Week 9: Space + Art

I often think that the infinity of universe blocks us human from fully understanding its secrets. When I searched this opinion online today, I also got so many similar arguments, some of which are even from top scientists. For instance, in one article I read about the claim of President of the Royal Society Lord Rees—“the limitations of the human brain mean some of the biggest mysteries of the universe may never be solved.” (dailymail.co) However, just because of the unknown properties and its infinite mystery are human’s curiosity and motivation stimulated towards exploring it. Therefore, tons of artworks are created as a way of exactly representing human beings’ misunderstandings, doubt, conjectures, and interest in the universe in the process of their space exploration.

In my opinion, human’s study of outer space starts from the stars above their heads. Even in prehistory period, our ancestors were amazed by those shining stars and tried to note them through painting or carving. According to Wikipedia, “the oldest known star chart may be a carved ivory Mammoth tusk [which] is 32,500 years old and has a carving that resembles the constellation Orion.” (Wikipedia.com) It is indeed fantastic that the human of ten thousands of years ago can create such things without advanced science and technology, and it is interestingly proven that artworks driven by human’s curiosity naturally shows up long ago. With deeper understanding of the outer space and the universe we live in, not only people’s artworks quantity increases but also the art type forms a wide variety. For instance, the study of constellation Orion results in various exquisite manuscript star chats, and also great many mythological works in different cultures.

A celestial map from the 17th century, by the Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit

Legends and Myths works from different cultures

Among all the art related with space, I personally consider TV dramas and movies as the most influencing ones for modern people. Actually, the space travel sci-fi movies have the most attractive topic for the public nowadays, illustrated simply by the global box office. Statistics shows that “just last year, the hard science hyper-realistic Gravity blew audiences’ minds and pulled down a heavy $716 million in global receipts.” (Hughes) Furthermore, the all time famous series star wars and star trek are so popular that the fond of them are beyond nationality and race. They, as both entertainment and visual arts, impress several generations of people with great memory.

Sci-fi Movie of space travel topic has become one of the most successful entertaining way for the audience

P.S. Interestingly, the series of Google doodles today are just to honor the first American woman astronaut in space, Sally Ride, who “remains the youngest American astronaut to have travelled to space, having done so at the age of 32.” (Wikipeida.com) I am surprised to find that even though she graduated from Stanford as a physics PhD, she actually transferred to Stanford in her junior year after studying physics from UCLA. “As the first American woman in space, Sally did not just break the stratospheric glass ceiling, she blasted through it,” said President Obama. (Regan) Sally’s works really inspire young people like us in our STEM work.

Reference:

"Limitations of Human Brain Mean We May Never Understand the Secrets of Universe, Says Britain's Top Scientist." DailyMail.com. 13 June 2010. Web. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1286257/Limitations-human-brain-mean-understand-secrets-universe.html>.

"Constellation." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation>.

"Sally Ride." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Ride>.

Regan, Helen. "Google Doodle Honors First American Woman in Space." Time. Time. Tue. 25 May 2015.

<http://time.com/3895806/sally-ride-google-doodle-astronaut-nasa-first-woman-space/>.

Hughes, Mark. "Top 10 Best Space Travel Films Of All Time." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 8 Nov. 2014. Web.

<http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2014/11/08/top-10-best-space-travel-films-of-all-time/>.

Week 8: NanoTech + Art

This week’s topic, nanotechnology, is really interesting and attractive because I believe that people tend to be more curious about what they cannot usually see of the world, and nanotechnology is just a science of things in the nanoscale that are so small to perceive. Through the introduction videos from Professor James Ginzewski I already have a thorough comprehension of what nanotechnology is and how and where people use the tech. I must admit that it largely widens my view on nanotech because before taking the class I only think nanotechnology is used in producing some new structural (nano-scale) materials from the daily seen items such as water bottles or clothes with nanotech tags.

Close up view of nanohairs and their interaction with the surface

Synthetic gecko foot hair heirarchy

However, the truth is that scientists’ study of nano scale is far beyond the limited usage of nanotechnology as I know. I really respect what they did in better understanding the world and helping improve people’s life such as to study the gecko’s “billions of these tiny adhesive nanofiber hairs” (nanolab.me), to know about the morpho butterflies wings’ composition of “nano-sized, transparent, chitin-and-air layered structures” (asknature.com) and the nanodrugs Abraxane to help treat cancer by using “albumin nanoparticles to improve the therapeutic and safety properties of an anticancer agent.” (nano.caner.gov)

Morpho butterfly wings have tiny scales covered with microscopic ridges,

cross ribs, and other structures. These play with light waves to create brilliant

blues and speckles. The structure, instead of a chemical, creates the color.

Different nano particles are used in create different visual color

I personally would like to study more about the usage of nanotechnology in artistic creation by modern artists because besides the scientific discussion or usage of nanotechnology, the nano-scale art works indeed surprise me. Just looking at the picture of those nano art works, either a stature of simply a “painting,” I can hardly believe that they are in a hundred thousands scale of what appears to me. I think it is so amazing to be created that little that beyond my understanding and imagination before taking the course. So I did my research into this small world.

Google searching result of Willard Wigan Art, most of
which are so small that can be contained in the needle eyes.

