Bags and emergency houses

This last lecture is more design focused. Our tasks today were designing bags and emergency housing in the event of a natural disaster.

The bag designing was alright, but I liked my emergency housing design more.



Here's a scan of my bag design. The top one has heaps of compartments that fold out, since I like to keep the things in my bag in categories so that everything's easier to find.

The second one is more of a portable cupboard than a bag though. Which could be made from carbon fibre for strength and lightness.

Below is the emergency housing design.


It's more of a small makeshift community housing design, because I think that in a natural disaster it's a good time to pull the community together and help each other out. It's something that people don't normally do until disaster hits and it's a good time for bonding.

My favourite part of it is the fire pit in the middle where all the cooking and whatnot happens and the box beds.

I think box beds are great because they keep you very warm in the winter since it's like sleeping in a closet and gives you a bit of privacy as well. (Wikipedia, 2011)

And that ends the Math and Art paper.



Feedback time:

It was so boring that the mind oscillates between falling asleep and contemplating suicide.

Improvements could be made to prevent this.

This paper could have been synced with studio to show us how math and art is relevant to what we're doing and really let us take something important away from the lectures.

Whether you're an artist or a programmer it is highly likely that you're here to make something amazing. To appeal to this the paper could do something better with the presentation of course material. Rather than saying "Here's this theory/random observation, let's test it out by doing this, this, and that which does not particularly interest you." it would be better if it was like this "Hey guys, make something that has this, this and that. Now that you've made something cool let's see what math and art has to do with it."

Do NOT set up the desks and chairs highschool classroom style. It ruins the atmosphere by making it seem strict and serious, which is what a highschool classroom does. It is restricting and conditions the mind to automatically think "I'm supposed to be bored and wanting to go home right now."


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References:

Wikipedia. (2011). Box-bed. Retrieved October 17, 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box-bed

11 cut squares

In all honesty today's lecture was rather average, with nothing of strong interest to me.

One activity we did though was try to cut out 11 squares from a square. It was harder than I thought and I only got two solutions out of it.




Another topic was lying with statistics. I disagree with the methods of lying with statistics in class today though. They were all focused on manipulating the look of the graph to make certain stats look bigger/smaller through shape, scale, 3D vs. 2D, and use of colour.

These would make it LOOK bigger/smaller as you wish, but in my opinion it only takes a person of average intelligence with determination to find the information to know the real comparison between the stats. You could use as much manipulation of visual elements you want, but no matter what you do the numbers won't change and it will still be presented on the graph. Therefore lying with visuals is not reliable in terms of statistical interpretation.

A better way to lie with statistics is to manipulate the stats themselves. This is not to say that you change the values altogether. For example, one way is to select your sample group that is biased towards your desired results. Let's say I wanted to prove that people prefer heavy metal over pop music. I could use a biased selection of my sample group by only asking people at places that play heavy metal. Then I can say that I selected my sample group from various locations which play music. Only that I would conveniently neglect to say that it was locations that play heavy metal.

If somebody looks for information, it is best to manipulate the source of information rather than the visual representation of it.

Packaging

The topic today was packaging design and how the purpose of the design is important in the process of making the packaging. Our little task for this is to make our own business cards.

For mine I was going for simple and minimalistic. To be honest I designed it not to get a job, more like making someone take time doing what I want them to with the card.

I wanted the person to burn the card in order to reveal it and maybe burn the whole thing afterwards if they feel like it. It sure doesn't fit the objective of getting a job, but it does fit my objective: make people burn things by giving them an excuse to burn things. I'm sure a lot of people like fire :) It's warm and beautiful, but can get out of hand. I accidentally set the card on fire as you can see in one of the photos.



The invisible ink I used at the back is lemon juice. The acidity of the juice thins the paper it comes in contact with so it burns before the rest of the paper. Thus revealing the writing (McNally, 2010).


I did a test first on some scrap paper to see how it would turn out.


Then I tried it on some paper crinkled and soaked with tea, which was then left to dry. It didn't work on that because the tea also thinned out the paper so everything burned at the same time and couldn't reveal the letters.




