Media Arts and Technology

The M200a course “Intersections of Art & Technology” introduces directions in creative arts-engineering approaches within a media arts context. Through review and analyses of the Fall 2024 Getty PST Art initiative, lectures, readings, research presentation, and a final project, the course will introduce contemporary and historical directions and methodologies of the intersections of art and technology.

We will post reviews, discussions, reports, etc. here.

Course syllabus is at: https://www.mat.ucsb.edu/~g.legrady/aca ... f200a.html

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The first submission is to describe yourself: Name, department, your current research / practice if any.

And then add a selection of exhibitions which are part of the Getty PST Art and may be posted at https://pst.art/en/exhibitions which you would be interested in reviewing and possibly visiting. There should be two categories given that the Getty PST is titled "Art + Science Collide": 1) Cultural and artistic topics of interest 2) Technological, engineering, scientific topics

My name is Zejun Huang. It's my website: https://www.zejuns.com. In the past, my practice has focused on fashion, design and human-computer interaction. Now, as I study Media Arts and Technology, I am excited to explore how virtual reality and human-computer interaction can intersect with media art to create immersive and innovative experiences.

1) Artistic:
RISING SIGNS: THE MEDIEVAL SCIENCE OF ASTROLOGY
https://pst.art/es/eventos/art-break-as ... oes-online
This exhibition showcases numerous medieval manuscripts, charts, and artworks that reflect the understanding of astronomy and astrology during that time. I particularly enjoyed the section on the zodiac in the exhibition. The concept of the zodiac originated in ancient Babylon and was further developed in Greek culture. Each sign corresponds to specific personality traits, which reminds me of a conversation I had with my roommate a few days ago. We found that astrology can, to some extent, accurately predict personality traits, which is truly fascinating. FUTURE IMAGINARIES: INDIGENOUS ART, FASHION, TECHNOLOGY
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/future-imaginaries
This exhibition showcases the diversity and vitality of Indigenous art. I haven’t had much exposure to Indigenous culture before, but I believe it is essential to protect and preserve Indigenous cultures in the context of globalization. It showcases the fusion of Indigenous culture with fashion and technology, highlighting how modern media and technology can reinterpret and promote Indigenous identities. 2) Scientific:
DIGITAL CAPTURE: SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AND THE PIXEL-BASED IMAGE WORLD
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/digital- ... mage-world
This exhibition focuses on digital imaging technology, where digital images are created by converting light into digital image elements or pixels using sensors. I believe the exhibition explores the interplay between art and technology, particularly how advancements in technology influence artistic creation and cultural expression.

QUANTUM VIBRATIONS: PUBLIC PROGRAMMING
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/quantum- ... rogramming
The exhibition approaches quantum physics from a scientific perspective and uses music to explore scientific concepts, which I find quite unique.
(“Quantum listening” is a concept that combines quantum physics with sound, emphasizing the perception and interpretation of sound through the lens of quantum mechanics. This idea often explores how sound relates to quantum phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement.)

Hi, My name is Katya Morozov and I am a 5th year undergraduate in the physics department. My research is actually in mechanical engineering, where I focus on soft robotics and unorthodox mechanical designs for rough terrain exploration.


Cultural and Artistic topic of interest:
- No Prior Art: Illustrations of Inventions
https://pst.art/en/college-and-universi ... inventions
I find this exhibit interesting because I’ve always viewed scientific sketches as art in their own right. The purpose of a scientific sketch is to convey a specific idea and needs to communicate as much information as possible to your colleagues or to just get a better vision for what you want to do. Similarly, some people come up with some crazy inventions, and it’s cool to be able to have a glimpse of an inventor’s mind.
Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures Through Cinema
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/cyberpun ... le-futures
Cyberpunk is a staple of sci-fi, and sci-fi is what originally got me interested in the field of robotics. So to a lot of kids, cyberpunk and sci-fi is their first introduction to the world of STEM, and that holds a lot of power.
Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time, and Technology
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/ancient- ... re-ecology
I love big trees. Trees are such magnificent specimens of nature that you cant help but be in awe. I’m curious to see what this person

Technological, engineering, scientific, topic of interest:
- Seeing the Unseeable: Data, Design, and Art
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/seeing-t ... design-art
Understanding data is an incredibly important part of research and to the scientific community. When you’re conducting novel research, lots of time there is no ground work and you have to build everything from scratch. Figuring out how to communicate your findings clearly is a defining characteristic of a competent researcher.
Energy Fields: Vibrations of The Pacific
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/energy-f ... he-pacific
Vibrations and waves are absolutely everywhere in nature. As a physicist, I’ve studied them extensively. I have seen a lot of the other exhibits are more Artists dabbling in Science, while I’m slightly more interested in Scientists making Art.

Hi, I'm Joel A. Jaffe and I'm a first year M.S. student in the MAT program. I study practical digital tools for electric instrumentalists.

