Darion's First Blog Post For DESMA 9

 What's up readers! Welcome to Darion's really cool blog he's making for DESMA 9!

Although there's a lot to be desired about my style of writing and I'm not sure what this first post is supposed to be about, but let's get started!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Event 1 | Alchemy and Art

Image
  Fig 1. McCoy,  Untitled .  Fig 2. Phan, Zoom Link Confirmation I attended the event Alchemy + Art hosted by Ann McCoy. As a person who enjoys looking at art and going to museums, it was really enjoyable to see an artist explain the different pieces herself. What I liked about McCoy was her inspiration. Unlike other artists that take inspiration from the world around them, McCoy looks within her own mind and experiences to produce an art piece that is utterly and completely hers.  Fig 3. McCoy, Bog People . Along with her unique style and motivations, McCoy allowed herself to draw what she wanted despite losing her art dealers. Her depiction of the Bog People and her subsequent work allowed McCoy to become a Guggenheim fellow! She inspired me to look deeper into alchemy as a whole, and I found that alchemy also deals with turning metals into gold, searching for a panacea, and perfecting the human body (Anapur).  The interesting thing about alchemy is that it re...
Read more

Week 1 | Two Cultures

Image
Growing up in the Bay Area, my parents wanted me to go into a STEM-related field because they believed it would give me the best shot at being ‘successful’ in life. I really enjoyed it, but I felt like something would be missing with a purely engineering-focused education because I enjoyed the other subjects like history and literature. As a result, I applied to UCLA as an economics major. I think I subconsciously knew there had to be more than just being in STEM, but I didn’t understand why until doing the readings and watching the lectures.  As an economics major, I think that it’s a compromise between STEM and the humanities. As an economics major, I was able to take literature, philosophy, political science, and history classes rather than taking solely course requirements. This has allowed me to navigate the two cultures as a person who is interested in both sides and wants to bridge the gap between them. In the reading, the part of C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures that impacted me th...
Read more

Week 6 | Biotechnology and Art

Image
  I don’t believe that the lives of other animals is a valid artistic medium. Inserting genes and causing an animal to feel unnecessary suffering just to make an artistic statement feels…wrong. Scientific experimentation on animals has a greater reason behind the suffering which justifies it more than art. Art may provoke intense reactions in people and cause them to consider perspectives they haven’t considered before, but there are other mediums that can be used to achieve that same effect without needlessly harming animals. For example, take these bioluminescent mice (Kubota). Fig 1. Bioluminescent Mice, 2017. They are being used to advance genetics-related research. Without using them, we could be harming humans so it is a necessary sacrifice. I would disagree with creating these mice if it were just for an art project because it doesn’t really make a statement that couldn’t be made with a different medium. Fig 2. Victoria Vesna, Lecture 5 bioart pt1 1280x720, 2013. However, th...
Read more