kylekalindjianDESMA9

    This week’s materials opened up a dimension of medicine I rarely considered: the deeply artistic and  architectural   nature of the human body, and the ethical frameworks that shape how it’s studied, scanned, and saved.      Silvia Casini’s discussion of MRI as both   portrait   and   mirror   helped me revisit my own experience inside the machine. Years ago, I had an MRI for chronic migraines, and it felt sterile, clinical. But Casini reframes the MRI image as something intimate and aesthetic, a product of cultural and sensory translation. In this way, even diagnostic imaging becomes an artistic interface between technology and the self.     That insight resonated with Donald Ingber’s   The Architecture of Life , where he introduces   tensegrity   as the structural principle behind everything from cells to organs. It’s a concept borrowed from sculpture, structures held together not by rigid bo...

     In   The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction , Walter Benjamin writes, “That which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.” Industrialization and reproducibility shifted art away from ritual and originality toward mass accessibility and politicization. Now, we’re witnessing a second rupture in the digital age. Douglas Davis echoes Benjamin’s fears but argues that in digital reproduction, “the aura... has stretched far beyond the boundaries of Benjamin’s prophecy,” as each copy becomes individualized by the user.      Films like   Her   (2013) explore this evolution: an AI operating system forms deep emotional connections with humans, blurring reality and simulation. This mirrors Davis’ idea of “chameleon” artworks: no longer distinguishable as original or copy, but emotionally authentic nonetheless.     Industrial tools like   Arduino ,   Raspberry Pi , and   Ba...

     Attending Roxanne Harris’s lecture completely reframed how I understand coding, not as a technical language, but as an artistic tool. A self-described “musician-programmer,” Harris shared how her background in computer science and music at Yale evolved into live coding performances, where she improvises music and visuals through real-time programming. Her lecture made me see code as a form of   improvisational art , not just structure.      Exploring her   portfolio , I was especially struck by her use of Sonic Pi, a live coding platform that transforms programming into performance. Watching her craft layered soundscapes in real time, I saw a direct connection between code and musical expression, something I had never considered before. She described it as “algorithmic vulnerability,” where even mistakes become part of the performance. This transparency aligns with themes we’ve discussed in class: the merging of logic and creativity, and embr...

    This week’s exploration into mathematics and art helped me see how math isn’t just a tool for calculation, but a language of creativity, space, and perception. This was exemplified by the two readings for the week, Linda Dalrymple Henderson’s   The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art   and Edwin Abbott’s   Flatland . Henderson shows how artists used higher dimensions and abstract geometry to break from traditional Renaissance perspective, creating fragmented and experimental works that reflected the evolving scientific worldview. Abbott’s   Flatland   uses satire to illustrate how closed-minded societies resist new dimensions, literally and metaphorically. Both emphasize how math can expand how we see reality.      I saw this echoed in   John Maeda’s work , where code becomes a medium for generative, interactive art. Maeda treats computation like paint, using math as a language of form, movement, and f...

    This week, I explored C.P. Snow’s 1959 Rede Lecture,   “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution,”   and Victoria Vesna’s article,   “Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between.”   Both works address the disconnect between the sciences and the humanities, a divide that feels all too familiar on the UCLA campus. Snow argued that the lack of communication between scientists and literary intellectuals weakens our ability to solve societal problems. Vesna extends this by emphasizing how artists working with technology now act as intermediaries, forging a potential “third culture.”         Walking from North to South campus at UCLA, even the culture of the students seems different. While I see students lounging on the grass and reading books and gazing off into the distance in the Sculpture Gardens, when I get to the Court of Sciences I see students beelining it to their class in an efficient, almost robotic way. The stereotypes ...