Closing Thoughts

WOAH.

I feel like there is no better word to describe my feelings and experiences this last semester than "woah". When I found out I would be taking an all day friday class, I thought "woah", when I told friends I would be going to NASA every other week, they said "woah", when I realized just how rad and talented everyone in this class was, I said "woah".

It's very clear that no part of my brain functions to understand math or science, so I undoubtedly was worried about where the subject matter of this class would take me. No question, this was the best class I have ever and probably will ever take at Chapman. I was able to see and learn things that go WAY beyond that of a normal college class, and I made art with materials and concepts I had never explored before.  Cheesy, but I am so thankful for the opportunity to take this class, it gave me a totally different view on sciences, something I never thought I had any interest in, and frankly didn't care about. The reason why this class worked so well on an interdisciplinary level was that nothing of it was forced. We didn't sit there learning the equations that went into finding out the science behind black holes, but we physically touched pieces of a mars rover, or sat in a sound bath that completely took over our bodies. Science was approached in a creative way, a way that an art-centered mind was able to comprehend and thats why it worked so well.

Final thoughts

Looking back on such an excellent semester, I feel as though this class opened my mind in ways I never expected. Before this class, I thought the idea that art and science had some similarities was interesting, but I had trouble making those connections on my own. But now I see that the two have many similarities in the way that they both reveal truth, and that the two also inform one another. I’ve always been very passionate about art and very interested in science, and this class brought the two together in my mind.

I have realized that incorporating art into science helps me learn and understand complex concepts much better. When something is drawn out or given a narrative, it makes me comprehend things that would otherwise seem out of my grasp. This idea is what inspired me for my final – a comic that explains the big bang in a way that makes sense for the average person and is also fun to read. For me, that goes back to my childhood, the first time I ever saw art and science working together, and I didn’t even realize how effective that could be until now.

It was also interesting going to JPL and seeing how they use art to develop rovers and other technology that helps them to study Mars. It fascinated me how a simple sketch and an abstract idea could eventually turn into something so concrete. It made me realize how similar their process is to my own as an artist. We all start out with a concept and go through the process of trial and error, and through that we discover different ways to make things work.

Both art and science allow us to go beyond what we see in front of us with the naked eye. Both force us to look both inside ourselves and out at the bigger picture to gain more out of the human experience. Learning about these connections made me see just how significant a part of life art and science are. Without them, we would simply choose to accept the mere surface level of reality. With them, we are able to venture further and experience the incredible.

I will admit that this class was at times challenging for me – as someone who had only ever done painting and drawing, thinking outside the box was a new experience for me. But I learned a lot. I worked in video, which I had never done before, and I learned a lot from the other people in the class as well. Getting to go to the Integratron and Mount Wilson were incredible experiences for me that gave me a new perspective on the world and both have made me look at my own work in a new way. I feel like those experiences and the things I have learned through making the projects will stay with me for the rest of my life.

I’m very glad I took this class. It has allowed me to think in ways I haven’t before about my artwork and my writing as well. I’m definitely still learning and growing, but I see myself working in different media and exploring different subject matter in my work moving forward. I hope to find more opportunities to merge the two disciplines, as there are just so many ways that the two can go together!

Final Statement

           Before this class, I saw no connection between art and science even though some people in art classes I had before used various methods and experiments of science in their art pieces. This semester I learnt a lot about NASA, space, and how art and science interact. I think artists and scientists are similar in a way that both asked the big question: What is it? Why does it matter? They both try to find the answers deeply. Even at JPL, the man who made topography of Mars explained that he used different colors to show different elevation of Mars surface. This shows that some of the scientific findings were integrated with art to make complex data or findings understandable to people who were not experts in that particular field. Also, it is a lot easier for people to see pictures or drawings of something rather than just listening to the explanation of it. For example,  during Jenna Levine’s lecture, even though she explained everything in a simplest way, it was hard for us to understand the equations and how black holes suck in all the lights. The perceived drawings of black holes made it a lot easier to imagine that the object could be seen around the black holes, which was also the reason why we could never hide behind the black hole.

