Watching this film I learned that radiolarians are unicellular organisms (plankton) that make their shells out of silica. They are over 500 million years old and are among the oldest skeletonized life forms.
The film also discussed Haeckel’s life. I found it interesting how he started his research. While he was still in school, he and some of his friends took hand held nets and just looked in bodies of water for anything living. He had unmoved curiosity towards the sea and the creature that the world knew little to nothing about and he went out without any proven science to base his findings on.
While the film discussed the important relationship between science and art, my perspective of the relationship between the two topics didn’t change because I feel like my brain is formed in a similar way. As an engineer I am very familiar with the biology discussed in the film along with nature in general and how it essentially thrives off of itself. I am also very art/visually oriented in terms of the way I see the world. My dad is an artist and I grew up with it always being a part of who I am. I think that’s the reason I’m not surprised at how intertwined art and science can be because I’ve always seen it that way. This film also reminds me of Di Vinci and how he took science and art and combined them in order to help improve technology and advance the public’s understanding of more complex topics.
From my perspective I see creating the radiolarian sculptures in class as a way to open up our minds to how science based sculpting can be. Anatomy is a huge part of sculpture and I think starting here is a good way to understand how interwoven the two subjects are.
In addition, I thought it was interesting that Haeckel was able to find so many radiolarians and had the time to study each of them so intensely. It makes me curious to know if he found a lot of them in clusters or if they were more spread out.