Event Blog 2

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.