Event Blog 2: Torrance Art Museum

http://www.torranceartmuseum.com

For my second event blog, I chose to attend a place that was close to home for me! Living fifteen minutes away from Torrance my whole life, I never knew that there was a museum that existed so close to me! Taking this course has allowed me to discover the Torrance Art Museum, a small city sponsored museum that has free admission! I learned a lot through the exhibits from this museum that correlated very nicely with the topics we've been discussing in this course. My favorite piece from the first exhibit was the Consensus piece, which is composed of wood connected by metal, with a jar of margarita in the center. This piece is representative of a balance that reflected the tensions between humans and factors such as social and physical environments. This piece helped reinforce the concept ofart and mathematics because you need mathematics in order to create and understand a balance that shows when one aspect is more heavily weighted than another, there must be some type of affect on the opposite side of the balance. The two cultures were intertwined very nicely to create a reflective and representative piece of art.

This is my friend Robert, who is enjoying the art!

The second exhibit of Color Consciousness is inspired by the relationship between color and human psyche. This exhibit was a great way to help me get an understanding of neuroscience and art because it included great examples of how these two work together to make great creations. 

This photo represents how our brain may interpret various visions differently. For example, the different color schemes shown here in this piece of art of the different shades and tones of each person allows one to make different interpretations of the photo. In the top right photo, the difference between the colored side versus the black and white side of the woman's face may cause different moods that a person may apply to the photo. This is a very scientific idea that is expressed in art, and it helped me to see how neuroscience and art can come together to study things such as the science between color and the reaction it causes in human brain. 

My visit to TAM was a great experience and I would recommend it to all of you because it is free and interesting! It is not a very large museum, however, I think the select pieces are each individually unique and worth the visit. I am hoping to use the concepts that I learned from the art pieces I viewed in my final project to help me come up with an invention that artistically involves neuroscience and mathematics. 

Citations:

• "ART MATH=X." Plus.maths.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2013. <http://plus.maths.org/content/artmathx>.
• "Color Psychology." About.com Psychology. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2013. <http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/colorpsych.htm>.
• Landau, Elizabeth. "What the Brain Draws From: Art and Neuroscience." CNN. Cable News Network, 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 28 July 2013. <http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/15/health/art-brain-mind>.
• TAM. Digital image. The Torrance Art Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.torranceartmuseum.com/artists.php>.
• "The Torrance Art Museum." The Torrance Art Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2013. <http://www.torranceartmuseum.com/artists.php>.