Of the five exhibitions I'd be interested in visiting, some can be categorized as artful documentation of innovation in science and engineering. The exhibitions that fall into this category are:
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/world-wi ... er-project
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/material-acts

The remainder are better described as interrogation of cultural reactions to particular fields of innovation
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/digital- ... mage-world
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/remote-s ... -detection
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/counter- ... acy-agency

Hello, my name is Susan. I am a first year master student at the MAT program. I focus on creating sound effects for linear and interactive media, and making interactive audio visual systems. Here is my website: https://xmzhong0v0.com

Here are the list of exhibitions I am interested in checking out!
1. Cultural and Artistic topics

• Ultra-Violet: New Light on Van Gogh’s Irises
  Link: https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/ultra-violet

• Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean
  Link: https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/transfor ... ific-ocean

• Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time, and Technology
  [url]Link: https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/ancient- ... re-ecology[/url]

2. Technological, engineering, scientific topics

• Blended Worlds: Experiments In Interplanetary Imagination
  Link: https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/blended-worlds

• Cai Guo-Qiang: A Material Odyssey
  Link: https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/cai-guo- ... al-odyssey

• Seeing the Unseeable: Data, Design, Art
  Link: https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/seeing-t ... design-art

Hello, my name is Alexis. I am a first year MFA grad student. My practice and research primarily deals with the Black experience in America, systems of oppression throughout history, the psychology of being a person of color in institutions as well as how media and technology have influenced, perpetuated or even created some of those systems and bias. Here is my website: www.alexischildress.com

Artistic Exhibitions

1.Invisibility: Powers and Perils
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/invisibi ... ers-perils
Ideas of the invisibility and hyper-visibility of marginalized communities, the impacts of it and how it’s used in politics and societal systems (exploring the aesthetic politics of invisibility). Using ideas of thinking that are similar to science but not directly related to science. 2.Science Fiction Against the Margins
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/science- ... -margins
Examines idea of science fiction made by marginalized communities, entering a world based in science but is not derived from any scientific machine or process.


3.Digital Witness: Revolutions in Design, Photography, and Film
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/digital- ... -and-film
More art than science, exploring the history of digital editing software and how that system has progressed digital art.


Science Exhibitions

1.World Without End: The George Washington Carver Project
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/world-wi ... r-project
Black artist and pioneer of plant based engineering. Great intersection of art and science. A trained and practicing artist, Carver used sustainable materials such as peanut- and clay-derived dyes and paints in his many weavings and still-life paintings. 2.No Prior Art: Illustrations of Invention
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/no-prior-art
Celebrates the basic nature of human creativity by exploring the process of invention as a key feature in artistic and scientific advances. Seems to be the perfect intersection of art and science due to the scientific nature and knowledge of invention and then utilizing that science to make a machine that makes art. 3.Future Tense: Art, Complexity, and Uncertainty
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/future-t ... certainty
Using complex systems of science (Evolutionary biology, meteorology, neuroscience, and robotics) to create art and try to understand/appreciate these systems.

my name is emily, i am also a first year MFA grad student. my practice is on the internet often explores with selfhood, relationships, and materiality in the digital age. this is my website: www.sneakyfelix.com

artistic exhibitions

1. Sci-fi, Magick, Queer LA: Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/sci-fi-magick-queer-la
-- focuses on Los Angeles from the late 1930s through 1960s and looks both forward and backward to follow the lives of writers, publishers, and early sci-fi enthusiasts, including progressive communities such as the LA Science Fantasy Society, the Ordo Templi Orientis at the Agape Lodge, and ONE Inc.

2. Digital Capture: Southern California and the Pixel-Based Image World
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/digital- ... mage-world
-- Through photography, video, key archival documents, and historical equipment, the exhibition explores the history of digital imaging over six decades, from 1962 to the present.
-- trace the ideological shifts that took place as digital technologies were adopted for artistic ends

3. ARTEONICA: Art, Science, and Technology in Latin America Today
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/arteonic ... rica-today
-- frames the computer as an instrument for positive societal change, one that could democratize art and culture


science exhibitions

1. Remote Sensing: Explorations Into the Art of Detection
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/remote-s ... -detection
-- investigates cultural and aesthetic responses to technologies that demonstrate an outsized but sometimes hidden impact on daily life, global conflict, and civil liberties.

2. Seeing the Unseeable: Data, Design, Art
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/seeing-t ... design-art
-- works are informed by data in creating an aesthetic experience and overlap in being considered as aesthetic objects.
-- questions what does it mean to live in the age of Big Data? How has it permeated into our cultural moment?

3. All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/all-watc ... ving-grace
-- by proposing alternative directions for its future and the definition of what it means to be human. Presenting a broad range of multidisciplinary art forms, including visual art and performance, the project looks to new models of AI proposed by BIPOC, feminist, non-western, and non-binary systems of thought.

