide between the artificial and the natural. In the project Anticipation to an Absence, a forest has been printed using a biological 3D printer that uses a mixture of biomaterial and plastic. This forest has its own agency and changes over time, maintaining its own “autopoesis”. This project reminded me of Marta Meneze’s butterfly wing altercations. Similarly, Contreras using a “living” medium to realize his work, but on the other hand, he does not take something that is already living and alter that, he takes something manmade and gives it life.

Bio 3D Printer
https://roserocontreras.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/rosero_bio-printer.jpg?w=700&h=467

https://roserocontreras.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/rosero_forest.jpg?w=700&h=467

Event 2 - Robert Gero's Infinity Structures: Paradoxical Spaces

Recently I visited Robert Gero’s installment at UCLA’s CNSI building, Infinity Structures: Paradoxical Spaces. I attended this event during the opening reception and was lucky enough to meet Robert Gero himself. To give a little background on this artist and philosopher, he is also a sculptor and curator who explores social-architectural systems through his art and philosophy. Gero is very interested in geometry and has done a number of similar exhibitions that explore the unique space of the area he is given.

Taken By Me

The room was dark as I entered, and subtle ambient, melodic noise crept from the back wall as my eyes explored the transformed space. Styrofoam structures shot from wall to wall, bending at sharp angles and taking off in different directions. Some of the structures connected and split apart at seemingly random points. I sometimes had to duck or lean in a direction as I walked around the room. As I traversed the space, I got the sense that the room was alive. I was constantly disoriented by moving, geometric shapes that were being projected because they echoed the structures in the room. The dim lighting produced strange shadows, and the constantly shifting projections made it difficult to discern whether certain shapes were actually occupying the space or merely perceived to be there based on what I saw. This exhibit strongly connects the work of early Renaissance artists’ who explored 3-dimensional space using vanishing points and geometry to manipulate the viewer’s perception. The convergence and divergence of these mysterious structures reminded me of vanishing points, bringing the infinite to life within a confined space.

Taken By Me

When talking to Robert Gero himself, I asked him how he created the structures in the room. He explained that he took the dimensions of the room, built a 3D model of the space on a program and began manipulating it. He made the room the object, stretching the dimensions, multiplying them, stretching them every which way until they formed structured which he recreated with Styrofoam in the room. The product of his work was an infinitely mutated version of itself, this added to his philosophical notion of a fixed space housing the infinite. The space contained itself. Additionally, the exhibit was tied very closely to the space it was in. Gero told me he also based structures off of the shapes of the walls of the room, and of the bridges outside of the CSNI building. Pillows were also placed on the structures. Gero explained that these pillows belonged to the room before his exhibit, thus tying the room to the infinite past and persona of the unique space.

Bridges of CSNI building - Taken By Me

Pillow on Structures - Taken By Me