Week 9

Space and Art

The curiosity motivated people to explore the universe. With development of science and technology, human are able to understand what the outer space looks like or even step into that area and get a feeling of the wideness. Meanwhile artists also have been fascinated by the outer space and always want to show their perception of the universe. This results in the formation of space art, a genre of modern artistic expression.

The space art had, and still has, a significant function in informing the public regarding the yet inaccessible new frontiers in our Solar System. Some of the space artists work closely with space scientists and engineers to help them to visualize and develop their scientific and technological concepts of making the dream of space exploration a reality. Other space artists tend to expand their imagination and create interesting art works to fascinate the general publics.

URL<http://www.ludekpesek.ch/noel_cramer_dreams.php>.

The figures above are works from Lude Pesek, a space artist who specializes in paintings with theme related to space planets. The paintings bases on a real photo of the moon. It indicates the artist’s desire of transforming the moon surface to a beautiful environment, although it is still beyond people’s ability. 

URL< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXRNEyrkosM >.

Some of the space art works are not created in the traditional way. The video above shows an amazing spray painting method in presenting a champagne supernova.

Reference

1.       Barrow, John D. "The artful universe." (1995).

2.       Rosenfeld, R. A. "Astronomical Art & Artifact: Reverse Engineering an Astronomical Image." Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 108 (2014): 76.

3.       Rosenfeld, R. A. "Astronomical Art & Artifact: A Transit of Venus Dream Unfulfilled: Mungo Turnbull and Sir John A. Macdonald." Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 106 (2012): 27.

4.       Vesna, Victoria. Lecture. DESMA 9. Web.  May. 2015.

5.       Press, William H. Numerical recipes 3rd edition: The art of scientific computing. Cambridge university press, 2007.

Week 8

Nanotech and Art

For such a long time, people have been attracted by the macroscopic appearance of substances. It has been a long term puzzle to precisely manipulate atoms and molecules for fabrication of macroscale product. Fortunately, that is exactly what nanotechnology offers us. Applications of nanotechnology cover a range of different fields including surface science, organic chemistry, molecular biology and semiconductor physics. Nevertheless, nanotechnology also enables artists to create amazing works.

URL<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGgPrgO-nGw>.

There is a video showing how nanotechnology affects painting. The pigment that the painter use is produced using special Nano techniques. After the pigment is dried, special phase change appears and creates an old feeling.

As a material engineering major student, I am inspired by a number of superior material synthesis methods using nanotechnology. The dimensions of nanomaterials are 100 nanometers or less. By modifying the microstructure, people want to not only improve the performance, but at the same time achieve spectacular morphology that can be appreciated from aesthetics perspective. The picture below is an example showing some “flowers” that are made from zinc oxide. Each flower is only two micrometers long, and is formed in a vacuum chamber using ultraviolet illumination. The color change looks very natural and petal is also detailed.

URL<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/art-nanotech.html>.

One interesting material that I have been doing research on is graphene. It is basically carbon but arranged in a two-dimensional, atomic-scale, monolayer structure. As shown in the picture below, it has perfect hexagonal geometric lattice which leads to several outstanding chemical and mechanical properties. For example, it is very hard while being a good electrical and thermal conductor. The special morphology also inspired many artists to create amazing works.

URL<http://royal.pingdom.com/2015/05/22/graphene-will-rock-your-world/>.

Reference 

1.Wang, Zhong Lin. "Splendid one-dimensional nanostructures of zinc oxide: a new nanomaterial family for nanotechnology." Acs Nano 2.10 (2008): 1987-1992.

2. Xu, C. X., et al. "Photoluminescent properties of copper-doped zinc oxide nanowires." Nanotechnology 15.7 (2004): 856.

3. Geim, Andre K., and Konstantin S. Novoselov. "The rise of graphene."Nature materials 6.3 (2007): 183-191.

4. Zhu, Yanwu, et al. "Graphene and graphene oxide: synthesis, properties, and applications." Advanced materials 22.35 (2010): 3906-3924.

5. Vesna, Victoria. Lecture. DESMA 9. Web.  May. 2015.

Week 7

Neuroscience and Art

The most interesting thing of human being is not about behaving, but thinking. It is consciousness that differentiates people from other higher animals. A number of artists have devoted themselves to the new study of understanding the art of information transformation and perception. We see colors, shapes, contours, objects, distances, and interactions. When all of these impressions are sensed, the brain brings meaning and comprehension to the art object. Recently, through brain studies, we begun to understand the many neurological sub-routines involved in visual perception. A number of art works have been created to show the artists’ view of brain.