Hello everyone, this is Anna Borou Yu, a first year MAT PhD student. I am a new media artist and dancer, with an education background in architecture. My works engage in contemporary interpretation of cultural heritage, embodied exhibition and cognitive performance in extended reality, and translation between media from artistic expression to science research. My website: http://mystudio.design/

The exhibitions and performances I am interested are listed below:

Art and Cultural
1 SENSING THE FUTURE: EXPERIMENTS IN ART AND TECHNOLOGY (E.A.T.)
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/sensing-the-future This exhibition introduces the history of a pioneering collaboration between avant-garde artists and visionary engineers in the mid-20th century, and also highlights the transformative impact of their work on the intersection of art, science, and technology. Amazing performance events will take place this weekend at Getty Center.

2 OLAFUR ELIASSON: OPEN
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/olafur-eliasson Olafur Eliasson’s works are really appealing because of their elegant interaction of light, color, geometry, and earth science. He created a new piece Kaleidoscope for plural perspectives, specifically for The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, which harnesses the laws of geometric optics to address feelings and concepts of embodiment, perception, and participation.

3 SEEING THE UNSEEABLE: DATA, DESIGN, ART
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/seeing-t ... design-art This exhibition explores how contemporary art, design and culture respond to big data’s impact on daily life. It includes data visualization of various sources by scientists, businesses, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, etc. It features the work of more than 16 famous artists and designers, including Refik Anadol, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Mika Tajima, and others at the forefront of data visualization. I am really curious about how different artists develop their own aesthetics with data.

4 CAI GUO-QIANG: A MATERIAL ODYSSEY
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/cai-guo- ... al-odyssey Gunpowder was invented in China as a weapon over 1100 years ago. This explosive material becomes the paint of artist Cai Guoqiang. The artist works together with the uncontrollable forces to create dynamic forms for international events like the Olympics as well as still drawings and paintings.

5 CYBERPUNK: ENVISIONING POSSIBLE FUTURES THROUGH CINEMA
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/cyberpun ... le-futures This exhibition reflects the global impact of science fiction on cinema culture. It has a core immersive installation which illustrates the genre’s 20th-century origins and the new. I am interested to learn more about the style of Cyberpunk in the film industry, and its relationship with other artistic movements like Afrofuturism, Indigenous Futurism.


Science:
1 OUT OF SITE: SURVEY SCIENCE AND THE HIDDEN WEST
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/out-of-s ... idden-west This exhibition examines the interplay between visual technologies, artistic interventions, and state power in shaping perceptions of the Western landscape. I am interested in exploring how visual technologies have influenced our understanding of landscapes.

2 EMBODIED PACIFIC
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/embodied-pacific This exhibition features projects by thirty artists working with researchers in laboratories, field sites, and archives in SoCal and the Pacific Islands. I am interested in learning about how the concept of embodiment is reflected in oceanography. It has several different sites in both LA and San Diego.

3 PARTICLES AND WAVES: SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ABSTRACTION AND SCIENCE, 1945 - 1990
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/particle ... -1945-1980 I am interested in how advancements in aerospace, industrial manufacturing, and communications technologies influenced artistic practices, reflecting the broader impact of technology on culture from 1945 to 1990 in Southern California.

4 BLACK QUANTUM FUTURISM
https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/quantum- ... rogramming I like this series of performances because I am curious about the concept of “quantum listening”, as well as how to understand music in scientific contexts and how to use music to explore scientific questions.

Hello! My name is Erik Mondrian, and I'm a second-year MS student in the MAT program: https://www.mat.ucsb.edu/students/#mondrian Before coming to UCSB, I did a multidisciplinary MFA at CalArts as well as an MA at San Diego State. My creative and technical interests are fairly broad, spanning various media. I'm especially fascinated by virtual worlds and the artistic practices that find a home there; within the past few years, I've also started to "map" some of these worlds and engage in a kind of data visualization, using Blender's Python API to construct topographic models.

Artistic/Cultural Exhibitions

• Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures Through Cinema (Academy Museum of Motion Pictures)
• Color in Motion: Chromatic Explorations of Cinema (Academy Museum of Motion Pictures)
• Sci-fi, Magick, Queer LA: Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation (ONE Archives at the USC Libraries / USC Fisher Museum of Art)

Scientific Exhibitions

• Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean (Oceanside Museum of Art)
• Remote Sensing: Explorations Into the Art of Detection (Center for Land Use Interpretation)
• Pacific Standard Universe (Griffith Observatory)

Hi, I am Pingkang Chen, and I am a first-year master's student in the MAT program. My current research focuses on perceptual evaluations of immersive/spatial audio under 3DoF and 6DoF. A recent practice involved improving the auditory sense of realism for digital piano players by mainly incorporating Ambisonics and head-tracking technologies under 3DoF, followed by a perceptual experiment.


1. Artistic topcs:

• Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time, and Technology
LInk: https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/atmosphe ... disruption


2: Scientific topics:

• Energy Fields: Vibrations of The Pacific
Link: https://pst.art/en/exhibitions/energy-f ... he-pacific