            Apart from all the lectures and speaker events, I learnt most from my classmates. Since this class was based mostly on our own ideas, everybody had different ideas for their projects that involved usage of various medium, techniques and materials, which I think was very interesting and I was shocked to see amazing works at every critique. It also inspired me to be more and more creative with my projects unlike previous art classes that I had. I did video art pieces for my projects because I like learning new technology and it also gave me the ability to create things that I couldn’t even imagine or think of doing. Even though I struggled with it for some of my projects, it also helped me generate new creative ideas as I learnt new techniques. For my projects this semester, I mainly experimented around with the use of sounds, lights, and images and the effects of all these. My first project was mixture of fractals found in nature and human-made fractals moving around the screen with the nature sounds, such as the sound of the beach, waves, tress, and birds. Even though the soothing sound was playing, the viewers could see fractals flashing in and out of the screen, making the viewer felt uneasy.

             For Mars project, I stacked layers and layers of Mars landscape and Mars itself to illustrate the experience of multiple dimensions, inviting the viewers to explore the surface of the Mars in an intriguing way. My optical illusion was collection of different sizes of blue and red lights blinking at different times, creating an illusion of going into an unknown space. The video also had an ambient sound playing in the background to enhance the feeling from the illusion. Lastly, my final project demonstrates the intersection of art and science where I interpret/describe my experiences from sound baths through my artwork. Certain nerves were stimulated when different bowls were played and that special science stirred my mind, creating bizarre visions. I also believe it is more powerful to show than describe my experiences during sound baths. Thus, this piece invites the viewers to feel my experiences at the Integratron.  

The Last Hurrah

Towards the beginning of this year I was afraid, so to speak, that all of my projects were going to be painting, mostly because I felt like I hadn’t enough sense or experience in any other medium. When pitching my first idea to the class, it was originally supposed to be a layered painting because that is what I knew and felt comfortable with. However, then I decided to change it to just cut layered paper that was lit from behind due to the feedback I got on the initial idea. Because this was my first project in paper, which I had never worked on, there was an enormous amount of trial and error. While presenting the final pieces, I vividly remember stressing to the class that during this process I had no idea what I was doing but just had to figure it out on the way.

            For me, most of this class was having no idea what was going on relatively, but knowing what we had to have accomplished at the end. I had had this pre-conceived notion that science and art were totally different as well as one being more respected than others, but on our journeys, the actual scientists that we spoke to changed my mind completely. Especially at the Jet Propulsion Lab, all of the speakers know so clearly what they were talking about when it came to Mars or space but at times expressed that they had trouble conveying that to others or the public clearly and easily. All of the speakers were fascinated at our process and artistic liberty to create art from their information and were beyond respectful of individuals who actually do that for JPL.        

            As the class got more united and comfortable with each other, I began to feel a real bond with everyone. We all were fascinated enough by space to take a class that is literally about seven hours long. When I would talk about this to other friends in my major, they would be appalled at the time. However, once I told them exactly what the class was and the opportunities we had, they would try to find a way to take it themselves.

            The opportunities we had through this class were unlike any other. Honestly, I did not expect this class to be this amazing. Being a class that could consistently go to JPL to walk around and talk and see basically all of the major components and people that their space missions go through is a once in a lifetime opportunity. With the Integratron, reading The Martian together, renting out the Observatory, along with countless speakers, this has been a life-changing process. Unlike any other, this experience encouraged me to be adventurous with things that normally would scare me into not even trying them in the first place. Yes, I am not an art major, but who is to say that art will not be a daily part of my life. I think that is what I enjoyed best out of this class; this class was not a job opportunity route but a path that led me to bigger ideas and feelings when it comes to myself and my abilities in all areas.

My Last Thoughts...Deuces Gooses!

