MIT FAST - no lights now

The evenings during the weekends were amazing because all the special FAST lights went up.  The festival was centered on the river, and as I walked back from Boston on the Charles Bridge on Saturday night I was lucky enough to see it.  Unluckily, I didn't have my camera on me.  And on Sunday night...well, I didn't really have the energy to go out again and take pictures.  (Darn weather...had it been warmer, I probably would have gone).

Liquid Archive - floating inflatable screen providing a backdrop for projections that highlight MIT's history in science, technology, and art - by Nader Tehrani and Gediminas Urbonas.

I didn't actually witness these projections for myself, as I was sitting in my room by the time it got dark enough for the projections to begin.

MIT FAST - SOFT rockers

by Sheila Kennedy, P. Seaton, S. Rockcastle, W. Inam, A. Aolij, J. Nam, K. Bogenschutz, J. Bayless, M. Trimble

These are the most awesome rockers everywhere...they have solar panels that provide power for charging electronic devices!  I wouldn't mind having one of those in my backyard.  Actually, it doesn't even need to be solar-powered.  They are soooo comfortable to sit in.

It's too bad that the rockers were removed at the end of the weekend.  I only just discovered them last week (that part of campus is out of the way from most of my classes), and waited till the absolute last day to take pictures in it...

hello feet!  (hello iPod charger that somebody left inside....).  hello cool strip of light lining the inside of the rocker.

http://arts.mit.edu/fast/soft-rockers/

digression from ballet - MIT FAST

MIT FAST (festival of art + science + technology) - part of the MIT+150 celebrations going on this year.  Unfortunately I have done precious little FAST-related stuff as of yet (and sadly, all these cool installations will be gone when I return to school in the fall), but I walked around a bit today...to take pictures.

This structure, Unflat Pavilion by Nick Gelpi, was one of those things that I didn't really like from a distance...and then I zoomed in and really started appreciating the detail more.  So many different layers, and windows giving you different views...

There were all these little kids running around and under the structure...

give back the funk

The problem, it would seem, with being an arts editor, and a full on science major on top of that, is that there is a huge tendency to fall into an artistic funk.

I'm not complaining; I love what I'm doing this semester.  It's amazing to be part of the probably imaginary club of I-edit-therefore-I-am.  This is not meant to sound self-important in any way; it is what is is: I just happen to like this administrative stuff more than I thought I would, and as stressful it is to go about half the week wondering if people are actually going to pull through and submit their content, it is also incredibly rewarding and exciting every Friday when the issue comes out and I can say to myself, "wow, I helped organize this."  On the same note, I am now fully immersed in my major, and the psychology, cognition, and brain science classes that I'm taking are all so interesting.

However - when one is caught up in this endless circle of answering press emails, editing articles (sometimes in class...), and, yes, studying brains, it's much too easy to get caught up into the said artistic funk.

No joke, I may actually be starting to miss my art history class from last semester.  Reading fifty pages about the Orientalist movement in the 19th century?  Only a small price to pay for getting to watch slides of beautiful paintings three times a week.

I end up sifting through arts emails wistfully, wishing I could make the opening of Boston Ballet's production of the Nutcracker, or something from Boston Lyric Opera, or the new exhibit at the ICA, or at the MFA, or......

Anyway, enough of me ranting about life.

It's beautiful and sunny outside, and MIT is full of happy prefrosh visiting for CPW (campus preview weekend)!

Hopefully I'll have a semi-artistically-inspired post sometime soon.

extra time please?

Sometimes I wish I could just quit my day job and have lots of artsy fun.  To be more specific - I love my classes, but who likes to do homework?!  I would rather just go arts event hopping around Boston, and write about them.  I keep on getting all these press mailings that I want to go to, but can't, because I have class...or too much work...or symphony practice.

just a few of the things going on in Boston over the next few weeks/month:

MFA - Photography from the Bank of America collection
(plus I still haven't seen the Scaasi exhibit)

ICA - I love this place!  Modern art is not my fave, but I'm learning to appreciate it (ok, I admit, some modern art can make me quite pensive. as long as it's more than a square painted on a piece of canvas).  Plus, the architecture of the building is fantastic.

