Event 2





 The event that I attended was Victoria Vesna's talk at the UCLA Undergraduate Research Week convention. Throughout the talk, Professor Vesna highlighted a number of exciting projects that she has passionately worked on throughout the span of her career. 


The first project that she highlighted was her Octopus Brainstorming project. I conceptually thought that the idea of this project was really innovative because it was all about trying to place yourself in the shoes of another species' consciousness. I think this project is very significant because there is an array of evidence that Octopi are extremely intelligent and possess self consciousness (Laratt), The project featured an out of sync and in sync state, the former being characterized by disarray and jazz music (Vesna Brainstorming).





Continuing this line of thought of attempting to understand and appreciate other species semantic understandings of the world was Vesna's project in collaboration with Dr. Charles Taylor, the Bird Song Diamond. In this project, people were encouraged to mimic birdsong while viewing acoustic mappings (Bird Song Diamond).


Another really exciting project in this realm of thought was the Noise Aquarium Project, where Professor Vesna wanted to convey how important plankton play in our own lives. Plankton are responsible for eighty percent of the air we breathe, and by blowing them up on a massive scale we are able to really feel how monumental these creatures are in our own lives. 





A last powerful and exciting project Vesna conceptualized and created was the Alien Star Dust project, where Vesna wanted to invite "viewers to gain an intimate understanding of the importance and complexity of dust" (Vesna Alien Star Dust). By doing so, she wanted to contextualize the interconnectedness of our physical reality and show how we are composed of materials that were scattered all throughout the universe. 





Works Cited: 


Laratt, Stephanie. 13 discussion questions for 'Remarkably Bright Creatures' by Shelby Van Pelt”. https://www.today.com/shop/13-discussion-questions-remarkably-bright-creatures-shelby-van-pelt-t254869


Vesna, Victoria. “Brainstorming”. http://victoriavesna.com/brainstorming/


Vesna, Victoria. “Bird Song Diamond”. https://birdsongdiamond.com/


Vesna, Victoria. “Noise Aquarium”. https://noiseaquarium.com/the-project/


Vesna, Victoria. “Alien Star Dust”. http://alienstardust.com/about/





Images: 


Urban Octopus. “Octopus Mind”. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0670/0227/products/urban-octopus_coctopusmind_2_grande.jpg?v=1472671535


SciTechDaily. “First Evidence of Bio-Essential Sugars in Meteorites”. https://scitechdaily.com/first-evidence-of-bio-essential-sugars-in-meteorites/


NOS. “What are plankton?” 

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/plankton.html





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