Week 1: Two Cultures


This week’s reading focused on C.P. Snow’s The Two Cultures and Scientific Revolution, in which Snow defines two different types of people based on his own real-world observations—scientists and literary intellectuals/artists (Snow, 1961).  His work goes into detail describing how these two groups have no interdependence and have trouble interacting with members of the opposing group, as he recalls specific interactions with individuals of the two groups, even citing some of these individuals’ specific names.  Victoria Vesna’s article comes from a perspective of research and review of Snow’s writing, providing background and summarizing some of Snow’s key points.  She states that “the curricula of schools and universities are the source of this problem” and that “the first reported use of the (term) scientist…was proposed as an analogy to the term artist” (Vesna, 2001).
  

I do see strong evidence of the two cultures here at UCLA, particularly with the split between North and South campus.  Especially as an engineer, I rarely walk through North campus; and even when I do, it is for engineering classes so I don’t interact with humanities students.  While I am required to take 5 GE’s, this is minimal in comparison to the dozens of engineering classes that I take and even in these GE’s I often end up sitting with “STEM” major students.  I know that the university is trying to move towards more interconnectedness between all students with the addition of the diversity requirement, but there will still be evidence of a chasm between the two groups (Hampton, 2015).


 Engineering, by discipline, can be a very artistic process in terms of originality and design; however, I see myself as more of an analyst than a designer, so I certainly add to this two cultures problem (Bohm, 1968).  Snow’s work has altered my perspective about connecting with and utilizing connections with students studying the humanities, since their creativity and artistic talent can assist me as an engineering student.  I have seen the evidence of aesthetic design being successful in technology, especially when it comes to companies such as Apple; and remembering to utilize artistic creativity as an engineer can certainly aid me in becoming a more balanced and overall improved engineer (Yoffie and Kim, 2011).

  
References:
Bohm, D. “On Creativity.” Leonardo, vol. 1, no. 2, Apr. 1968, pp. 137–149., doi:10.2307/1571951.

Bostick, Dani. “Baron Batch: From Professional Football Player to Passionate Artist.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 July 2015, www.huffingtonpost.com/dani-bostick/baron-batch-from-professi_b_7776594.html. Accessed 6 Apr. 2017.

Hampton, Phil. “Faculty Approve Undergraduate Diversity Requirement.” University of California, 13 Apr. 2015, www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/faculty-approve-undergraduate-diversity-requirement. Accessed 6 Apr. 2017.

“iPhone.” Apple, 2017, www.apple.com/iphone/. Accessed 6 Apr. 2017.

“Scientists and Science Technicians.” The Science Council, 2017, sciencecouncil.org/scientists-science-technicians/. Accessed 6 Apr. 2017.

Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1961.

Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between.” Leonardo, vol. 34, no. 2, 2001, pp. 121–125., doi:10.1162/002409401750184672.

Yoffie, David B., and Renee Kim. “Apple Inc. in 2010.” Harvard Business School, 21 Mar. 2011.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 6: BioTech + Art

Image
This week’s topic, biotechnology and art, involves more recent and controversial art, as living organisms are used as an artistic medium.  I found one of the more fascinating works of art discussed this week to be that of Stelarc, the man with a “third ear” implanted into his arm.  While the implanted ear was made of material commonly used in plastic surgery, his own tissue has morphed with the ear so that it is now a fully living part of his body (McCafferty).  In the future, Stelarc wishes to have a small microphone inserted into his “third ear” so that the entire world can listen in, with this worldwide connection being the artistic value that Stelarc sees in his implanted “masterpiece” (DailyMail.co.uk). Stelarc's Third Ear The more controversial side of BioArt comes in the genetic modification of living species, such as Kathy High’s work with transgenic mice.  High was able to genetically modify certain mice by including foreign genetic material and watch the geneti
Read more

Week 8: Nanotechnology + Art

Image
Newman's Microscopic Text This week’s lectures and readings focused on the history of nanotechnology and its recently increasing applications.  One of the more fascinating things that I thought we covered in the lectures was the two competitions offered by Richard Feynman for the advancement of nanotechnology in 1959.  The first was to build a miniature motor that could fit inside of a 1/64 inch cube and the second was to reduce the size of a page of a book to a 1/25,000 linear scale (CalTech.edu).  The first cash prize of $1,000 was awarded relatively quickly to William McLellan in 1960, while the second prize took 25 years until Tom Newman completed the task using an electron beam in 1985 (Kornei).  Such advancements in nanotechnology have obvious application in the artistic and literary world, with new art being created out of nanostructures. I also found the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope in the 1980s to be particularly interesting within the field of n
Read more

Week 2: Math + Art

Image
In Edwin Abbott’s Flatland , Abbott describes that the shapes of an object that we optically perceive change with one’s perspective.  He specifically uses an example of a penny sitting upon a table to express how it could be seen as a line, circle, or oval, depending upon the viewer’s angle (Abbott 2).  While Abbott’s view is certainly correct, he is not the first to have conceived the idea of perspective, or linear perspective, in art.  Mathematics really began to influence the work of artists during the Renaissance, with artists intensely studying optics and light.  Brunelleschi, in particular, utilized basic geometry in the forms of triangles and rectangles, and embraced perspective (PBS.org).  Leonardo da Vinci further built upon Brunelleschi’s principles of perspective and geometry, as can be seen by the uses of vertices and a vanishing point in The Last Supper (LeonardoDaVinci.net, Frantz). The idea of math in art by utilizing linear perspective and simple geometr
Read more