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Example of brainbow imaging With the concept of art and creativity being as broad as it is, I find it interesting to view the results of medical technology as being artistic. I am also surprised by how much of medicine can be viewed through the lens of art. Great examples of this from class are exhibits like Bodies or artistic viewings of MRI readings. One of my favorites, however, is brainbow. Brainbow is a neuro-imaging method where different cell types are differentiated using fluorescent proteins. There are multiple different colors available and each color can be used to color a specific cell type. This method of visualizing the brain produces some beautiful images which are not only fascinating to look at but also can provide scientific insight into the anatomy of our brains. X-Men character undergoing a medical procedure Another area where art and medical technology cross over is in movies, specifically in the recently more popular super hero movies. Some of these fi...

Stories of Almost Everything The Hammer museum is home to many exhibits, but two of them stood out to me on my previous visit. The first was titled Stories of Almost Everything  and was basically a large room full of random objects. I looked at everything from a single matchstick on the ground to a string of balloons on the ceiling which said, "I KNOW VERY WELL BUT NEVERTHELESS" to five old telephone poles also laying on the floor together. Each of these had a description near it which gave a straight-forward description of exactly what the art piece was. While many people (including myself) probably wouldn't consider the pieces in this exhibit to be art, it really depends on the context which the pieces are presented in. Before walking in, there was a description on the wall which explained that the entire exhibit was about how something like a museum acts a mediator between the artist and the viewer. In this context, the museum functions by helping to interpret the ...

Poster for Blade Runner Today, robots have become a part of our daily lives, even if we don't notice them. Despite their modern presence, however, I am personally interested to see where robotics advance to in the future. Fortunately, I'm not the first person to be interested in this, so there are numerous pieces of media which depict others' interpretations of our future. One great example of this is the movie Blade Runner, which takes places in a future where synthetic humans (called replicants in the movie) are used as a labor force in developing new worlds for humans to live on. These replicants are artificially created to be just like humans so they are basically hyper-advanced robots made from biological materials and which have their own consciousness and intelligence. While it would take incredible science and technology to develop "robots" like this, it would also take an incredible amount of artistry to make them so close to being human.  A Bl...

Pollock's Blue Pole Painting While art and science may seem as though they have nothing in common, there are a surprising number of overlaps if you take the time to look for them. As someone with a background in science and math as opposed to art, finding these crossovers between the subjects has really helped me appreciate art in a new way. A great example of this is Jackson Pollock's work with drip painting. I have seen Pollock's work before but I have always been in the category of people who criticize his abstract form for being meaningless and able to be done by anyone. His paint drips, however, contain much more complexity (fractals) than I previously thought. This intricacy makes the painting infinitely more interesting to me because it is no longer just random paint splatters in my mind. Fractals in architecture Besides providing another aspect to the paintings that make them interesting, fractals are also inherently aesthetically-pleasing patterns. This ...

While C. P. Snow divides the world in art and science and places these two groups at odds with each other, I don't see his writings as inherently being about art and science. Instead, I interpret his discussion as being a distinction between traditionalism and modernism and his argument as a frustration with traditionalism and its results. Sacred writing of the Baha'i faith discussing traditionalism vs. modernism He is not alone in making this argument and he is also not the first. A relatively new religion, Baha'i, which began in Iran in the mid-1800's, has been attempting to address the problem of traditionalism vs. modernism in the context of religion for the last 150 years. The Baha'i faith even has a similar position, arguing that modernism must be embraced and combined with traditionalism. This combination of modernism and traditionalism is comparable to Snow's own prediction that there will eventually be third culture which bridges the gap betwe...