Between Massachusetts Avenue and the Stratton Student Center at MIT sits a giant, lonely man in white. From afar, the man seems to be hugging his knees. But as you approach it, you can start to see that the figure is not a man at all, but instead intricately sculpted mathematical symbols shaped like one….
What color is the dress? Chances are, you’ve probably stumbled upon this dress dozens of times before already. It’s an optical illusion that specifically targets your eyes’ ability to perceive color, and they can be really trippy. Take the infamous dress for example. While some see it as gold and white, others see blue and…
This post is going to be a departure from my previous blogs in that it’ll be more laid-back. I wanted to start a series where I could freely talk about different ways data is used in art. Okay, so you’ve probably heard the term “visualization” before. Whether it’s through an art class or not, you…
It’s no wonder origami is such a popular pastime. The memories of following paper crane tutorials and pushing down on jumping frogs remain dear in peoples’ lives. While we might remember the artform for its simplicity, artist Pei Haozheng has been attempting to change that perception. Born in China’s Jiangsu province in 1996, Haozheng is…
As a child, I remember seeing the quasi-children’s movie Coraline and being utterly horrified. Its unique disturbing nature, to me, comes from the copious amount of motifs and references to insects & bugs. At the beginning of the movie, Coraline smashes a bunch of bugs at her apartment; after she enters the Other World, she…
Have you ever wondered how a firefly glowed in the dark? What about anglerfish—how do they have their own light bulbs in the water? The answer relies on a biological phenomenon known as bioluminescence. In short, bioluminescence is an adaptation where an organism interacts with the environment to undergo chemical reactions that result in light…
If you’re at all familiar with contemporary computer graphics, you will likely recognize the name of Adobe, a gold standard of assorted creative software. The multimedia company derives most of its profit from its products with capabilities ranging from photo editing to book design. Among them, the most widely known include Photoshop and Illustrator, two…
Are you a high school student who is interested in science and cinematography? Are you interested in competing for a chance at a $250,000 college scholarship, a $50,000 prize for your teacher, and an installation of a brand new science lab at your school? This might sound like an opportunity too good to be true,…
A couple years ago, I did a research project on the terrors of the Japanese Imperial Army against China during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. I ended up finding the Nanjing Memorial, a Chinese work of architecture built to remember the 300,000 civilians killed during the Rape of Nanjing in 1937. It…
Most universities are divided into a subset of schools that house different majors categorized by their focus. A biomedical engineering student might consider the College of Engineering, a botanist might consider the College of Life Sciences & Agriculture, and the list goes on. But almost every university has a specific school: the College of Arts…