Harvard art museums - never been.....I want to go....

Boston Lyric Opera - never been to one of these performances, but it looks like it would be a lot of fun.

Charlestown working theatre - Blackadder II on stage!  I have my doubts about such a thought! (the original was so.......unique), but still curious. opens April 8

April 9 - KT Tunstall concert in Boston - Paradise Rock Club!
I sooooo want to go.  Why do I have to have a test the following Tuesday?  Maybe I'll go anyway....

plus movies coming out -
Jane Eyre!  hated the book, really want to see the movie.  My main problem with the book was that he was so much older than her, anyway.  They look more well-matched in this new adaptation.

I started out as one of those museum exhibit reviewers, but now I really have this urge to expand my repertoire and write about other stuff - I already have exhibit review,  album review, and movie review under my belt.  Currently in the works is a review of Google art project - hopefully it won't be too late by the time I have it written (it's far too hectic over here!).

oh, life.

are my eyes playing tricks on me?

Seeing as I've been studying neuro ALL WEEKEND for an exam on Monday, the very thought of which ABSOLUTELY gives me a bad feeling in the stomach, and I am frankly sick of it right now, I may as  well make a pseudo-helpful review post.

The topic being VISION! and optical illusions!  Well, here's just one optical illusion as an example.

Chevreul's Illusion:

Chevreul's illusion consists of vertical stripes of varying luminance.  The luminance is actually constant within each stripe, however - so why does it seem like the borders of each stripe is slightly different in luminance from its interior?

Let's see if it is possible to explain this using as few technical terms as possible.

So starting at the (relative) beginning, there are several different layers of cells in our retinas.  Because our eyes are just that cool.

One type of cell is the photoreceptor (you know - rods and cones, for seeing in black and white, and color).  The photoreceptors convert light energy into changes into membrane potential.  Changes in membrane potential mean voltages change across neuronal cell membranes and neurons fire, and...after all this communication business, signals get to our brains and stuff happens.  In this case, we see.

Well, photoreceptors communicate with the other layers of cells in the retina.  The cells at the end of the line, so to speak, are the ganglion cells.  Ganglion cells are the only cells that bring information from the retina to the brain (via the optic nerve).

Each ganglion cell has a receptive field - receptive field is an area of the retina that, when stimulated with light, changes the cell's membrane potential.  Most ganglion cells have a concentric center-surround receptive field organization.  Meaning, there is this bulls-eye type thing that makes the cell respond differently based on if the light goes in the center, or in the surrounding area.  Diagrammed something like this (image taken from wikipedia):

Furthermore, in retinal ganglion cells, the center-surround organization of the receptive fields leads to a neural response that emphasizes the contrast of light-dark edges:

(picture taken from Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain, 3rd edition by Bear, Connors, Paradiso); preview from google books here.

So looking back to Chevreul's illusion, you can see how a ganglion cell could get confused - and respond more if it's receptive field is at the border of two stripes rather in the middle of one stripe.

(Okay, sorry for all the buildup and then a really lame partial conclusion).

There's a good explanation with a diagram and everything for a different optical illusion, the Hermann grid, here.  I was just too lazy to draw out a diagram for the Chevreul illusion with ganglion cells superimposed all over different parts of it.