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References:

McNally, C. (2010). Why Does Lemon Juice Make Invisible Ink? Retrieved September 30, 2011 from http://www.ehow.com/facts_7313493_lemon-juice-make-invisible-ink_.html

Fibonacci vs. Golden

This week it was a little more interesting for me because I love the Golden Ratio and Fibonacci. The reason why I like them both so much is because it is observed in many of the little things around us that we take for granted, especially in the beauty of nature in particular where examples are arrangements of patterns, leaves, markings, proportions and so on. (Narain, 2003; Meisner, 1997)

I don't know if I misunderstood, but in the lecture the explanation sounded like "The Fibonacci sequence is the Golden Ratio." This isn't true though.

The Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio are indeed related but they're not the same thing. They do have some subtle differences.

In the Fibonacci sequence the ratio between each pair of numbers in the sequence is NOT constant. However, as you go further along the sequence the ratio approaches the Golden Ratio. (Gerry, 2010)

Apparently you can test out the differences visually with fractals as well. In a fractal if you use Golden Ratio you can zoom in to the fractal forever and see exactly the same thing prior to magnification. (Baird, 2008) Personally I think that's really beautiful because it's infinity and am quite obsessed with the idea of infinity.

Anyway, in comparison if you use the Fibonacci sequence to do the fractal when you zoom in you see self-similar shapes. Self-similar, NOT the exact same image. Then when you zoom in further the self-similarity halts and eventually stops the pattern since the sequence approaches the Golden Ratio but never quite reaches the ratio. (Baird, 2008)

Therefore, they are related but not the exact same thing.




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References:

Baird, E. (2008). Fun with Fractals. Retrieved September 26, 2011 from http://www.relativitybook.com/CoolStuff/erkfractals.html

Gerry. (2010). Golden Ratio and the Fibonacci sequence? I need some help!? Retrieved September 26, 2011 from http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100814074419AAFIkJI

Meisner, G. (1997). Nature - More Examples of Phi, the Golden Ratio and Fibonacci numbers. Retrieved September 26, 2011 from http://www.goldennumber.net/nature2.htm

Narain, D.L. (2003). The Golden Ratio in Nature. Retrieved September 26, 2011 from http://cuip.uchicago.edu/~dlnarain/golden/activity7.htm

Domes and fractals

This is the artwork we were supposed to do with the five graphs on it. Here, I've chosen a square on the graph paper drawing only that small area where all of the graphs have common points. Then outside the square the lines squiggle away and have their equations written on the side. To make it more interesting, I pleated various mountain and valley folds in areas outside of the square to give it large, rough crinkles while keeping the square in the middle clean and smooth. The pleats raised the smooth part up as well emphasising the contrast between the surfaces.


Now fast forward to today. Once again I had a near death experience from pure boredom. I know what I'm saying is harsh and mean, but if I didn't say anything does it change the truth? If I packaged it into softer words it's still saying the same thing: It was incredibly boring.

Nonetheless, a very rare few instances in the lecture actually talked about things that I liked. For example, curves in architecture and fractals.

For curves in architecture an example we talked about was the beautiful Gaudi Cathedral in Barcelona.

Figure 1: Gaudi Cathedral in Barcelona, an unfinished work of architect Antoni Gaudi. (Source: Telegraph, 2008)

My favourite examples of curves though has to be in Roman architecture. Their domes in their cathedrals, their amazing aqueducts and of course the Colosseum. They're huge, strong, impressive, and last for a long time. In my view, there's no point in building anything impressive if it's not going to last, which is why I really like their architectural work. I think they stand this long because circles are really strong, which is one reason why they're my favourite shape.

Here you can read about interesting techniques the Romans used in building which we still use today. (Flinn, 2011) A few of them do have strong curves in them such as the dome, the Roman aqueducts, and the Cloaca Maxima, their sewerage system.

I think I've talked about fractals before in previous blogs, if not I've definitely mentioned them on several other instances for studio work and Intro to Creative Tech paper.

