STEEP: Art + science-research on sensing nanotechnologies
Raewyn Turner & Collaborators from 2015
Steep is a series of art projects exploring the physical reality of sensing nanotechnology, in particular engineered gold nanoparticles and what they may become.
We started by experimenting with visible gold material to explore how invisible engineered nano particles may disperse or aggregate in the environment, and how to visualise and express their morphology and movement.
The approach is one of looking up, looking down and looking inwards.
Steep is an art/science research project examining the impact nanotechnologies could have in the future. Designed as a multi-year, multidisciplinary project with a rotating cast of collaborators, Steep is based on the current state of scientific research and its flexibility as a project reflects the uncertain and disruptive state of nanoscience and nanotechnology (as they are sometimes referred to).
In the absence of a visceral sensing of the atmospheric ocean of particles and cues which are in dynamic flux with perception, Steep combines art+ science+ technology to explore sensing nanotechnology, where it accumulates, changes over time, and how it may affect living beings and the environment. The intention in Steep is to work on perceptualisation of invisible airborne particles, through art works.
We breathe the sky into ourselves. Synthetic molecules may not only change the way the world behaves, but may also change perception. If we could sense the fullness of the atmosphere could we know the meanings present in its cyphers?
Could we smell the changes of Climate Change?
Steep#1 a digital poetry of gold nanoparticles. 2015. Raewyn Turner ( NZ) & Maryse De La Giroday (CA) 4.31 minutes.
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Steep#1 explores sensing gold nanotechnology, where it accumulates, changes over time, and how it may affect living beings and the environment. In the absence of a visceral sensing Steep brings attention to the possibilities of perceiving invisible airborne particles.
Synopsis
The rhetoric surrounding nanotechnology promises a contemporary alchemy for our intentions of power and domination over nature. ‘With...nanoengineering nature transforms these inexpensive, abundant and inanimate ingredients into self -generating, self-perpetuating, self-repairing, self-aware creatures that walk, wiggle, swim, see, sniff, think and even dream. Total value: immeasurable.’ (Nanotechnology: Shaping The World Atom By Atom, Interagency Working Group on Nanoscience, Engineering and Technology (IWGN).1999. )
Though humans have been exposed to nanosized particles throughout their evolutionary stages, the respective exposure has dramatically increased over the last century due to contributions from various anthropogenic sources. In addition, the rapidly developing field of nanotechnology … may also influence the atmospheric chemistry in general as their chemical composition and reactivity are different from coarser particles, thus opening novel chemical transformation pathways in the atmosphere.
The combination of text and visual image is designed as an accessible approach to communicating the impact for good and ill that gold and gold nanoparticles have had in the past and could have in the future.
A nonliteral interpretation of the text is offered by visuals that reference both poetic content and structure. For example, the moth on the hand is superpositioned moving between ascii text, particles and real images with the entirety signifying incomplete knowledge. Turner edited in Premiere and animated using Isadora an interactive graphical programming environment.
Written as a poetic trilogy (Yearning, Discovery, and Light/Shadow), the text references historical fact, myth, peer-reviewed science, risk, and one of the most well known lines in the history of English poetry.
