Week 9 Space + Art

This week’s lectures were amongst the most interesting to me. As a child I always enjoyed watching The Jetsons. The Jetsons TV show has been around for just over 50 years, at the same time as the cold war.

The Jetsons TV Show Characters

I was too young at the time to understand that such technology actually existed and was improving day by day. The topic of space and art will continue to be a huge driving force in scientific advancements around the globe. As we learned this week, the Soviets launched Sputnik I in 1957 which made history by becoming the first artificial satellite (NASA.gov). Soon after Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut was sent into outer space and completed an orbit of the Earth (Wikipedia.org).

Yuri Gagarin
Neil Armstrong

This prompted the USA to respond by sending Neil Armstrong to be the first human to physically walk on the moon (Wikipedia.org).
All of this, to me, shows how us humans have been extremely interested and invested in the art of space travel and discoveries. We have created countless numbers of movies, tv shows and documentaries based on outer space and the planets.
 
Rosie the futuristic robot from The Jetsons
The Jetsons do in turn do an impressive job of pointing to the “golden age” of American futurism as they had all the technology that we are currently moving towards such as robot maids (or doctor), jetpacks and many more futuristic technologies (Smithsonian.com).  



Resources:

Vanesa, Victoria. "Space Pt6." YouTube. Victoria Vanesa, 30 May 2012. Web. 04 June 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYmOtFjIj0M&feature=youtu.be

Dunbar, Brian. "Biography of Neil Armstrong." NASA. NASA, 10 Mar. 2015. Web. 04 June 2017.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/bios/neilabio.html

Novak, Matt. "50 Years of the Jetsons: Why The Show Still Matters." Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian Institution, 19 Sept. 2012. Web. 04 June 2017.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/50-years-of-the-jetsons-why-the-show-still-matters-43459669/

"Yuri Gagarin." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 04 June 2017. Web. 04 June 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin

Usborne, Simon. "Back to the Future: Why The Jetsons Is the Most Influential TV Show of the 20th Century." The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 24 Oct. 2012. Web. 04 June 2017.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/back-to-the-future-why-the-jetsons-is-the-most-influential-tv-show-of-the-20th-century-8225272.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Medicine, Technology and Art

Image
Maybe regularly seeing Stephen Hawkins in his wheelchair when we lived in Cambridge as a young child got me used to the idea of machines supporting humans to be more effective. Since then I have become a gymnast and it is this that has brought me into continuous touch with medical technology, in particular scanning machines of all kinds – x-rays, CT scans, MRIs – as doctors have checked for injuries of all kinds.  I love the impossibility of what I do as a gymnast; when I was a child I called it ‘flying through the air’. I have to be curious about what is happening beneath my skin. To do the impossible I must train my body to achieve the strength, precision and reliability of a machine, but I do so to produce a performance that is beautiful and seemingly without effort.  I am sure that it is this daily familiarity with the mechanics of my body that is the ground of my ambition to be an orthopedic surgeon. I watch operation videos all the time. Orthopedics is already completely caugh
Read more

stellasDESMA9

Image
Mathematics is the cornerstone of our ability to understand our world. It is (as language is) a study and organization, relationships, symbols and shapes as well as numbers. Mathematical calculations can support research and exploration of our physical world and enable us to use knowledge of chemistry and physics understand and natural environment. They also support every engineering innovation and design. Historically, pivotal ancient concepts such as 'zero', 'perspective' and the 'golden ratio' have helped shift out perception of the world. In short, the concept of zero allowed development of understanding of infinitesimals, limits, calculus, quantum physics... Zero also represents the unknown or the 'center' of ones being, the space with no noise and absolute. Perspective surfaced through the application of mathematics in the study of optics. That original use of mathematics for scientific explanation of optics provided the link and created a co
Read more

Neuroscience + Art

Image
Phrenologists representation of the brain   What a difference technology can make. In the 19 th  century Francis Joseph Gall collected brains and imagined the brain as a set of different organs governing different faculties of the body. Phrenologists then believed they could read different personalities from feeling the different organs through the skull. At the turn of the twentieth century the microscope allowed Santiago Ramon y Cajul to observe and draw beautiful images of neurons.   Cajul's image of neurons Today we have even more beautiful images of neurons created through the use of florescent staining. Art and science seem to be completely joined here.  This is an image of neurons by Greg Dunn a brain artist.  Artistic representation of neurons Today MRI scans can record and picture the electrical activity in different parts of the brain and so accurately identify which parts of the brain control different human functions – thought, emotion,
Read more