Anyway, fractals are absolutely beautiful. There's not way to deny that it's math and it can't be denied that it's art either. What I love about them is how you take one simple thing, and repeat it over and over to create one complex whole. The small parts then look exactly the same as the whole, which is really beautiful as well. My favourite place for finding fractals is on DeviantArt. Sometimes the artists give you their parameters in the artist's comments should you want to create a similar fractal yourself. I'd like to try making a fractal some time, once I figure out how to get started with a program.


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Flinn, G. (2011). 10 Coon Engineering Tricks the Romans Taught Us. Retrieved August 20, 2011, from http://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/10-roman-engineering-tricks.htm

Telegraph. (2008). The time is right for buzzy Barcelona. Retrieved August 29, 2011, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/spain/barcelona/737542/The-time-is-right-for-buzzy-Barcelona.html

Math in Art: What does beauty mean in math?

I'm going to be honest, that was the most boring lecture I've had thus far and I nearly died from absolute boredom.

Now let's talk about just a few things that are actually worth blogging about because it's actually fun and interesting.

Right at the beginning we got shown some artworks that literally had math in them. Meaning the actual equations, numbers and so on are written right on to the artwork or even just the equation by itself as a stand alone art piece.

Figure 1. Justin Mullins' Entanglement (Source: Centripetal Notion, 2006)

We got questioned: Is that art?

I'd say it can be art depending on how you look at it. For example, if you manipulated the characters in some way like you do with letters and words in typography, then that's definitely art. As a plain written equation however, I think the art/beauty is in what the equation does as opposed to its written, physical form.

In that case, what is beauty in math?

Beauty is subjective so that's hard to say, but for me beauty is definitely simplicity. So for me the beauty in math would be the simplest and quickest solution to a problem. I think beauty can also be what the equation actually does. For example, if an equation makes a line I like on a graph then that would be a beautiful equation. Fractals are also formed from equations if you're looking at fractal art. I think they're beautiful too.

Beauty in math can also be the numbers themselves. I have a preference for specific numbers, such as zeroes and twos. Zero for me is special, because it's like a circle. To me it's the beginning and end of everything. You start off with zero, it grows, then something horrible happens and you end up with nothing (zero). After that, it grows again--and so the cycle repeats. For twos I only like 2 alone, 12, or multiple twos such as 22,222,2222,22222, and so on. Twos feel clean, sleek, organised, and tidy. It reminds me of people as well. 12 is the only exception. I think 12 is a beautiful number. I don't completely know why, but I think it's because I associate 12 with the stars because of the 12 zodiac signs. I love astronomy and going out to see stars through my telescope.

Therefore, yes, math can be art and there is beauty in math. At least for me there is.


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Centripetal Notion. (2006). Justin Mullins: Mathematical Photography. Retrieved August 22, 2011, from http://centripetalnotion.com/2006/02/09/00:45:38/

Where does thinking come from?

For last week's lecture I made my ideal NZ flag, personal coat of arms, and a little logo for after uni as required.


This is my flag, which I coloured in with crayon. It's supposed to be a much more vivid black. For NZ, the international sports teams are almost always either black or white in their representation of colour. They're one of the most common colours associated with NZ. With the white I also went with how NZ is also called "Land of the Long White Cloud", which is why there's a thin white stripe in the middle and a more elongated flag.


My favourite was making the personal coat of arms. This was was done with several stencils I made of the design and acrylic paints. The shapes used there are based on the letters in my name, but made to look a lot less obvious. This works in combination to the lock shape in the middle, showing that I'm a very private person and I'm very cautious about who I let in to my personal life. The minimal use of red shows how I have little to no attachment to my place of birth, Hong Kong, China. I never got to know Hong Kong, which is why I'll be returning there in the Summer to visit a whole lot of relatives I don't know well.


Personally, I don't think the logo is very well done. For this one it's a very simplified eye, because I like to observe people and understand how they work and think. I have no clue what I'd like to do after uni, so this eye logo shows my interest in understanding how things, specifically people, work.