Maryse de la Giroday 2015
Yearning
shards of sun
hidden in the river's silted bed
buried beneath the earth's skin
a beautiful killing
in the cold, cold river
in the darkness underground
opportunities made of gold
wealth beyond Croesus' and Midas’ dreams
Klondike calls
El Dorado beckons
siren songs of:
safe passage through this vale of tears
transformation from fear to joy
power over life and death
pleasure unending and unimaginable
kings and paupers answer
build empires
strive for godhood
Buddha, Jesus, Ganesha
and the others
sitting golden in their temples waiting tribute
flesh and spirit
striving towards
a beautiful eternity
Light/Shadow
golden cage
holding
the Romans’ particulate offering
two-colour glass rainbow glowing red/green
wounded cerebrum
made whole
nanoporous gold-plated electrodes
electrifying neurons
New Zealand’s woolen fleece
economy wrapped in gold
gleaming lavender
stromal cells
collecting
gold ceaselessly
until
a failure
to regenerate
European cathedrals paned in
photocatalytic purifiers made of gold particles
blazing red
mining nanogold in
sewers
deposits richer than the earth
harvesting the sun
with a fishnet made of gold
poisonous nonpoison circulating
the air
the earth
the sea
Discovery
wandering as a cloud
a host of golden nanoparticles
rains down on earth
superpositioned quantum world
dead/alive
metal/molecule
classical physics
dead or alive
metal or molecule
simultaneous and incompatible truths
for now
metal particles—144 atoms—Au144
molecular particles —133 atoms—Au133
transmutation from metal to molecule and back
Nature’s alchemy
breathing them
eating them
drinking them
we become gold
discovering what we are
Stills from STEEP#1 movie
Visuals, Editing Raewyn Turner
Words Maryse de la Giroday Frogheart blog: Commentary about nanotech, science policy and communication, society, and the arts
Video in the Mangroves Brian Harris
Soundtrack Harley Rayner KNAME Mt Eden
Thanks to ; Aulana carpet, The Royal BC Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum. Lycurgus Cup images courtesy Trustees of the British Museum
Raewyn Turner and Brian Harris individually and collaboratively engage simple elements with engineering to create experiential art. Their work utilises everyday objects re-interpreted with robotics which Brian develops for cameras in the film industry, along with Raewyn's olfactory research and art practise Over the past 4 years we’ve collaboratively created experiments around olfactory perception.
Brian Harris creates computer controlled and embedded devices for motion picture cameras and other special projects for the local and international film industry. He has a science and electronics background. An independent designer for 30 years, he invents and creates large scale finely tuned adaptive mechatronics and bespoke equipment. His inventions for motion control, stabilising camera mounts for aerial photography and robotic trajectories have been used in local and international tv, commercial and film productions. WEDGE harrisbrian@xtra.co.nz
Maryse De La Giroday “I am fascinated with this project and look forward to adding my two cents worth regarding technical content and who knows, maybe some poetry? Here's my 'official' description: publisher and writer of Canada's largest, independent, science blog, Maryxe writes about nanotechnology and science policy and communication, society, and the arts from a Canadian perspective.
As an independent scholar, she has presented at the
2009 International Symposium on Electronic Arts (Belfast and Dublin, Aug. 23 – Sept. 1) on the topic of 'Nanotechnology, storytelling, sensing and materiali
2012 Society for the Study of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies; Fourth Annual Meeting (University of Twente, Netherlands. Oct. 22 – 25) presentation on 'Zombies, brains, collapsing boundaries, and entanglement
2012 (Fourth) Canadian Science Policy Conference (Calgary, Alberta, Canada,
Nov. 5 – 7); Moderator for 'Thinking big: science culture and policy in Canada panel'
Switching back to the more personal, my writing practice is a process of exploration. In this case, the exploration is not focused solely on nanotechnology but the connections between seemingly disparate entities such as Chinese researchers trying to rediscover the recipe Damascus steel blades (the recipe lost since 1700, produced steel composed of carbon nantoubes) and a visual artist exploring the 'life cycle' of gold nanoparticles..”
Steep#1 a digital poetry of gold nanoparticles presented at ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Arts) 2015, Disruption. “Interactive Text” Vancouver, Canada.
Steep#1 a digital poetry of gold nanoparticles at CEINT Centre for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology website. 2015. The Centre for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT) is exploring the relationship between a vast array of nanomaterials— from natural, to manufactured, to those produced incidentally by human activities ……READ MORE
Steep#1 a digital poetry of gold nanoparticles featured on Frogheart blog: Commentary about nanotech, science policy and communication, society, and the arts
Steep#1 a digital poetry of gold nanoparticles featured on Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
Steep#1 a digital poetry of gold nanoparticles featured on Duke Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, NC, USA
A digital poetry of gold nanoparticles featured on CEINT Centre for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology here. Professor Mark Wiesner, CEINT's director and lead scholar in the field of nano science (who is also an accomplished bassist) served as a scientific advisor to de la Giroday and Turner on their work.
