Event 1: Natural History Museum

 





For the first Event of the class, I chose to visit the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, which definitely offered an inspiring experience. The museum, just as its name suggests, focuses on the natural and historical events in the area of Los Angeles. On the side of nature is the abundant fossil records of extinct animals as well as detailed explanation of the possible causes of their extinctions. I was surprised by the huge number of animals that have lived on this land that are now extinct, and many of them are close relatives to animals that are widely known today, such zebras, black bears, and horses.

On the other side of the museum is the show room of all kinds of historical records and artistic works narrating the origin and development of Los Angeles as a metropolitan city, incorporating a wide range of aspects including economics, ecology culture, and politics. Coming from an ancestry of Mexican and Latin American culture and developed during the boom of industrialization, Los Angeles in the history has gone through many ups and downs, making it the source of inspiration for artists who seek cultural collision and diversity as well as freedom of expression in their artistic creations. For instance, artist Harry Chandler has his painting "When 'Freeway' Meant Freedom" on display, with the side note stating his motivation behind this visually vibrant and lively depiction:"I grew up and live in L.A. My [color] palette has been influenced by the high chroma and warm tones here. They speak of optimism and passion to me". Indeed, the first thing I noticed about this painting is his bold and warm use of colors, associating the highways in his work with the concept and pursue of freedom. The adoption of cars and highway as the theme of the painting also echos with the historical fact that Los Angeles is the very start point of the large scale incorporation of cars in the US society.




Due to the constraint of the number of words allowed, I wouldn't be able to discuss every piece of art I saw during this visit, but it has definitely been an informative and inspiring journey for me and deepened my knowledge and understanding of Los Angeles both as a highly industrialized city and a land with amazing views and abundant natural histories and resources. I highly recommend visiting the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County if you want to learn more about Los Angeles and be inspired as I did!





Reference List

1. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, nhmlac.org. Accessed April 24, 2024.

2. "The NHM Story." Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, nhm.org/nhm-story. Accessed April 24, 2024.

3. "Los Angeles." Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles. Accessed April 24, 2024.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 4 Blog: MedTech + Art

Image
This week, we focused on discussing the intersected relationship between the field of medicine/medtech and arts, which is highlighted by their shared nature of creativeness and abundance of pioneers that help push forward and evolve their respective fields.   One example of such intersection is the concept of design thinking, which stems from the creative process of art making, but has also been more and more widely used in the field of medtech to improve user-friendliness in the medical devices that are been developed. Moreover, there has been a stronger emphasis on the aesthetics of these devices, making them less intimidating and thus easier for the patients to use them. The influence of arts is not only shown in the improvement of medical devices,   but also the increased effectiveness in patient treatments.  Arts therapy, for example, is a well established phychological treatment through which the patients’ emotional and cognitive traumas are relieved. Additionally, ...
Read more

Week 7 Blog: Neuroscience + Art

Image
This week's topic is about the relationship between neuroscience and arts. It seems to be that one of the biggest similarity shared by neuroscience and arts is that they both focus heavily on human perceptions and their mental responses to (both psychological and artistic) stimulations. And with the booming of digital technologies like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, the intersection between neuroscience and arts has become unprecedentedly huge, making the intermediate fields like cognitive science and UI/UX to grow at an accelerated rate.                “10th April: The Neuroscience of Art – How the Arts Transform Us.” How To Academy , howtoacademy.com/events/the-neuroscience-of-art-how-the-arts-transform-us/. Accessed 13 May 2024. One major aspect that neuroscience centers around is the study of brain, which as underlined by the article " Art and brain: insights from neuropsychology, biology and evolution" shares inspiring ins...
Read more

Week 3 Blog: Robotics + Art

Image
This week's topic is about the relationship between robotics and art as well as the societal impact of industrialization, which is argued by Walter Benjamin in his inspiring work, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", in which he propounded the theory that "mechanical reproduction strips the 'aura' from an artwork —its unique presence in time and space" (Benjamin, 1935). His perspective is thought-provoking, especially with the advancement of technologies such as artificial intelligence, and makes me ponder: does the occurrence and development of industrialization and robotics reduce the sparks and creativity in art? One example of such consequence is represented by the movie Ex Machina, in which the main character, a humanoid girl, creates an amazing drawing, indicating the potential future where robots participate in and alter the landscape of artistic creation. Such instances challenge the future of art in terms of originality and i...
Read more