And so ends my ridiculously confusing account of one type of optical illusion.  I think never again should I attempt something like this.  Okay, back to real studying...

the pros of chemistry lab

 see, good things can come from chemistry.

like lab. when you're not avoiding skin contact with half the solutions.

copper(II) sulfate

tetraammine copper(II)

the colors are so gorgeous!

the start of the summer holidays :)

i went in to clean up my desk on saturday.  studio was a complete disaster zone - and i thought my room was bad!  anyway, i took pictures of my last project before tearing it apart.  it was sad to do so, but at the same time it was kind of an ugly design...and not modeled so well, thanks to my inability to work with foam core.  the chipboard parts, however - not bad in my opinion.  i realized that the two pieces - the park and the studio - look better separately - so that's how i took pictures of it!

also yesterday - picked up some free t-shirts screenprinted by sadie; her blog is here.  they are pretty cool!

new media lab!

went to part of the public conference about MIT's new media lab!  Not only did I get to wander around the inside of the building, which is AMAZING, but I got to see Fumihiko Maki speak.  I was surprised to find that he is 81 years old, (yes, he was in grad school in 1953)...and he's kind of funny, too.

anyway, i'm totally planning on going there again sometime and taking lots of pictures.

the last february 2010 post!

and i finished my base model.

nice scale models, huh?

btw, the weird perspective would be because i used photobooth, and not a real camera haha.

how to build a simple model

number 1 rule: make sure your mind is all there so you cut things out to scale.  instead of realizing, halfway through, that all those pieces looked wrong because you cut them twice as tall as they should have been.

...and then having to rip apart pieces of fome-core and board.  thank goodness it's just elmer's glue.

rule 2: bring food.  preferably gross health bars, since you'll be busy and more inclined to have a nice feeling in your stomach than a nice taste in your mouth, and the stuff is good for you anyway.

halfway there!

as the romans did.

reading livy for ancient roman history class is definitely bringing to my mind images of paintings that i learned about in "culture and values" class last year.  i'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, particularly when the images recalled are as static as jacques-louis david could have possibly painted.

the intervention of the sabine women

the oath of the horatii

not saying that i'm a big david fan, but i do much prefer his death of marat painting.

maybe that's just because it inspired eugenio recuenco (yes, i mention him yet again) to photograph his own version.

how to string a bow

first day of P.E. classes for the new quarter!  the topic for me - stringing a bow - in archery, that is.  i'm not sure learning how to string a violin bow, for example, is a great way to spend a class that is supposed to be focused on physical education.  so anyway, for half an hour i got to string and un-string my bow with a handy little, um, bow-stringer, contraption, something that fascinated me quite a bit.  and then came the harder part - doing it without the stringer thing.  which means doing strange things involving sort of stepping into the bow and putting pressure on it with your legs, while using your hands and arm strength to try to put the darn string into the notch thing and hoping that it doesn't snap back...well, anyway, i survived and hopefully i will remember what i learned on wednesday!

i have a feeling i'll be thinking about robin hood quite a bit this quarter.

unfortunately the probability of being cool like robin hood is just as low as being able to shoot two arrows at the same time, like...(wait for it!)...legolas.

on the ladies side, though, keira knightley is, uh, WOMANNNN!!!!

warning: buff-ness is kind of required for something like this (and therefore "something like this" is most definitely out of the question for me).  i will go instead for the ladylike grace of gwyneth paltrow's emma.

but for now (and a very long time, probably), i shall probably be tending more towards the theme of anne hathaway and her bad aim in princess diaries (before the hot guy comes along).

let's just hope it never gets as bad as, well, that unfortunate incident concerning bianca's misdirected arrow in ten things i hate about you.

reflections on a water bottle.

first day of intro to architectural design studio!  i. am. so. freaking. excited.  well, maybe i'm a little bit freaking out, too.  it's gonna be so intense.  but i guess with great intensity comes great perks...getting our own desks, for example.  and these are really legit architecture studio desks, too.

soooo, as i contemplate the complexities of architectural design, my mind returns to something a little less architecturally-related but design related, anyway.  the wonders of the Ty Nant water bottle.  i actually have one sitting on my desk, right now. (i only have one).  it's supposed to resemble a melting piece of ice, and it feels so nice and smooth to the hand, as well.  quite a pleasant change from the old ribbed kind by crystal geyser and such.  we have Ross Lovegrove to thank for that (the same guy who designed the apple imac).