angelinahovanessian_desma9

     I am so completely and utterly in love with my ability to pick up my little screen and tap on it a bunch of times to entertain myself. When I saw the 24 hour challenge get posted, I knew it was gonna be a rough experience. As a testament to how attached I am to my phone, I had to give it to my roommate to put in “phone jail” because I knew I would have a hard time not going back to it if it was on my desk. My self control would not have passed that test. My computer and ipad were off limits as well, but considering I associate those devices with homework, I was rather eager to not have to use them for a whole day. A literal phone jail (not the one used during the challenge)      Three hours in and already I was just staring at my desk, having showered and did my skincare routine and picked an outfit out for the day. I went through all the necessary tasks that could be done phoneless-ly, even made myself tea and got breakfast, which I usually procrastin...

     I don’t fully believe that I have walked all the way throughout campus in my entire time as a UCLA student. The campus was really just a stroll through the parts of campus I knew, not wanting to walk alone amongst the parts of campus that I did not fully know my way around. However, after walking through campus this whole quarter with all the protests and such going on, I find myself noticing no differences. Royce Hall, UCLA      My favorite spot on campus has to be Tongva Steps, where I routinely used to go to lay out and tan whenever the LA weather was “weathering,” and the only real thing that I find that changed is how I feel about that area with an active protest going on. I am all for the protest, and support it in my own ways besides being on the front lines like the brave students (some of which I personally know), but being anywhere on campus, even my favorite spot, felt unethical when so much was going on. And while there are more protests an...

     Though I am a pre-Cognitive Science major here at UCLA, from ever since I could remember up until sophomore year of high school, I wanted to be an astrophysicist. I remember coming back from school everyday and putting on my DVD box set of The Cosmos with Carl Sagan, and following it up with the new revamped version with Neil deGrasse Tyson, always looking up to them as inspiration for what I wanted to be when I grew up. I found such beauty in the unknown as many before me others have and will, and with such beauty, comes the desire for artistic interpretation American astronomer and planetary scientist Carl Sagan American astrophysicist and writer Neil deGrasse Tyson .      With such an inspiration as the vastness of the cosmos, there is bound to be an artistic interpretation of it. The Makrolab project, founded by Slovenian artist Marko Peljhan, does this very thing. It allows for collaboration of artists and scientists alike who specialize in differ...

     Up until this week, I had only heard of nanotechnology, not knowing what it actually was, and have just now been exposed to how amazingly creative you can get with it.      Nanotechnology is defined as “the branch of technology that deals with dimensions and tolerances of less than 100 nanometers… (Oxford Dictionary)” which essentially means the ability to manipulate atoms and molecules. At these miniscule levels, these materials become very difficult and particular to work with and properties of these materials have the capacity to change vastly, so the ability and mastery of being able to maneuver these materials is a very delicate task.       While the technology was cultivated with the goal of taking our understanding of materials in the nanoscale and applying it to potentially created real world solutions, like minded scientists and artists have used it to help create new means of artistic expression. In the exhibition "Art in ...

     This week's material focused heavily on the combination of psychology and art, both commenting on how to bridge the gap between the two and also using psychology to create contemporary art exhibits that give you the best of both worlds.       One such art exhibit is the Planetary Re-Enchantment exhibit created by Professor Vesna and her teamwork with scientist Mark S. Cohen using electroencephalography (EEG) technology. The point of the exhibit was to bridge the gap between human and animal psychological interconnections by giving humans a chance to experience communication with octopi with a goal of having humans understand and/or experience how other species communicate and how it differs from how us humans communicate. While the goal of this exhibit was more to be environmentally conscious of other species we share this planet with, the experience would not have been possible without the use of the combination of neuroscience and art.  ...

     I am a student at UCLA who is potentially pre-med. And as somebody who does not consider themselves as STEM minded as they are artistically minded, I try to look at everything with an artistic lens. That being said, I looked into what I consider to be the best mix of medicine and art I’ve ever seen: Body Worlds. This exhibit started my interest in medicine, being an entire exploration of the human body. People donated their bodies to this project, and we see amazing things like an entire human nervous system, completely real, painstakingly removed from a donated human cadaver. While it would take an immense amount of understanding of the human body in order to separate out these body parts, knowing exactly what you’re cutting for, there is the artistic element of the displays in how to pose the bodies in the most provocative way. Medicine and art worked together hand and hand to create an absolutely unreal display that has traveled the world a dozen times over. ...