            All twelve of us strolled into the fluorescent lit meeting room which contained a long table lined with office chairs a projector screen on one end and a flat screen on the other. It had a full wall of windows that looked out to the campus where you can only imagine what was going on within the walls of the surrounding buildings. Week after week we would file into this conference room always accompanied by our chaperons closing the door and then dimming the lights. There would be a mysterious person sitting at the table who for a brief moment just looked like your average human you would pass in the grocery store not knowing the incredible knowledge and thoughts streaming through their brain. They would plug in their computer introduce themselves and spew out some crazy cool job title. We would settle in pens and journals ready to be doodled scribbled and written in for the remainder of the day. The presenter would start there slides and you would start to get an understanding of how knowledgeable of there field of study, there love of research and learning and begin to be enveloped in the subject being viewed on the screens. I found myself allowing my ears listen and my brain to absorb all of this valuable information throughout the long day.

            A wide range of experiences happened within the conference room from bring completely lost in their usage of language, to complete understanding, questioning their methods, mind blown, hangry, mystified, and most importantly inspired. I have always been one who could sit and listen to someone with knowledge I don’t poses and try and absorb and understand all they are explaining. Curiosity has always been prevalent in my mind. Whether it was dissecting a fish after it was filleted to understanding the physical force of gravity within the classroom and on the playground. I was lucky enough to grow up in schools that were very hands on learning and mixed art into every subject of learning. This class brought me back to my first memories of learning by creating and experiencing what was being taught. I was lacking this energy and exploration within my art work and I feel as though it has brought me back on the path I had traveled on a lot earlier in my education.

            Looking through the telescope, experimenting with sound waves and all the kitchen products you could think of, being stuck on the 5 with my peers, laughing and all being mind blown together, meditations, campfire talks, adventures, all nighters, finding best friends, failures, triumphs, and developing as a creator. All these things wouldn’t have happened without this class and all the incredible experiences that came with it. The collection of memories and understanding of myself and my peers were furthered more on our Friday adventures.

            Now science and art make so much sense to me being paired together. In a sense it always has to me growing up with art being such an aspect of my education. I just needed a reminder of how much they correlate.

The Greatest Nap There Ever Was

I have the need to go back and go through this experience again. I quickly moved into a deep sleep. Once I got all tucked in and he started the session I was out. I did however have some really strange dreams that even after waking up I was really sure what happened with in them. I do know that when he stopped playing the bowls my arm flew off to the side and I started to awake from my slumber. Apparently people could hear me from a cross the room quietly snoring. I hope to go back soon and experience the bowls to the fullest and stay awake. However that might have been one of the best naps I have ever taken.

            As for our camping experience within Joshua Tree it was fun and all but was unfortunately cut short. If we had more experience or less camera gear then we would have lasted the down pour of rain. However it is probably one of the most memorable moments from my whole semester. Because what happens in Joshua Tree stays in Joshua Tree.

Final Thoughts!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Even though this class has its origins in finding the connections between art and science, for me it has become a platform to explore how art percolates every facet of my life and every dimension of my thought process. For me, it’s become the art-and-everything-else-and-how-they-and-we-are-all-connected class.

In a very practical sense, fieldtrips to JPL were incredible bolsters of artistic confidence, as we saw artists thriving in scientific fields, relied upon for their applicable skills. It’s a scary world out there for a kid with an arts degree, and NASA made me feel like there’s a place for us nerdy visualizers where we are not only appreciated, but necessary.

But in a greater way, this class was a mental jumping off point for me in thinking about how I think. And how the intersection of art and science has always been something that has been duking it out in my brain. Right vs left brain or whatever other analogies that can be attached to such a controversy just speak to a greater idea of paradox. Whitman once said, “do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.” These multiplicities and paradoxes do not, I think, within the scheme of art and science, need to necessarily be resolved. I think the friction that occurs between mediums and disciplines is healthy—it’s exciting. I’m most stimulated and inspired when I’m talking with people that have something different to say to me, something outside of my own experience. The phenomenon of social homogamy states that we are more likely to become attracted to (in a friends or other sense) other people who share similar thought processes or even socioeconomic backgrounds with us. Although I agree that these connections are easier and more likely, I would say that they can sometimes be less fulfilling. Those connections that you have to work for, that don’t make sense until you’ve really delved into the kinks…those kinds of interactions between people, and between art and science, are the ones that I think are the most valuable.