Stills from the STEEP#1 video
Notes on MAKING STEEP#1 / AUGUST 14, 2015 Steep#1 a digital poetry of gold nanoparticles is a collaborative film project by Raewyn Turner and Maryse de la Giroday. The work is informed by science.
References
1. Ed Yong, “Carbon nanotechnology in an 17th century Damascus sword”, Not Exactly Rocket Science blog, accessed Dec. 15, 2014, http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/09/27/carbon-nanotechnology-in-an-17th-century-damascus-sword/
2. “Croesus,” Wikipedia entry, accessed Dec. 14, 2014, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croesus
3. “Midas,” Wikipedia entry, accessed Dec. 14, 2014, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midas
4. Ian Freestone, Nigel Meeks, Margaret Sax, and Catherine Higgitt, “The Lycurgus Cup – A Roman Nanotechnology,” Gold Bulletin 40/4, (2007), 270-7, accessed Dec. 14, 2014, http://master-mc.u-strasbg.fr/IMG/pdf/lycurgus.pdf
5. British Society, “Nanoscience and nanotechnologies: opportunities and uncertainties,” 2004 report, accessed Dec. 16, 2014, http://www.nanotec.org.uk/finalreport.htm.
6. K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, (New York, New York, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing, 1986), 171-190.
7. Stained glass church windows - nanotechnology air purifiers? Nanowerk, Aug. 2, 2008, accessed Dec. 14, 2014, http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=6868.php
8. Sofia Pessanha, Teresa I. Madeira, Marta Manso, Mauro Guerra, Agnès Le Gac, and Maria Luisa Carvalho, “Comparison of gold leaf thickness in Namban folding screens using X-ray fluorescence,” Applied Physics A Materials Science & Processing, 10.1007/s00339-014-8531-z, published online July 2, 2014, accessed Dec. 14, 2014, http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00339-014-8531-z/fulltext.html
9. Maryse de la Giroday, “US National Nanotechnology Initiative’s 2015 budget request shows a decrease of $200M”, FrogHeart blog March 31, 2014, accessed Dec. 14, 2014, http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=12913
10. Mark Wiesner, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director, Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT) at Duke University, North Carolina, US, personal communication, Jan. 3, 2015.
11. “Gold Nanoparticles: Properties and Applications,” Sigma-Aldrich (US life sciences and technology company with over 9,000 employees in over 40 countries), accessed Dec. 14, 2014, http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/materials-science/nanomaterials/gold-nanoparticles.html
12. “Gold Catalysts - Applications of Gold in Catalysis,” World Gold Council, accessed Dec. 14, 2014, http://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=4966
13. Maryse de la Giroday, “Gold nanoparticles: more toxic than we thought?” FrogHeart blog April 19, 2013, accessed Dec. 14, 2014, http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=9829
14. Tatsiana Mironava, Michael Hadjiargyrou, Marcia Simon, & Miriam H. Rafailovich, “Gold nanoparticles cellular toxicity and recovery: Adipose Derived Stromal cells,” Nanotoxicology, (2013), Published online February 8, 2013. (doi:10.3109/17435390.2013.769128).
15. William Shakespeare, The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158 [Prospero’s speech], accessed Dec. 19, 2014, http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/we-such-stuff-dreams-made
16. Tim Cronshaw, “Sector pins hopes on golden fleece,” Feb. 15, 2013, NZFarmer.co.nz, accessed Jan. 7, 2015, http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/8309525/Sector-pins-hopes-on-golden-fleece
17. “The gold standard,” University of Pittsburgh Dec. 9, 2014 release, accessed Dec. 19, 2014, http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-12/uop-tgs120914.php
18. “Promising New Method Found for Rapidly Screening Cancer Drugs; UMass Amherst researchers invent fast, accurate new nanoparticle-based sensor system,” University of Massachussetts at Amherst, Dec. 15, 2014, accessed Dec. 16, 2014, http://www.azonano.com/news.aspx?newsID=31744
19. Subinoy Rana, Ngoc D. B. Le, Rubul Mout, Krishnendu Saha, Gulen Yesilbag Tonga, Robert E. S. Bain, Oscar R. Miranda, Caren M. Rotello, & Vincent M. Rotello, “A multichannel nanosensor for instantaneous readout of cancer drug mechanisms,” Nature Nanotechnology, (2014) doi:10.1038/nnano.2014.285 Published online 15 December 2014.
