Art, Science + Technology
DMA9 Fall 2007, Section BArchive for October 25, 2007
Week 4: The future of computer networks, biology
How does computer network related to biology?
Computer networks have become an integral part of many people’s lives. The most widely used of all networks, the internet, connects millions of people cross countries. More importantly, it has fulfilled H.G. Wells’ dream: to create a system making human knowledge available to all. One important thing is that internet is not owned by any one person or corporation. Internet survives only because everyone participates in this network. All the computers are linked to the internet and people are contributing news, pictures, and videos to the internet everyday. When the internet contains more information, more people would continue to use it. This trend would continue and more and more people would end up using the internet.
In biology, the natural system works in a similar way. An environment is suitable for a group of animals to live in. Therefore, that group and any other animals would congregate to this area. These animals by themselves are the contribution to the environment. The forest or desert is now filled with a large number of animals. Each predator in this environment has prey to eat just like every user on the internet has knowledge to gain. The predators contribute to the environment by being there, diversifying the environment. With an open system like internet or forest, there would be those people who would abuse it. The virus writer and spammers would create problems on the internet. The human who abusively cut down all the trees without giving back the nutrients are similar to the virus writers and spammers. All of them create problems and make the environment a terrible place.
Another major similarity is the self organization of both the natural environment and internet. As the environment becomes too packed, the animals die naturally or they leave the area physically. As the population becomes too low, the available resources increases naturally and population returns to normal. These self regulating activities prevent the whole population from dying. The internet works similarly. As the number of virus writers increases, there would be more demand for protection software or firewall. With this demand for jobs, people would filled up these jobs and therefore fight the virus writers. The internet would become a safer place again.
How does network related to art?
The network and art have close connection. Network in any aspect is connections or relationships among many entities. If these entities were represented by an object and the connections be represented by a line, then the resulting graph would generate a picture of web. By using software to generate such behaviors or any continuous behaviors, there would be an art. For example, a software program that we saw in class on Monday shows many bubbles and lines among them. Each of the bubbles represents a website that people have visited and the line represents the connection of the websites. After the program has been executing for minutes or seconds, the resulting picture is a tree-like web. This picture can continue to grow as more websites are visited. Like any paintings in the world, this active picture is an art.
Spider Silk… or Carbon Nanotubes?
What really caught my interest this week was the mentioning of mass-producing spider silk from genetically modified goats. The idea has been around for quite some time, but I had no idea that people had actually already begun to bring it into action. Now there is a way to mass produce spider silk… but there will always be people who are against tampering with nature.
I came into UCLA with the hopes of exploring the uses and properties of carbon nanotubes, which by far surpasses the strength of spider silk and any steel that is thrown at it. However, these carbon nanotubes are not as elastic as spider silk, and thus the two will probably have different uses. Carbon nanotubes will probably go into the structure of small electronics up to even tanks, while spider silk will provide a great alternative to kevlar, medical suits, and other light-weight materials.
What if there were some way to integrate spider silk’s properties into carbon nanotubes? structurally, this would be impossible, but if we could somehow mesh the two together by a means not yet explored, i believe there would be a perfect product for practically any use. The material would not be too heavy, and yet have a strength at least 15x stronger than a high-density steel equivalent. the carbon nanotubes would have a stronger resistance against buckling under compression, and the spider silk would have a reinforced strength. This sounds like a perfect compromise to me. How this would be possible is beyond my current education level, but it would be something i would probably explore more in the future.
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001388.html
you can wikipedia both also. spider silk and carbon nanotubes.
Week 4: Biology, Networks, Natural Systems and Artificial Life
Thoughts on social networking sites…
The first lecture this week caused me to think about the impact of modern technology around us. Specifically, it’s interesting to study the influence of social networking sites, such as Myspace and Facebook. On these sites, people are able to find out about happenings between others without actually being present. As an example, I instantly know what Melissa said to John last week when they were at dinner. This is a whole new concept in our world, and I’ve noticed the effect is a decrease in person to person social interaction. This outcome clearly originated much earlier when new forms of communication arose, such as the invention of the telephone, but social networking sites have suddenly intensified the effect. I believe that Facebook is very useful to remain in contact with friends and family that are far from us. It’s also beneficial time-wise (for example, Maria can respond to me when she has time). However, the negative aspect is its constant use for communication with people near us and as a form of “killing time”.
Should the GFP Bunny be considered a work of art?
The GFP Bunny, a genetically modified bunny that could glow green, was presented as art by Eduardo Kac in 2000. Our guest speaker supported his work of “art”, though it brought much criticism. I was not persuaded by the speaker; I disagree that the GFP Bunny is art.
The GFP Bunny was created by a scientist in a lab, and simply presented as art by Kac. This artist believed that since it was genetically modified (as opposed to a natural thing), taken out of its lab environment, and given a title, that it had a new meaning, and therefore was art. I don’t believe this is a valid way to create art. This “rule” gives everyone the title of an artist and is demeaning. For example, by placing a leaf on a pedestal in a room and calling it life, is this to say that I am now an artist? Like the GFP Bunny, Duchamp’s Fountain (a urinal) should not be considered art either.
An interesting observation: In contrast to the field of art, it seems that there is almost no controversy over what should be considered science. I think that such controversial aspects of art and its vulnerability to criticism are contributors to the gap between art and science.
Links:
If a urinal is art, can hammering it be, too?
~ A somewhat comical article that supports my point of view
Art, Science + Technology 