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Today's focus of the lecture was recreation involving math and art. Unfortunately, I felt uninspired and completely bored despite my love for playgrounds and other fun things like that.

However, when we got to talking about different types of thinking, that's when I got interested.

Where does thinking come from? What is thinking, and what is awareness? Is emotion a type of thinking process?

I think the origins of thinking is a mystery. Thus, I can't answer that question. You can say that it's cells in the brain, but they simply send messages across a network of cells and tell different parts of the brain to release different chemicals. In this sense, thinking is just a bunch of chemicals happening in your brain. But it feels like thinking is more than that. For a start, where do those messages in those cells come from and what makes the brain decide that these specific chemicals should be released? I'd want to know about that, mostly because I'm curious and because I want to be able to read minds, since I think that would be interesting and fun.

For me thinking is the process of formulating a thought, which then becomes an idea. Awareness is then processing little details that you don't normally notice on a daily basis. In class Andy talked about the Buddhist approach, how a greater awareness is sought after through meditation, where "thinking is not thinking". I don't meditate, but I have had several instances where I literally couldn't think. It's a really strange experience. Normally, when you try to not thinking about anything, you end up thinking about not thinking about anything. But when it happens completely by accident it's really strange. When it happened, I couldn't think or process anything at all. Even the sense of sight was ignored. Yes, I see everything in my familiar computer room, but nothing registered into a thought. There WAS no thought, or thinking happening. Everything was so strangely quiet, except there was a slight buzzing and humming in my ear. It wasn't until afterwards that I realised I wasn't breathing either. At first it's really scary, but after the first time it's a very calming experience that you learn to appreciate. I guess you could say that by not thinking it does make it easier to focus, think, and be more aware of your surroundings. After having those mind blanks I always feel lighter and I always forget about the usual things I worry about. It really clears up your head.

Now on to the big question. Is emotion a thinking process?

James mentioned how there's always been the association of emotion with the heart, as something separate from thinking in the brain. I think that depends on the purpose/reason for thinking, and it also changes from person to person. In Chinese, each character has a part of it that gives you a hint on what that word is to do with. For example, if the word has associations with water there's usually three dashes in the character to represent three drops of water. The characters for any word to do with thinking and emotion, all have the part of the symbol that means heart. A lot of Chinese phrases to do with thinking also emphasise using the heart to think and remember. So for this particular culture it appears that emotion is as much of a thinking process as any of the other types, while in another culture it may be completely different.

For me personally, it really depends on what I'm doing. If I were helping out a friend with his/her problems I would definitely incorporate emotion into my thinking process to understand how they feel about the situation in relation to what actually happened, and then apply logical problem solving to it in order to give them the best advice. But if I were carefully weighing out my options in a decision, I would choose to discard emotional considerations in order to choose the most logical, most beneficial choice because I think emotions can cloud logical judgement (not sure if I've just contradicted myself there).

Now applying emotion to something creative. When I write a story, I always use emotion to think about how to write a story. I want the characters to feel real, so emotion is very important to me in portraying characters and how they react to things in the plot.

For me, it's fair to say that emotion as a thinking process differs depending on the situation. For others, it would probably be a little different depending on the person.

Meaningless

For last week's task we had to do a new map for Auckland railway. We could add new stations to it as well as we saw fit.

Below is my map :D

Click on it for a bigger image.

For me I paid special attention to the look of the map. I didn't want it to look like a normal map with ugly rectangles everywhere, which is what a lot of maps look like. I like circles more because they're my favourite shape, especially since I added a loop so that people could go everywhere. I added a loop too so that I could go wherever I wanted and so that my friends right on the other side of Auckland can visit me. I wanted a more futuristic, sleek look as well, which the black and the circle helps bring out with its curves with a moderate use of straight lines. I also made the map square, so that it's more compact and can be easily folded into a small shape to fit into pockets. The black also makes the colours I chose pop out more so that things can be distinguished more easily.





Today the topic was signs and symbols for the lecture. This is my favourite lecture so far. There was one thing that really caught me.

"Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, colours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning."--James

This means nothing actually has meaning until we add a meaning to it. That's when it becomes a sign.

I thought of something like this two weeks ago and it was very depressing. At the time I was wondering if anything actually matters or has any significance. I replied to that, thinking that people think that something matters or means anything purely because it is of their opinion that it means something. But deep down, nothing means anything; things just exist. There is no meaning! The illusion of meaning is only the person dressing up the thing with meanings. At the very core of things in all its nakedness, there's no meaning! I was fine with the idea of nothing in the world having any meaning at all, that is until I applied that to myself. That means I have no meaning, my existence is meaningless and matters to no one. No matter what I do it wouldn't mean a single thing to anyone. No matter how hard I work, it won't have a shred of significance. That made me feel horrible and empty.

I feel fine now, but I'm unsure whether my worst possible conclusion is true and that nothing will ever truly have meaning or whether it's NOT true and I'm just a really negative person. Although I completely agree with the quote above taken from the lecture, I don't want to think about it in a personal way because I know that I would feel devastated for quite some time afterwards at the thought that I mean nothing.


Another thing that caught me was languages. I love learning new languages. Right now I'm trying to pick up Hindi. It's a beautiful language and I think it would become a very important language to know soon. It's difficult trying to learn it at the moment, but I'm not going to stop.

The languages discussed in class today in particular were Asian languages. Specifically east Asian languages, since Chinese looks and sounds nothing like Hindi and there are various grammatical differences and differences in syntax. If it was similar I would be less motivated to learn it to be honest.

Anyway, east Asian languages. This includes Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean and many others existing. The relationship between these languages is their writing system and the pronunciation to be honest. I can speak Chinese, Cantonese, and Japanese and I know a little bit about Korean. Chinese and Cantonese uses exactly the same writing system and the syntax is exactly the same. The writing system for these two languages came from pictrograms in their earliest form. Until eventually it evolved to its present form.

Japanese also uses Chinese characters, called kanji, mixed in with their hiragana and katakana. Kanji are direct copies of Chinese characters. Occasionally you'd find very subtle differences between Kanji and Chinese characters, but they're usually the same. Hiragana is also derived from Chinese characters. They're actually very simplified forms of Chinese characters made into the Japanese alphabet. Katakana is just like hiragana, but even more simplified and is used specifically for foreign European words not native to Japanese. The pronunciation in Japanese for some words are very similar to that in Chinese and Cantonese. Often meaning the same thing and having the same characters. This is because you have pure Japanese and Sino-Japanese. Pure Japanese is the pronunciation that is simply native Japanese not affected by other cultures. Sino-Japanese on the other hand is pronunciation of certain words which are derived from Chinese and Cantonese pronunciation.

Korean has its own little writing system. Once a long time ago, it was common to see Chinese characters being used in Korean language, but now it's very rare.

I think how symbols, signs, and languages are related between cultures in a particular area is very interesting and I think it gives an insight into how different cultures think and what their beliefs and values are like. It also shows their relationships and to an extent their interactions as well.

For example, go through Hong Kong and you would find fragments of English mashed into Cantonese. This is a lasting influence of English colonial rule.

"Form follows function"

Today the most interesting things were the Moebius strip and the variations of the London Rail map with topological distortions from the geographical map of the railway.

The Moebius stip activity was fun to do. I liked how you get two separate pieces get linked together when you cut some of them in half. It was interesting how it was applied to water wheels.

I like how simple the later versions of the map are. I adore simplicity, so for the task where we're supposed to make a new Auckland Rail map I want to make it as simple as possible with added artistic touches so that it doesn't look boring.

A key thing in the design of the later London Rail maps was "form follows function". This sounds exactly like something someone from the industrial era would say. At that time machines, mass production, functionality and progress were key things people thought about. It reminds me of Bauhaus and their design approach. How in their designs they consider the practical use of it and how many of their designs could be mass produced.