20. Maryse de la Giroday, “Gold and your neurons.” FrogHeart blog May 7, 2015, accessed May 21, 2015, http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=16831
21. Maryse de la Giroday, “Gold nanoparticles as catalysts for clear water and hydrogen production.” FrogHeart blog December 18, 2014, accessed May 21, 2015, http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=15523
22. Maryse de la Giroday, “Poopy gold, silver, platinum, and more.” FrogHeart blog February 3, 2015 accessed May 21, 2015, http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=15876
23. Maryse de la Giroday, “Fishnet of gold atoms improves solar cell performance.” FrogHeart blog September 26, 2014 accessed May 21, 2015, http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=14728
24. Science Joy Wagon, “The Cloud Model”, accessed Dec. 15, 2014, http://regentsprep.org/Regents/physics/phys05/catomodel/cloud.htm
25. “The Bohr Model,” University of Tennessee Astrowiki, accessed Dec. 15, 2014, http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/light/bohr.html
26. “I wandered lonely as a cloud [aka Daffodils],” [by William Wordsworth, 1804 and 1815 (revised)], Wikipedia entry, accessed May 21, 2015, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Wandered_Lonely_as_a_Cloud
27. Maryse de la Giroday, “Gold atoms: sometimes they’re a metal and sometimes they’re a molecule.” FrogHeart blog April 14, 2015 accessed May 21, 2015, http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=16583
Using a collection of footage Raewyn edited and animated Steep#1. She integrated Maryse de la Giroday's poem A Digital Poetry of Gold Nanoparticles into the visuals using Isadora an interactive media presentation tool to make ascii style text and particles. Although I avoided a literal interpretation of the poem the visuals refer to both to the content and structure of the trilogy of the poem, for example where the moth on the hand is superpositioned moving between ascii text, particles and real images to show incomplete knowledge.
Since 2009 I’ve been investigating the smog of humans, the unconscious smell of I am. It may become possible to perceive the human plume which trails downwind from each body carrying with it signature odours and olfactory architectures which are the fragrances of our civilisation and times. The human plume carries the remnants of human emotions and the labour of the body. My initial curiosity about sensing airborne particles lead me to Voice the notes of vapours.
Raewyn Turner : Voicing the notes of vapours
Raewyn's first plan was to steep the elements of the human in gold nanoparticles to discover the reaction. What are humans constructed of? According to the Amato Report. 1999, ( Towards a US National Nanotechnology Initiative ) ‘If you were to deconstruct a human body into its most basic ingredients you’d get a little tank each of oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. There would be piddling piles of carbon, calcium and salt. You’d squint at pinches of sulphur, phosphorus, iron and magnesium, and tiny dots of 20 or so other chemical elements. Total street value: not much…’
The rhetoric surrounding nanotechnology promised a contemporary alchemy for our intentions of power and domination over nature. ‘With...nanoengineering nature transforms these inexpensive, abundant and inanimate ingredients into self -generating, self-perpetuating, self-repairing, self-aware creatures that walk, wiggle, swim, see, sniff, think and even dream. Total value: immeasurable.’ (Nanotechnology: Shaping The World Atom By Atom, Interagency Working Group on Nanoscience, Engineering and Technology (IWGN).1999)
What if the new gold nanomaterials were the organising principle of human beings? The intention in Steep is to work on perceptualisation of invisible airborne particles. According to parachutists clouds have a peculiar odour. Clouds form on aerosol particles, which become condensation nuclei which are carried again to earth by the rain and subsequently consumed by plants, humans and animals. Debate and discussion around nanotechnology is essential because aerosol particles that can’t be detected by the senses may also be changing perceptions unconsciously. It is by these unconscious signals and by these bandwidths that important information is relayed.