On a very base level, I think art and science inherently have a reliance upon one another. Art relies upon science in its technicalities—astrophotography is cool, but only if you understand how your camera works, for which you need to understand the physics of light (ie, science). Science is indigestible unless visualized and conceptualized by someone who can take ideas and put them into pictures, charts, diagrams, and there is an art to that.

But most significantly, art and science are both fields that search for meaning. We ask why and how. We want to understand, to investigate, to experience. And then to communicate that experience, to replicate it or synthesize it in a meaningful way. We are meaning-seekers, and meaning-makers.

With this in mind, Katie and I collaborated to create a piece about connectivity. When I took astronomy my first semester at college, I remember reading what stands as the most significant line of text I’ve ever encountered in a text book. In describing the recylcling of star matter in the creation of new stars and also therefore galaxies and other cosmic bodies, the book said, “we are all star stuff.”

This connection of all beings with mass, attracted to each other by gravity, is a theory of science. But it is a concept that is constantly grappled with by artists, by seekers of spiritual meaning. So with ideas of spirituality and science and art and the connections of all three and the connections of everything ever…we started to make a video. Accompanied by a free-verse poem I wrote, and a list-style free-verse poem by Katie.

Mine is this:

science and spirituality take us on similar journeys, and help us arrive at parallel realizations of our connections to the universe. theories of quantum entanglement explain to me what i already know when I’m holding hands and listening to rain on my window. i begin to understand that i am only one piece and that the one piece i am is actually an unquantifiable bazillion things that have nothing to do with me, that have never known my name. but all the parts of me that have no concept of me do not make my sense of self less significant, but make me realize i am an entire universe a million cells in orbit that whether or not i have a soul i am soulful and firefull and starfull and lightfull and lifefull all that fills me is what fills everything and everyone and every place else. i am star stuff you are star stuff it is all we are all star stuff and one and many. it is all starstuff. everything. this and that and you. roses and smiles and fires. oceans and sands and waves and hands. and dog licks and cold fingers. and atoms and solar flares. and craters and mountains on earth on the moon on mars on planets we’ll never hear of before our lifetime. star stuff, all of it. in the beginning if there ever was a beginning it was all one we were all one. but even now wherever now is relative to beginnings and endings, the cyclic nature of matter is such that there is never any matter created or destroyed. and so we are supernovas and cosmic catastrophe, we are what has always existed and we will always exist. as matter. we matter. matter matters. we exist as matter therefore we matter. and we are all conglomerates of each other and the past and the future we will be a new combination so there are really no differences. except that there are. those beautiful variations of this same star stuff that makes either a person or a pond, a mountain or a molehill, a sound or a fingernail or a scale or a snail or a river or a canyon or an earth or a comet. this little pieces this star stuff that makes us. it aligned to make you. and me. as we are as we can be as we choose but also as the matter chose to be. we live our lives as all our parts fulfill evolutionary destinies unknown to us unrelated to us. there is no malice in cancer, only programming. death kills only the combination of parts that makes us in this moment. our parts never dissipate. the star stuff lives on even when we think we die. even if by our actions we kill this planet we cannot truly kill anything. there is no destruction that escapes the recycling of matter. we are indestructable in our parts, though fleeting in our wholes. now i am human. but tomorow i could be breath or blankets. tiles or bark on a tree. an apple, a cheeto, a streetlamp’s glow. i am an ocean in a drop. i am an entire universe, and all you know of me is starlight.

