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I attended the L.A.S.T Dialogues event at Stanford on April 15th, 2025, and it was a great experience, as it deepened my understanding of how technology, science, and art intersect. My favorite part was Patricia Blessing’s talk about Water in Islamic Architecture. I’ve always loved Islamic art and design – because it is so ornate and intricate, so it was really cool to learn more about the historical and technological context of some pieces. Blessing explained how features like the Selimeye Mosque’s fountains reflect not only religious rituals but also the Ottoman Empire’s technological mastery over water. This lecture resonated very closely with our class discussions about math and art and how knowledge of geometry can create the insanely detailed Vitruvian Man by Da Vinci (Mona Lisa Foundation). Functionality and science can merge with art and design.  Michael Jewett presented on Synthetic Biology, and although it was a bit complex, it was very interesting as well. He talked abou...

Before this week’s content, I never really thought about how medicine, technology, and art intersect – and this has truly shifted my perception of what it means to be a doctor, and what it even means to be a patient. In What Has Art to Do with Medicine , Hajar reminds us how important empathy and human connection is, especially in highly-technical and sterile medical settings (Hajar, 2018).  Fig. 1. Justine Cooper, “TRAP”, Pollock Krasner Image Collection, https://www.pkf-imagecollection.org/images/24727_h2048w2048gt.5.jpg A project that stood out was Justine Cooper’s RAPT, where she uses MRI scans as a way for self-portraiture (Casini, 2011). Medical imaging is something that I usually associate with diagnosis and data, but (again) never thought that it could also be a way to explore identity, consciousness, and self-perception. The artwork is somehow eerie, beautiful, and thought-provoking all at once. In this article, MRI scanners were not just a tool of science, but also a met...

Does the intertwining of art and technology, especially with the rise of AI and robotics, risk human creativity and artistic authorship? Philosopher Walter Benjamin theorizes that this crossover between robotics and art challenges the traditional notions of what it means to be authentic. Artist Douglas Davis anticipates a redefinition of authorship.  Fig. 1. AARON, “Collage by the Painting Fool”, MIT Technology Review, https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/02/15/162067/robot-art-raises-questions-about-human-creativity/ Walter Benjamin’s essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction argues that the “aura” (its unique presence in space and time) of a work breaks down with mechanical reproduction (Benjamin 2). He cites how the rise of photography has mass-produced images that are taking away from the traditional value of art.  Douglas Davis, on the other hand, extends this conversation by arguing that the aura does not vanish; instead, it migrates. He writes about h...

This week’s material made me realize the profound connection between math, art, and science. Parts of the lecture and the papers that I read discussed how artists across centuries have – unknowingly – used mathematical principles to create art, exploring such as dimensions, perspective, symmetry, and proportion. In Relations of Art and Mathematics in The Renaissance, Lei talked about how Brunelleschi – also known as the founding father of Renaissance architecture – influenced artistic techniques such as linear perspectives (Lei 2). Leonardo da Vinci, known for his groundbreaking works in paintings, used the golden ratio and Platonic geometry in works like the Vitruvian Man and Mona Lisa, blending oil painting techniques with scientific proportions (Mona Lisa Foundation).  Fig. 1.  Leonardo da Vinci,  “The Vitruvian Man” ,  The Mona Lisa Foundation , 1487,  https://monalisa.org/2012/09/12/leonardo-and-mathematics-in-his-paintings/ A specific concept that I also ...

I’m a third-year Cognitive Science student at UCLA, and because it is such an interdisciplinary major I’ve been able to take classes on both sides of the campus. My first two years were more rooted in South Campus – with computer science, math, and psychology classes – but more recently, especially since I’ve added two humanities-related minors, I’ve found myself in North Campus more.  Fig. 2. Nitya Tak and Noah Danesh, “A Campus Divided” , Daily Bruin , 2021, https://prime.dailybruin.com/justinnorth&southcampus . This shift shows how education systems, even at UCLA, often reflect C.P. Snow’s concept of two “two cultures” – science and the humanities – and how they rarely interact with one another.  Fig. 2. Jane Brown, “Cultural authority … CP Snow in 1970” , The Guardian , 16 Aug. 2013, www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/16/leavis-snow-two-cultures-bust . On the first page of Snow’s The Two Cultures, he reflects on how “by training, I was a scientist: by vocation, I was...