Week 1: Two Cultures

I had the privilege of growing up in a city that is known for its marvelous architecture, luxurious lifestyle, and overall safety: Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I was particularly fascinated by the intersection of engineering and technologies with the subjective, creative, and aesthetic fields of art and user design. I realized, however, that a product design course is not offered at many universities so I would have to choose either an engineering discipline or an arts/design discipline and this is where I first realized this idea of two cultures. 

In his lecture "Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution," C.P. Snow describes these "two polar groups" and he says there are "literary intellectuals at one pole - at the other scientists." (Snow, 4). Looking back, I remember thinking that I did not want to be a part of either group due to the social stereotypes surrounding them. Artists were considered too subjective and abstract with neglect objectivity and universal scientific thinking and society was structured in such a way that the wages were far more appealing for engineering. 

Upon coming to UCLA, I decided I wanted to major in Electrical Engineering but also pursue some form of technology and design courses to enhance my creative side. The North and South campus divide, however, immediately brought forth the stereotype that I would fit into which I had come to UCLA to avoid. There has been, however, a noticeable paradigm shift in education which Sir Ken Robinson talks about in the video embedded below shedding light on the concept of "divergent thinking" which he describes as "thinking laterally." This idea of divergent thinking is what I believe will lead to the formulation of a third culture: engineers with an artistic mind, artists that utilize mathematical and technological tools to bring their art to life, and a bridge between the typical literary intellectuals and the traditional scientists (Vesna 121).

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

First, I wanted to look at some examples which show why art is essential to technology and engineering and vice versa. When we think of app development, we often think of coding, programming, and other South Campus things that would not concern artists, but the truth could not be farther from it. I believe UI/UX design is the bridge between art and technology and the image of the new and old Spotify UI can explain this. The underlying programming is the same but as can be seen below, the buttons were made larger, and more rounded, and overall placement was made more user-friendly. This may not seem so powerful until we realize that these eventual small design changes alongside the ability to program new styles of buttons (i.e. haptic touch, preview buttons, etc.) have been brought about fundamentally by semiconductor advancement leading to better processors, leading to better applications, etc. This cycle between artistic and scientific development supports each other.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/truespotify/comments/b2fzvj/spotify_going_back_to_old_ui_see_comments/

I recently visited a museum in Miami called Superblue which had an eye-opening exhibit called the "Pulse Topology" which measures your heart rate through infrared sensors and displays your entire pulse onto an array of 3000 beautifully placed light bulbs.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JraUkppS2g

Living in Dubai, I also had the opportunity to visit the Museum of the Future which gives a glance at the future capabilities of technologies such as AI, automation, and futuristic sustainable living and the entire architecture of the museum, developed by the state of the art civil engineers, is an art-piece. The exterior of the museum includes a calligraphic Arabic message. 

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/fashion/museum-of-the-future-dubai.html#:~:text=Words%20of%20hope%2C%20in%20Arabic,precisely%20in%20its%20interior%20walls.

Upon watching the videos and reading the articles in this week's assignment, my perspective on what I strongly feel to be the rise of a new Third Culture feels more nuanced. I truly believe that the future of AI and technologies will inevitably lead to a rise in engineers, scientists, and artists who work together to shape the way our world will look and function. To conclude my blog, I have decided to include some AI art generated by DALL-E 2 as a final example of this intersection between art and technology. 

Source: https://qz.com/2176389/the-best-examples-of-dall-e-2s-strange-beautiful-ai-art

References:

Belcher, David. “In Dubai, the Museum of the Future Conveys a Message.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 27 Mar. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/fashion/museum-of-the-future-dubai.html#:~:text=Words%20of%20hope%2C%20in%20Arabic,precisely%20in%20its%20interior%20walls.

Robinson, Sir Ken. “Changing Education Paradigms.” Sir Ken Robinson: Changing Education Paradigms | TED Talk, https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.

Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures and Scientific Revolution. Cambridge University Press, 1959.

Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo 34, no. 2 (2001): 121–25. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1577014

Yellow. “UI/UX Design Is a Link in the Chain between Art and Tech.” Medium, UX Planet, 4 May 2020, https://uxplanet.org/ui-ux-design-is-a-link-in-the-chain-between-art-and-tech-73c13f6126fe.