For this event post I visited the
Fowler Museum on UCLA’s own campus. The central theme of Fowler’s many exhibits
was culture and how culture is infused into all artwork. A parallel I
continually found myself making as I walked the halls of the Fowler related to
our topic of the two cultures: art and science. Art serves as a form of
expression for culture but is also a unifying factor across cultures. As I was
walking around I couldn’t stop thinking about how art succeeds in uniting so
many diverse cultures, but is so disparate from the culture of science. Until
revisiting the first weeks material I was forgetting that at a time science and
art were united fields, inseparable from one another. Then I realized that
science and art are not two opposing cultures in practice, only in view. The
world has stopped viewing science as a form of art, but that does not make the
divide legitimate. If this class has taught me one thing it is that art is
infused into everything we see and everything we do. Art is where you choose to
see it. The precision of a doctors scalpel, the stroke of a paintbrush, the
creation of a microchip, it is all art.
The next
thing that struck me in the Fowler related to technology and its interaction
with art. Not exactly in the way that technology is art, but in the way that it enhances our ability to learn experience
art. One exhibit in Fowler had disposable earphones that you could wear to be
guided through the exhibit, learning about the artists intentions and all the
intricate details about the art itself. There were also many exhibits that had a
small silver telephone that you could hold to your ear to hear audio that was
specifically created to accompany the art. In this way technology is allowing
artists to expand the reach of their artwork. They can invoke more emotion by incorporating
all of your senses while you interact with their works. Technology also helps
the public to understand art. While it is important for every person to develop
their own opinions and interpretations of artwork, it is very useful to hear
the artist or a professional describe the background of a piece. Many studies
have proven the important of arts education, an technology is directly
influencing an improvement in the publics art education.
Works Cited
Charney, Noah. “The Art of Learning: Why Art History Might Be the Most Important Subject You Could Study Today.” Salon, Salon.com, 16 Jan. 2017
Snow, C. P. “Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.” Reading. 1959. New York: Cambridge UP, 1961.
Print.
Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures: And a Second Look. N.p.: n.p., 1963. Print.
Robertson, Katrin Oddleifson. “How the Arts Can Help Struggling Learners.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 25 May 2012.