One aspect of the advantages of nanotechnology is the smaller the better. (Chen) People may understand in this way, as long as there is enough resources in the world people can build things as large as possible, which is easy. However, sometimes, the modern world needs not the big thing because of its low accuracy and sensitivity. Think of some electric component such as vacuum tubes in the ordinary radio: the original clumsy big tube can be improved to nano-scale semiconducting transistor, the nanowire, with much higher sensitivity and bigger amplitude. Furthermore, because of the natural properties of nanoscale things, such as nanoscale special optical phenomenon, people can accomplish the same effect in art works of particular nano structure. One representative example is the the color painted on stained glass of european church. The last aspect is that by some special constructing methods people can show artistry in their creations. One artist who is somewhat familiar to me is Willard Wigan, who is an English sculptor who makes microscopic art. I remembered that I read about his works in needle eye in some magazines. Actually, “a single sculpture can be as small as 0.005 mm (0.0002 in.)” (Wikipedia.org) Think about it!

Reference:

"Gecko Hair Manufacturing." NanoRobotics Lab. Web. <http://nanolab.me.cmu.edu/projects/geckohair/>

"Wing Scales Diffract And Scatter Light: Morpho Butterflies." AskNature.org. Web.
<http://www.asknature.org/strategy/1d00d97a206855365c038d57832ebafa#.VV1gM2TBzGc>.

"The Abraxane® Story: A Nanoparticle Platform Delivers Improved Anticancer Activity." Nano Cancer Institute. 30 Jan. 2006. Web. <http://nano.cancer.gov/action/news/nanotech_news_2006-01-30e.asp>.

Chen, Yifang. "Nanotechnology and Nanoart." University of FuDan. 26 June 2013. Web.
<http://news.fudan.edu.cn/2013/0626/33825.html>.

"Willard Wigan." Wikipedia.org. Web. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Wigan>.

Event 2: Hammer Museum

From the 2010 EXPO Shanghai and the 2012 London Olympics I heard about the great English designer, Thomas Heatherwick, who is gifted in generating innovative ideas, but I know little about his real talent and how his designs improve things around us until I recently visited his exhibition “Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio” in Hammer Museum. I not only harvested times of delight from figuring out how his designs delicately resolve the question but also was mesmerized by his designs filled with both novel and aesthetic feeling.

The first thing directly attracting every tourist of the exhibition is the “spuns” at the entrance. “The Spun Chair has the appearance of a sculptural vessel. But when leaned on its side, it becomes a fun and functional chair that lets you rock side to side or spin around.”(hermanmiller.com) As the explanation shows, the chair really gives my girlfriend and me a lot of fun when we spinning with the chair. People are worried about falling from the chair when they first cautiously spin it, especially when they lean backward. However, as the introduction shows, the special design of spun chair just provides people with both comfort and pleasant. As a chair, the spun chair really does not possess the ordinary appearance of a chair for people’s daily usage and the look of it gives it much artistic specialty.

Because of my great interest of the design, I used the Photoshop to further study the 3D models of the spun chair when I was back home. It is obvious that the artistic design also relates to some ergonomics and physics knowledge. From the 3ds model, we can see that the upper disk has little bit smaller diameter than the lower one, providing people with the largest sitting area while preventing the chair from falling down and insuring the stability. If we look inside of the chair, there is a thin pillar at the center, which supports all the weight put on the chair so that it cannot be squished. Also, from the Internet research I know that “the designer created the Spun Chair using a rotational molding technique to shape plastic.”(upinteriors.com) It is also a field of engineering. Therefore, it can be concluded that the design of a simple chair combines art with other science and technology as we learned from the course.

Entering into the main exhibition, I felt a strong sense of creativity, novelty and science and technology. Although not technically an architect, Thomas Heatherwick is a designer with a lot of architectural experience. “He has a studio in London which produces many architectural designs, but that is not all. He is a designer who tried to revolutionize the ways that objects are approached and used. He has been called "the new Leonardo of design.”(The-Archi-Blog.com) Designs like the stairs of Longchamp flagship store and the garden bridge all reflects the combination of both art and other scientific field like psychology, neurology, ecology and so on. “The magnetic properties of the landscape stair enable movable lights and display stands to be attached with high-strength magnets. The transparent balustrades are fabricated using aerospace windscreen technology to create a series of individually formed panels that drape with the fluidity of fabric.”(heatherwick.com) The stair successfully making the delicate psychological effect and driving people tend to move upwards by the fluid wave-shape. The design of the garden bridge, as large construction, further relates to a city’s overall figure and its people. As the application shows, “the environmental impact assessment has been undertaken in part to avoid or reduce negative environmental effects and to also identify and promote positive effects.” The assessment has considered the following aspects of the environment: Air quality, Noise and vibration, Transport, Ecology (land and river), Water (scour, flooding and drainage), Archaeology, Built heritage, Landscape, Visual effects, Socio-economics and so on. Reading the list, I cannot deny my great respect to Heatherwick as his design is not only a building or a functional construction, but also an artistic and a scientific blended works.

The visit of the Hammer Museum deeply made me feel what I learnt in the course and I would like to explore more for such inspiring creations in my daily life.

Reference:

"Spun Chair." Hermanmiller.com. Web.

<http://www.hermanmiller.com/products/seating/lounge-seating/spun-chair.html>.

"Spun." Upinteriors.com. Web.

<http://www.upinteriors.com/design/spun-by-thomas-heatherwick/>.

"thomas heatherwick on scale and critical thinking." The Archi-Blog. 26 Oct. 2013. Web. <http://archi-blog.weebly.com/context--history1/category/task 3 project 2 ergonomics64fcdbe9c4>.

"La Maison Unique." Heatherwick.com. Web.

<http://www.heatherwick.com/la-maison-unique/>.

Garden Bridge Planning Application - Environmental Statement: Non-Technical Summary. 2014. Page 8. Print.