For my map these would be things to think about. It would have to be a very simple map, easy to read. Compact, easy to carry around and easily distinguishable. Should be simple enough to be easy to mass produce as well and be beautiful. For me, it would have to have colour coding. It's known that I'm a huge fan of colour coding everything, and I find it to be the easiest way to spot different things in diagrams which makes them easier to understand.

The phrase "form follows function" to me sounds like artistic qualities and personal touches are discarded and feels cold and distant rather than engaging, personal, and appealing. However, I suppose it depends on the purpose of whatever is being made though. For example, playgrounds are for the purpose of having fun, so of course it would look fun and youthful while technical graphs look very specific and formal. For my map, I don't want artistic appreciation and functionality to be mutually exclusive. So that's another point in the design of my map.

This week I'll have to make a decision on my focusing question of my literature review. I don't like the two questions given to be honest, so I'm going to make my own question. I'm sure we're allowed to do that. At the moment Islamic art looks like the top choice for me to do for the literature review. What I love about it is the intricacy in patterns for Islamic art and how religion is a key theme in Islamic art as well. It gives a glimpse of the beliefs and values in Islamic cultures.

Emotion in Digital Art

“Lucy there is some great reflection here - im not sure I agree with some of your premises about Art. Expression assumes some sort of knowledge - intuitive a priori or otherwise. I think many artist make art as a way of trying to understand the world / themselves. Maybe its useful to think about the distinction between the art work and the artist?”—James

I’ll agree that expression does have some knowledge behind it. Here I define knowledge as reaction/understanding of stimuli. For example, you eat a jalapeno and find that it is extremely spicy. That’s knowledge. There’s this artist I follow on DeviantArt, `yuumei, who is a great example of this knowledge behind expression. She has an animation series that deals with the reality of divorcing parents and how the children of these parents deal with their emotions and come to terms with the split.

The first of the series is a flash game, which is actually an interactive storybook. I went through every possible scenario and it’s quite depressing for me. You can really understand the feeling she expresses inside the story. It doesn’t matter what scenario you choose the story always ends the same way: The child can’t do anything about their parents splitting up and must accept that there’s nothing they can do. When the player goes through the game you feel really frustrated because you want the parents to get back together but it never works out.[1]('yuumei, 2011) I think this is how many children feel about their parents splitting up.

The second is more like a manga, but in a different format and with a few stylistic differences. This one’s really depressing too. The story is structured very much like a manga and the characters are typical in manga, which keeps with the style of the art. The art inside it is really beautiful.[2]('yuumei, 2009) Even though it’s digital art it conveys the emotions really well. I’ve seen a lot of digital art and when you’re exposed to vast amounts of it you start to see the differences because you’ll have more to compare to. From what I’ve seen, it’s rare to find a digital art piece that really moves me. This is one of those rare ones, by the end of the story you’ll be bawling your eyes out.

Her parents are divorced and she receives many letters from other people who follow her who also have divorced parents. So in her artworks she expresses those emotions according to her own personal experiences and the experiences of many other children. It has been a key theme in several of her pieces. This is really off topic but people should really think twice before getting married. It’s never just about you.

Back on track. Her art with the theme of divorce fully expresses her feelings and the feelings of others towards divorce, which comes from her understanding and knowledge of what divorce is like.

If it were me I don’t think I can make art as effective as hers about divorce and what it’s like for the child because I haven’t experienced it myself. I could ask my friends as many questions as I want, but I still wouldn’t be able to capture the feeling.

I think the flaw in my last post is that I sort of cut out the artist in my consideration of what expression is. I probably cut out the mathematician as well. This makes me think though. For some reason art feels more human than mathematics does for me. There will probably be more on that in a later post.

Anyway, fast forward to today’s lecture.

In today’s lecture there were quite a few topics that caught my attention. I’ll talk about the two most important ones that stood out to me. The first is digital art missing human qualities and the second is constant analysis versus intuition in art-making.

