Week 2, Math + Robotics + Art

As professor Vesna noted, artistic talent and appreciation is not dedicated solely to drawing and painting. I grew up thinking I hated art for this very reason, a disability to draw. Later on, however, I found that much of my academic interests were actually a form of art in that I spent much of my free time studying piano and found my favorite college classes to be from the English department. Math is distinctly incorporated in music, as seen in the following video.


Sound (frequency, pitch, tone, etc.) and tempo (timing) are the elements we often initially observe. Reviving the idea of proportions discussed throughout the lectures, we note sound and tempo mathematically directing the artistic harmony of music.

As I read the intriguing story of “Flatland” by Edwin Abbott, I was reminded of the constraint two-dimensional lines put on art works. As the progagonist was exposed to cubic and other three-dimensional forms from Spaceland, the story exposes the wide expansion geometric shapes create for art, involving depth and space.

Leonardo da Vinci Flying Invention

During the lecture, I was reminded of Leonardo da Vinci’s renowned juxtaposition of mathematics and art in his works and inventions. I actually had the chance to visit the travelling da Vinci exhibit in San Francisco during high school, displaying a history of not only his career in drawing but his mechanical inventions as well. Da Vinci so heavily incorporated mathematics into his scientific studies and art works that we can easily see how art relies on geometry to permit infinite creation we have seen through history.

Of course, when we think of math’s involvement with art, we often think of robots. Thoughts of fictional environments seen on TV as The Jetsons, I, Robot, or Wall-E arise. But is today’s technology far from those? Rodney Brooks, in his TED lecture, contends that we are on the cusp of such robotic environments. Since the invention of the personal computer, programmable robots have been created to perform menial chores such as vacuuming rooms to more intricate purposes like interacting with people for social tasks. 

   

 

A more common form of robotics used today is seen  in video games. Video game creation, as seen in the following video, is an intricate process that makes plain the juxtaposition of science and technology with the worlds of math and robotics, all together forming a piece of art. Robotics and math are constantly around us, though they become so commonplace to us that we forget their involvement in our lives.

Works Cited

Abbott, Edwin A. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Second Rev. ed. London: Seeley & Company, 1884. Print.

Brooks, Rodney. Robots Will Invade Our Lives. TED. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 July 2014.

"The Jetsons." Freshome: Design and Architecture Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 July 2014. .

"Leonardo's Inventions for Flight." Leonardo da Vinci's Inventions. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 July 2014.

The Math of Music. Youtube. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 July 2014.