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Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a fascinating event held by LASER Talks featuring three esteemed speakers: Margaret Geller from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Roxana Marachi from San Jose State University, and Piero Scaruffi, a cultural historian. The event was divided into three parts, with Geller speaking on "Mapping the Universe," Marachi presenting on "How Surveillance Capitalism Ate Education for Lunch” and Scaruffi talking about “What's in a Transformer: Why ChatGPT works so well.” I enjoyed all of the speakers’ presentations, but Marachi’s talk stood out the most for me and it reminds me of our course content from Week 3. Marachi's talk was a stark contrast to Geller's and somewhat related to Scaruffi’s, as she addressed the darker side of technology and education. The creation of technology has opened the window of many possibilities and in this course, we discussed Walter Benjamin's take on technology and its benefit of acce...

Throughout history, the relationship between art, technology, and knowledge production has been fascinating for me. I’ve utilized technology myself for artistic pursuits and created a small business by offering my graphic design skills to others. The use of technology dates all the way back to the invention of the printing press, as highlighted by Professor Vesna as an idea pre-dating 400 years back, to the current age of robotics and artificial intelligence, and it’s allowed for the dissemination of knowledge on a scale that was once unimaginable. As expressed by philosopher Walter Benjamin, technology comes with its pros and cons, emphasizing accessibility and authenticity respectively.  Printing Press One of the key themes this week was the idea of knowledge production. This concept highlights the power of technology to spread information at a greater scale. The printing press represents a critical moment in history for production. It made it possible to produce books, paving th...

For many, math and art seem like two completely separate worlds. Growing up, I always had the observation from others that math is often perceived as rigid and logical, while art is viewed as creative and expressive and as expressed in the lecture, the education system has fostered the idea that creativity is derived from the precision of our art-making skills. However, these two subjects have more in common and its intersection is becoming more recognized than ever. In my psychology course last quarter, we were taught about kaleidocycles , a ring of tetrahedra created by folding paper numeral times. This was created by Wallace Walker, an artist, who created 3D objects from paper and this creation had an impact on mathematics.  Kaleidocycles For me, both math and art have been my escape from the stresses of everyday life. I have a piece where I used both math and art extensively. In this video, I wanted to create a 3D “room,” and at first, it was tremendously difficult to keep trac...

As an Asian woman, I was taught that the arts and sciences were two separate worlds, and children were pushed to pursue careers in STEM fields. Hareed exclaims that “many believe the Arts have little to no positive contribution towards society,” and this and the argument that arts don’t bring steady income were something instilled in me. I developed a love for the film industry, especially editing, that I considered majoring in film, but chose psychobiology not just to “preserve” my passion by not turning it into a career, but thought that I could only have one. UCLA campus map I spent years isolated in the “south campus bubble” and rarely saw the other side as the division between these two, as discussed in Professor Vesna’s lecture, is apparent through the locations of each subject. The physical distance between these sides was discouraging for me as a person with a weaker lung capacity, so I limited myself to staying on one side. Similar sentiments of isolation were shared by other ...