Amin Doosti - DESMA9

This week’s material was fascinating. Even though I enjoyed Professor Vesna’s curation of the history of space travel, I believe that the “Powers of Ten” video stuck with me the most. One thought that kept coming back to me while watching that video was about how enormous our universe truly is, and the fact that: “The vastness of the universe makes it difficult to understand just how small and isolated we are” (Andersen, 2023). This fact becomes more ominous when one stops to measure the universe. While we have no idea how vast the universe truly is, we know that it is “at least 93 billion light-years” (Eicher, 2023) in diameter. Figure 1: Our location and size compared to our galaxy. This shows how vast our universe truly is. Credit: The Blog of the Cosmos From my perspective, the universe itself contains many celestial art pieces for us to look at and appreciate. In my brief research of art within the universe, the first thing that caught my eye was the NGC 6357 nebula (Figure 2)

This week’s topic was extremely interesting to me and I think Professor Gimzewski did a great job of introducing us to the world of nanotechnology. After watching the videos for this week and doing some quick research, I came to understand (and accept) that “Nanotechnology is an interdisciplinary field so you really have to have the scientists from different disciplines working together to get something really novel” (Margit, 2021). I have heard of nanotechnology in medicine and its importance in developing treatments for various patients. For example, “Nanorobots can be ingested or injected and deliver themselves to the disease site, take pictures and send them to the doctor or patient” (Galand, 2022). These types of things used to be considered science fiction; but now, this is a reality. Video 1: Dr. Ben Miles on nanobots and medicine. Credit: Dr Ben Miles on YouTube When it comes to art, I was fascinated by Dr. Gimzewski’s demonstration of his student producing the word “U

For this event, I attended the virtual presentation given by Professor Ellen K. Levy on “Science As A Model For Art: Which Science? Which Model?” It was fascinating listening to Professor Levy showcase her work as well as present to us what she had curated from other artists. The presentation touches on many different things that one can think and talk about; however, one thing made me extremely excited to explore further: the topic of “Attention”. Figure 1: Professor Levy opens the conversation about "Attention". Credit: Professor Ellen K. Levy Professor Levy brings up a couple of interesting questions and statements, as shown in Figure 1, such as: “Without attention, nothing is seen” and “Is technology outpacing our sensorial capacities?” Professor Levy supports the former by showcasing a research project on selective attention. Video 1: Experimental video on "selective attention" Credit: Daniel Simons YouTube channel After a bit of research on selective attent

This week’s topic was extremely interesting and thought-provoking. While I was aware of the existence of widely used GMO food items, I was shocked to see how far humans have taken biotechnology and art in the matter. One question that came to my mind while watching this week’s lecture videos was “How did our common food items look like before genetic modification took place?”. It could be the fact that “for thousands of years, farmers have been adjusting the traits of crops and livestock through a process called selective breeding” (Climate Science), which I believe is in itself a form of art and a mixture of biology and technology. I would like to propose a few examples of this and GMO foods in general. One fascinating example of this is the fact that “peaches used to be about the size of a cherry, with little flesh and a slightly salty taste” (FoodInsight, 2016); however, due to selective breeding, “peaches are now 64 times larger, 27 percent juicier, and 4 percent sweeter” (Lewi

For the first event of this course, I had the opportunity to participate in Professor Landecker’s presentation for the LASER event. As someone with almost no biology and food science background, I learned quite a lot from this event. Professor Landecker’s presentation explained the usage and definition of emulsifiers, gums, and clouding agents and shed more light on different food classes. Figure 1: Beginning of the presentation by Professor Landecker. Credit: Professor Hannah Landecker One thing from the event that stood out to me and enabled my brain to connect the dots between the event and our course was the discussion on the NOVA food classification system. The NOVA system “assumes that the extent and purpose of processing to which food is subjected determines its nutrient content and other attributes” ( Nupens, 2023 ). This classification consists of four groups: unprocessed or minimally processed foods, processed culinary ingredients, processed foods, and ultra-processed foo

Undoubtedly, technology has helped humans overcome many previously impossible things. The ability to alter our bodies is one of the many things technology has improved. While watching the videos presented this week, the topic of body modifications caught my attention and interest. After some research, I found many fascinating results worth sharing. First, let’s turn our attention to Viktoria Modesta, a bionic artist and futurist, who underwent a voluntary leg amputation at the age of 20. During the process, Modesta explains that her doctors were hesitant and unaccepting of her decision to amputate her leg even though it meant she would be free of pain. She thought the process “highlighted an unhealthy obsession with how we value the biological body” (Modesta, 2020) and has since changed her views on the value of the biological human body. Figure 1: Image of Viktoria Modesta wearing "The Spike". Credit: Boston Magazine Next, we should take a look at Neil Harbisson’s stor