Extra Credit event 1: Fowler Museum

The Fowler museum is located right next to Janss steps on the campus of UCLA. To be honest I had no idea that Fowler was an actual museum even though I have had a class in the same building. The first exhibit we saw was "Art of the Austronesians". This exhibit was an exploration of the Austronesian speaking people that originated in Taiwan and was a tribute to their sea voyages to the Philippines, Indonesia and more. There were many pieces of visual artwork, small characters and statures that were created by these people. Most of the artwork dates back about 200 years.

Guardian Figure, Stand for a Rebab (instrument)

The next exhibit was probably my favorite one in the Museum was "Reflecting Culture: the Francis E. Fowler Jr. Collection of Silver". There were many exciting pieces of silver that included a large ship, goblets for drinking and many other high class dining room objects but the pieces that caught my eye the most were these 12 dinner plates that belonged to Queen Elizabeth I. Each plate had a different scene from a Greek Mythology story on it. It is easy to tell the type of culture these monarchs lived in in the 16th Century. This era was the time of drama and English was of great importance. It is easy to see the artist expression even on these dinner plates. 

The last exhibit we visited was the "Pantheon de diablito rojo" which was a reflection of on the identity of Mexican culture following the Mexican Revolution. The art was expressed in the form of large prop skeletons that were made from collections of news paper. The Fowler museum is such an easy place to go visit, I will be returning.

Platters with Greek Mythology scenes on them

Event 3: Sam Wolk: Sound and Visual Artist

Each line is DNA of a single organism

Nutrient number 1 field

Same Wolk is an upcoming sound and visual artist whose passions include nonfiction film making and animation. He is a prime example of someone who take many aspect and combines them all to make his artwork. Modern technologies and ecology studies have lead to the work that he presented during his lecture which is his "Artificial Life Project". The basis was thousands and thousands lines of code, the guy knows how to use computers, this code lead too pieces of artificial DNA. The DNA strands that he created were screen long bars that had segments of differently shaded bars. Each bar corresponded to a certain trait (ex: quick growth, large smell radius, etc). Each full strand of DNA and traits manifested themselves as organisms on a different screen, each organism took the form of a different shape and that had a circle around it. The same technique was used for plant species and animal species (different traits corresponded to different segments). Even if these species had desired traits their survival depended on their location, for this he created fields of nutrients- with 3 different nutrients. The organisms that survive were able to pass on their genes, these organisms also provide food for the animal organisms. With this technology and his approach (strategy) he was able to create an entire artificial ecosystem that runs on its own. Sam was able to create this because of all the advances in technology, genetics, ecology and psychology. Towards the end the lecture he was able to show us a slide that had the brain and neurological network of one of his organisms: How the options it has and emotions it feels lead to a decision. He was able to pose a question that if this is possible for us, it may also be possible that our entire universe is the product of an extra dimensional being. That being a very large stretch is also something that is interesting to think about.

Awkward pic: feat. hover hand

Event 2: The Getty Museum

Main entrance 

Visiting the Getty Museum was a great experience. The Museum itself is incredibly beautiful and the view are amazing, (not a bad place for a date). There are many things about the Getty that I loved but the sculpture garden was one of the areas where I most obviously saw the mixture of art and mathematics. Most often these sculptures are usually filled with roses and the geometry and of these perfectly balanced structures are very fun to observe. I wish I knew more about architecture but I am still able to enjoy it, immediately when you walk into the Getty the steps of Marble you see are breathtaking. The sculptures on these steps are also very pretty.

During my trip to the Getty there was an exhibit called the Cave Temples of DunHuang. In this exhibit there were many old pieces of parchment including the oldest written parchment in the world. The Getty is the first location in the United States that have hosted this piece. It is very interesting to be able to see how far back humans were able to record events. Before this there are no first hand account of any events in the history of the Earth, everything we know about time before this parchment is theory. The trip to the Getty was more than anything an entertaining experience, being that is is so close to UCLA I will definitely be going back there at some point.

They wouldn't let us take a picture http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50284000/jpg/_50284362_diamondsutrafrontispiece.jpg