Each place has its own unique odour known as the background smell and only noticed when its removed. The burning of fossil fuels and the particles that are arising from particular places, the roads, the tyres, the buildings, the crops, the sweat of the people, their anxiety, the water, the animals and the communication between plants and insects --is the smell of home. Stevenson (2009) suggests that the state of the economy affects our immune system and therefore affects the way we relate to others and the embodied distinction of ourselves from others. Chemosensory communication may include significant information, for example conveying information related to health status, social competition, possibly sadness and definitely stress, as cues for significant behavioural adaptions which lead to evolutionary consequences.
I decided to focus on gold nanoparticles and started looking around for gold in Nature. A moth with gold wings happened to be sitting on my couch and I placed it on my gilded hand. Gold has been and continues to be used as an artists material, in colour or form where it imbues a meaning or code. Nanomaterial has changed visual properties that are tunable by changing size, shape, surface chemistry or aggregation state--from red to blue to purple to transparent. ( Sigma Aldrich, Gold Nanoparticles Properties and Applications 2015 ) My choice of gold is also in the mythological story of Midas, and for its relationship to past and present concerns about power, mythologies and the endurance of motivating aspects of human nature. Indeed, Donna Harroway (2014) suggests that its not the Anthropocene that’s responsible for bio, climate, social and political change, its Capitalocene which is the organisation of labour, formation of markets and accumulation of wealth.
I’ve been working with Brian Harris on a video experiment built around two metaphors:
the hydrological cycle: the washing off of one system which becomes part of a transpiration, absorption and creation of another system through airborne particles in the atmosphere;
Midas, popularly remembered in Greek mythology for his ability to turn everything he touched with his hand into gold. In a version told by Nathaniel Hawthorne in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1852), Midas found that when he touched his daughter, she turned to gold as well.
We constructed a story around Zoe, Midas’s daughter, and acted it out as a performance. Zoe walks in the estuary and washes the curse of gold from her birthday cake in the mangroves. Amongst the pneumatophores of the estuary, Zoe, 'life', daughter of Midas, carries her birthday cake to try to wash away the outcome of the curse of her father's wish. The washing in the mangroves ejects particles of gold into the water. The gold particles from the cake are eventually flushed through the mangroves out to sea, where the bubble bursting mechanisms on the ocean produce aerosols in the atmosphere.
The next stage of visuals involves working alongside scientists to film gold nanoparticles using science imaging to visualise their behaviour and movement in the environment and to engage with scientific research and participate in science experiments that would fit into the architecture of the project but also leave room for discovery and collaboration.
Our process will involve gleaning evidence of invisible particles from the water and the atmosphere by reflection, sensory observation and focusing on where traces of them may be found in the environment by:
distilling and extracting essences from plants, people, insects, animals, buildings, trees, the sky, water and dust
time lapse video
aerial photography/satellite imaging
sound recording
microscopic photography
drawing
animation
Steep Images Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris 2014. Presented as lightbox prints
STEEP#1 paper Raewyn Turner & Maryse De La Giroday
Presented at ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Arts) 2015, Disruption. Vancouver, Canada.
RESEARCH: ART RESIDENCY AT CEINT, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA 2017
In December 2017 Raewyn Turner and Brian Harris were artists in residence at Centre for Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology, CEINT at Duke University. Read the full article, "When Art Tackles the Invisibly Small" by Kara Manke on the Duke Research Blog.
NANOART
Paul Thomas (2013) defines Nanoart as one of the new art disciplines developing at the intersections between art-science-technology. He writes: ...Getting a balance between the levels of science and art in a project is difficult; it raises questions about what are the levels of scientific understanding that should be explored by the artist in pursuit of the artwork...Making connections between the sciences and the humanities generates new dialogue, venues and audiences which allow for a rethinking of our understanding of the world.
Paul Thomas also used the analogy of Midas in his Midas (2007) installation where he explored concepts of touch using data recorded from the AFM in contact mode. Thomas, in The Immateriality of Art (2013) writes: ‘artists ...critique current scientific research in the area of nanotechnology revealing a contested space of enquiry. The energy of vibration, pattern and rhythm is at the base the connectivity of matter that is translated by these artists in to visual experiences, electromagnetic sensations and sonic topographies. These sensory experiences reveal to the human body intimate understanding of the nano-world as a lived experience.’