The figure shows a work entitled 'My Soul' by artist Katherine Dawson, that is a laser etched in lead crystal glass of the artist's own MRI scan.

URL<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/07/neuroscience-art-margaret-livingstone_n_2339429.html>.

With the knowledge of neuroscience, scientists could develop further investigation on the functionality of each part in the human brain. A team at Stanford’s School of Medicine did a research to understand how the brain operates, specifically in terms of numbers. After monitoring the brain waves of three seizure patients, the scientists determined that a particular part of the mind became active when the subjects were asked to solve mathematical equations. The research enables people to eavesdrop the brain. It is possible that one day in the future that people will be able to control the brain so that it only works in a correct way.

The figure shows that structure of the brain and how they are related to human senses.

URL< http://www.bizstone.com/2011/09/cultural-neuroscience-and-startups.html>.

URL< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ZLt79Q-c0>.

This is an interesting presentation showing an open source DIY brain-computer-interfaces that can be used to mind hacking. A number of ethical issues have been considered regarding to the development of neuroscience and mind hacking is a controversial example.

Reference

1.     Solso, Robert L. "The cognitive neuroscience of art: a preliminary fMRI observation." Journal of Consciousness Studies 7.8-9 (2000): 75-86.

2.     Changeux, Jean-Pierre. "Art and neuroscience." Leonardo (1994): 189-201.

3.     Stanford neuroscientist: 'We’re now able to eavesdrop on the brain in real life', RT USA, October 18, 2013

4.     Tyler, Christopher W. "The human expression of symmetry: art and neuroscience." ICUS Symmetry Symposium, Seoul. 2000.

5.     Vesna, Victoria. “Conscious / Memory (Part 1).” Lecture. 2015

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DLVQIwOn7o8>

Week 6

Biotech and Art

As a way of collaboration between science and art, a number of artists have entered the science labs to get involved in modern technology development. Bioart is a new branch of art that is created during the process. Bioart generally refers to the use of living tissues, bacteria and organism in creating intriguing and often shocking work of art. Artists try to integrate the advanced biotechnology into creative living art work. I found the works by Suzanne Anker really interesting. She works in a variety of mediums ranging from digital sculpture and installation to large-scale photography to plants grown by LED lights. Using different color of LED lights, people can manipulate the auxin in plants and get special shapes.

Plants that are grown in culture medium with LED lights.

(http://www.suzanneanker.com/artwork/?wppa-album=2&wppa-photo=296&wppa-occur=1)

Biotechnology is also used in modification of food. People no longer depend on specific natural environment to obtain food sources. Most of food can now be completely grown in laboratory, and with the understanding of gene, it is even possible to improve the quality of food and make it look fantastic. 

Rainbow loom consists of cultured plants.

(http://www.suzanneanker.com/artwork/?wppa-album=24&wppa-photo=477&wppa-occur=1)

It is hard to believe that even meat can be cultured by tissue engineering using stem cells. Several scientists have implemented the process of using stem cells to produce food meat. For example, Dr. Mark Post used stem cells from cow shoulder muscle to produce meat used in a hamburger. The hamburger was tasted by several people and the feedback was that the meat was dry and a bit lacking in flavor.

Beef cultured in petri dish using stem cells.

Citation/Sources

1.     Mitchell, Robert. Bioart and the Vitality of Media. Seattle/London: University of Washington Press, 2010.

2.     Fountain, Henry. “A Lab-Grown Burger Gets a Taste Test”, The New York Times (2013).

3.     Anker Suzanne. Bioart works.2015. <http://www.suzanneanker.com>.

4.     Post, Mark J. "Cultured meat from stem cells: Challenges and prospects."Meat Science 92.3 (2012): 297-301.

5.     Walden Stephanie. “BioArt: Is It Art? Is It Science? Is It the Future?”, Mashable (2013).

< http://mashable.com/2013/10/29/cutpastegrow-bioart/ >.

6.     Vesna, Victoria. Lecture. DESMA 9. Web. 6 May. 2015.