Arts/Music Festival Volunteer Instead of JPL :)

I didn’t go to NASA this past week because I was a volunteer at an arts and music festival held in the high mountain desert of Los Coyotes Indian Reservation. The festival is called Desert Hearts, and really only culminates in a festival

I actually first started thinking about applying to volunteer after we visited the Integratron and the lady who talked to us (I'm the worst with names) was saying how she met a lot of her current artistic connections at Burning Man. Desert Hearts is a younger festival than Burning Man, but has a very similar set of goals and artistic purpose, seeing itself as a family of artists coming together to make and experience art in an immersive way.  

It's been on my artistic bucket list for so long to go into a festival and install, and I finally have that opportunity thanks to last-minute drop out volunteers. My aspirations of creating an installation ended up more lame than I was hoping, since it was so incredibly cold that people’s willingness to get their fingers or brushes into my cold paint was less than exciting. Anything other than eating warm food seemed like a waste of taking gloves off. However, I carried face paints with me everywhere, offering to face paint as a kind of gift to give away to everyone I met.

And the artists there…they were incredible. The stage was 24 hours, as the festival was intended to have one stage, one vibe, for 100 straight hours of music over the entire weekend. And surrounding the stage 24/7 were artists. Painting, spinning fire, hula-hooping, making jewelry…I met one artist who I reconnected with later at an event in LA and offered me an apprenticeship making custom-made rings and metalworked jewelry. I met another artist who is dedicated to elaborate moving origami works. I think I bugged quite a few artists by getting way too stoked to talk to them artist-to-artist while they were painting and would way rather just focus than listen to me talk about how I paint and am moved by how I got to see their process.

Overall. Wow. By far the most incredible and collaborative community of artists I’ve ever gotten to interact with outside of a studio classroom. So encouraging. So inspiring.

Integratron!

Integratron! 

This was my second trip to the Integratron. My first was for my birthday, and we went after backpacking up to a secret spot my friend and I found months ago, at the top of a mound of boulders. We call it our special spot, and it’s a place that would be impossible to go unless you stumbled upon it several hundred feet of bouldering and climbing up, as we did, or if you’ve been there before.

But that time to the Integratron, I was super stressed. I was coming off of having backpacked, a bit underfed, and on a Sunday. Most of my thoughts on that day were all the things that I needed to do but hadn’t yet. And you can’t go into a meditative state and expect positive results in such a state of mind. Not to mention I was so wiped from descending from our spot that my body was very down to just pass out on the nice cozy mats.

So this was an exciting opportunity at a redo. I’m very interested in the correlations between science and art and spirituality, and am both a believer and amateur practitioner of crystal healing—but not without scientific and psychological reasoning. Understanding ideas of chakras and the ancient traditions of body alignment and mind-body connection that go with them means also understanding the science of how different parts of our bodies activates brain activity.

Thus, crystal quartz bowls played at such a frequency to correlate to specific chakras incited not only ideas in me of crystal healing but also of psychosomatic impulses. There’s a science to it all, even if we’re not at a place yet of fully understanding how all the pieces connect. And somewhere like the Integratron, I welcome the mystery.

I think such experiences are importantly at a place of suspended disbelief. You can have out-of-body experiences if you give yourself over to it, and then you can have such experiences in psychedelic proportion. Or, at least leave with an elevated sense of body-mind-earth connection. When you feel the connection to the energy that exists over those intersections of electrical fields…yes it’s scientific, but damn does science make me feel some kind of spiritual when it literally resonates in your bones. And in that way, the Integratron becomes an important symbol in the arguments that arise between art and science and science and spirituality. There’s things you feel and can’t explain until maybe later or maybe never—but that doesn’t rob you of the veracity of that experience, and the legitimacy of having had an incredible mind awakening. So call it science, call it spirituality, call it hippie dippy bullshit—I felt moved.

And I can’t even talk about camping afterwards. So much fun. But the lifelong backpacker that I am cringes to think that we left. Cringes. Rained out. I’m an Oregonian. But the times we had and the things we learned about astrophotography…still pretty epic. So it’s ok. But if anyone asks, we stayed the whole night.