I disagree with the statement that digital art lacks human qualities. I think it depends on a few things. How the art is made, the purpose of the art, and the meaning behind it as interpreted by the viewer. Some digital artworks do lack that sense of humanity. There are scores of examples for that where you have a perfect, hyper-photorealistic digital painting except that it’s made to look extraordinarily beautiful and perfect. Problem? It’s only trying to be beautiful and doesn’t really convey any emotion. I don’t want to mention any names for negative examples in case the artist finds it and sets their fans on me to flame the page. But an example is one particular artist draws exceptionally beautiful people. All the time these beautiful people look directly at the viewer, trying to look as beautiful as possible. The purpose of it is to simply be beautiful, digital eye-candy with no other deep meaning behind the artwork. As much as I like my eye-candy it does get boring after a while because the interaction and sharing of emotion isn’t there.

`yuumei’s art definitely doesn’t lack human qualities as shown by previous examples of her work. I think a lot of the emotion there is conveyed through the types of brushstrokes in her pieces. Even in the interactive storybook where they’re just silhouettes there are brushstrokes in the child’s silhouette to show what they’re feeling. For example, at one point there are really scribbly strokes where the child has to choose which parent to go with. It shows those feelings of not knowing what to do because what’s actually happening conflicts with what you want. I think in that one the use of typography and its movements showed that emotion really well too.

Constant analysis versus intuition in art-making; this really caught my attention. It caught my attention because I think this is a key point in studio which I find hard to balance. In the lecture, I think it was James who said that when you constantly analyse it’s hard for the art to grow and develop. I fully agree with that, and I think that’s one part I struggle with. I tend to plan everything out meticulously and make sure that there’s enough time for everything to go wrong. I have to be in control and know exactly what’s happening at every point along the way. I think I analyse too much to be honest. By over-planning it stunts the development of some of my projects. I need to let go and go with the flow; just let things happen. I want to improve on this aspect because I think it would benefit me greatly in the studio.

NOTE: There are no pictures of `yuumei’s work directly on this blog out of respect for the artist. You can click on the links to see her amazing work though.

The artists we were shown had cool art too. My favourite one was Yayoi Kusama’s. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’ve seen one of her mirrored rooms on the internet before when I was looking for mirrored rooms.[3](Bunyan, 2009) I love the infinity effect in mirrors facing each other. I actually have a dream mansion, in which there is a mirror garden which gives infinity in all directions. The mansion changes all the time when I change. Enough about the mansion, here’s one of her fantastic mirrored rooms!



I’ve been thinking about our literary review as well. I’ve looked up on how to write a literary review, which is a start. I’m now thinking of topics and according to my plan I should have chosen a topic by next Monday at the latest. Things I’m really keen about for the review are infinity, Islamic art and math, golden ratios and golden spirals, Renaissance art and math, Leonardo da Vinci—and I’m sure there’s more that I haven’t picked out yet at this moment.

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[1] 'yuumei. (2011). Rumination. Retrieved July 25, 2011, from http://yuumei.deviantart.com/art/Rumination-215250277?q=gallery%3Ayuumei%2F100590&qo=1

[2] 'yuumei. (2009). 1000 WORDS. Retrieved July 25, 2011, from http://yuumei.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d23ifgd

[3] Bunyan, M. (2009). Exhibition: 'Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Rooms' at Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). Retrieved July 25, 2011, from http://artblart.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/yayoi-kusama-mirrored-rooms-exhibition-at-museum-of-contemporary-art-mca-sydney/

What is Mathematics and what is Art?

I didn’t contribute much in class today while we were having an open debate on the definitions of mathematics and art. I don’t think I agreed with most of the points most people came up with though, so I spent some time afterwards thinking about what I think makes more sense to me. Note: I have a tendency to not share anything unless I’ve worded my idea into a neat, concise, and cohesive argument. That should change, because I want to share more of my ideas in the future more openly like some of my other more outspoken classmates. I need to understand that nothing needs to be perfect.

Anyway, I think mathematics is the human understanding of the world. Art on the other hand is the human expression of the world.

There is a distinct difference between understanding and expression. Understanding is cold logic devoid of emotion. Let’s say I have an apple. All will have the understanding that this apple is red, sweet and white on the inside, has around six black seeds at the core, and so on. It doesn’t matter what language you’re using, every culture, every person would have an equivalent in their language that matches your understanding of this apple. Expression on the other hand is applying a meaning or association with this understanding.

