Émilie Wouters - DESMA9

EVENT 1: Watch Party of Metropolis (1927)       The 1927 film Metropolis left quite a mark, as it encompasses several ideas and beliefs I hold. I’ll only mention a few. This film highlights the downfall of industrial capitalism as it relates to classism. I recommend going and reading a summary of the film if you haven’t seen it. Though it’s a futuristic dystopian story, it is fully indicative of how society works, and the dangers of keeping the classes so incredibly separate. The themes in this film are reminiscent of the movies The Platform, Snowpiercer, and Us. It’s also very close to a few Black mirror episodes about robotics and class systems.     Lower class                                                                                    ...

 U3: Robotics + Art      Robotics, accompanied by Machine learning and AI, are becoming increasingly human-like. Robotics experts have long tried to create robots that exhibit or mimic human emotion. Here, we will focus on the non verbal aspect of robotic emotion. Dr. David Hanson, in his Ted Talk presentation, discussed his work in creating realistic facial expressions on a robot.      Basically, the faces have materials that are similar to the major facial muscles, each of which are powered by tiny batteries. The face itself is made of a material called Frubber. Now here’s what’s interesting about that. There was a robot that went viral a few years ago, called Sophia. Her face is made of the same material.      Maša Jazbec, our guest speaker in class, talked about her. It takes some artistic skill to construct and color a realistic face that can move, stretch, wrinkle, and fold like that of a human. That is why Hanson Robotics made and...

                                                                                            U2: Math + Art      Math and art have way more overlap than the average person might think. When thinking of how math and art mix, the first person that comes to mind is Leonardo Da Vinci, whom I have admired since I was in 3rd grade. He did work in invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography In addition, I would like to mention Kate McKinnon, the guest speaker in our class.                                            ...

(U1)  A Look Into Two Cultures- Literary Humanities and Science  Depiction of the choice between the cultures      As someone who has hopped between the two sides of literature and science her whole life, I can see many connections and disparities between these two cultures. From a young age, this idea of being a “science person” vs being a “humanities person” is drilled into us, and leads us to believe that we must be one or the other. Early on, we sort of decide that we belong to one of the two cultures, and we base our futures and our studies around this idea. Those of us that enjoy both then choose one and neglect our passions and talents that could be helpful in the other. The spread of a third culture as described by Kevin Kelly in his article “The Third Culture” and Victoria Vesna in her article, “Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between” could be useful in bridging the gap between literature and science. As C.P. Snow suggested in the second edition of hi...