Expression deals more with abstract things such as feelings so it is more subjective and differs from person to person. Using the apple again the apple could symbolise temptation and sin linking to the Bible. On the other hand it could mean good health and perfection to some. The red of the apple could mean anger while the white means all that is pure and fragile, thus when combined gives the idea of a defense mechanism of an innocent, but traumatised child. In another perspective the red could represent blood giving its association to life while the white represents the good in life and the black seeds are the obstacles we overcome during our lifetime. You can get different meanings of the apple with different people. Although there is a difference between Math (understanding) and Art (expression) that doesn’t mean that the two can’t be related.

In the case where Math and Art are combined, you get a mathematical interpretation of beauty and an artistic interpretation of truth. A great example of this is fractal art.

The arrangement, colours, and form of a fractal is beautiful. The pattern of this beauty is based the mathematical equation of the fractal while other aspects of the piece such as form and colour express the truth in the equation. Truth and beauty are subjective, however, that truth is the human perception of what appears to be true. They could be completely wrong, or completely correct. The same can be said for beauty. Different people have different ideas of what is beautiful, however, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there is anything that is right or wrong. Thus, it is entirely possible for math and art to exist in the same place, sharing an intertwined relationship depending on the perception of each individual.




Nets

I quite liked drawing out nets for the different shapes today. In highschool geometry was my favourite because I thought it was fun since you get to make 3D shapes out of flat paper nets. I also find that I get a longer sense of fulfillment when I do things like making objects out of something flat, empty and “unimportant”. This is because, usually, nothing gives me happiness and satisfaction for more than a few minutes so I’d rather spend my time working hard than let my thinking time go to dangerous places.

I did some googling on that for the net of the icosahedron. It turns out I was right and the lecturer made a small mistake. The icosahedron is the one with twenty equilateral triangular faces while the dodecahedron is the one with twelve regular pentagonal faces. [1] [2](Farlex, inc., 2011; MathIsFun.com, 2010) So it turns out we accidentally got them mixed up.




The two-piece pyramid puzzle

Made a test net and the one given made no sense. It couldn’t even fold up properly to make a decent shape as some of the edges couldn’t meet to close up the shape.

So I did some googling to see what the final solution looked like so that I could get an idea of how the correct net should look like.

I found a picture of the solution and a brief bit of information about pyramid puzzles from: http://gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/VirtualExhibits/puzzles/pyramid/index.html



From that I sketched a little diagram of the solution in my book with all hidden edges. Then drew up the simplest net for a tetrahedron to map out where the edges of one of the two pieces should be, and from that I got the measurements to create a net for one of the pieces.

Did a test net for that one; it worked, so I then colour-coded which edges were congruent and added in angles to make it easier to draw the side flaps in the final nets. Then the final two nets were cut out from stiffer, sturdier paper, glued and put together to show the solution of the puzzle.

That was quite fun to be honest. I was expecting this paper to be extremely boring, but after reading the planned schedule for what we’ll be doing I’m extremely pleased because geometry is my favourite. I’m especially looking forward to the session about Fibonacci, golden ratios, and spirals. I’ve always had a special interest in golden ratios and golden spirals because I think they’re perfect. It’s much like my love for circular, spherical, and curved objects. I find them to be the most beautiful forms because the number of sides they’re actually made out of are so infinite that it appears that they only have one surface or one side depending on whether you’re going 3D or 2D. I’m also looking forward to working in pairs for this. Since my love for working with other people has grown greatly and because geometry has always been my favourite, I think I will enjoy it very much provided that I don’t end up working with somebody lazy and unreliable.

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[1] Farlex, inc. (2011). Icosahedron – definition of icosahedron by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia. Retrieved July 19, 2011, from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/icosahedron

[2] MathIsFun.com. (2010). Definition of Dodecahedron. Retrieved July 19, 2011, from http://www.mathsisfun.com/definitions/dodecahedron.html