Nanotechnology + Art | Week 5

Whenever I give campus tours, one of the landmarks of UCLA I always highlight is CNSI.  Audiences love hearing about how nanotechnology creates self-repairing armor, paint that doubles as a solar panel, and nanobots in nanoshells that are able to specifically target cancerous cells, while leaving healthy cells untouched. As such, it was great to hear from Jim Gimzewski and understand more behind the history and building blocks of nanotechnology.

History has always focused on the big-picture questions. In trying to find the origins of life, or the meaning of life, scientists and artists have tried to look to the heavens, or through the timeframe of billions of years, in search of answers.  It is only recently that scientists are beginning to shift their scope in the opposite direction.  As seen through the emergent fields of biotechnology and nanotechnology, it is evident that much can be learned from the basic, tiniest building blocks of our Earth. Such is exemplified by Richard Feynman's "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", which suggested that there is so much room to make tiny things that you don't need to always think bigger is better.

Originally coined in 1974 by Niorio Taniguchi to describe thin filaments in cells, nanotechnology now more broadly encompasses everything on the scale of nanometers (10^-9m).  Dr. Gimzewski reinforced that such a tiny scale is often hard to comprehend.  I think artists have been great at elucidating the concept of nanotechnology and its microcosmic scale through innovative projects that contrast nano-sized versions of typical daily objects. For example, Feynman wrote 25,000 pages of Encyclopedia Britannica on a pinhead (though a pinhead has room for 260,000,000 pages). He also offered prizes for a small cubic electric motor 0.4mm in dimension and a book page shrunk by a factor of 25,000 in each direction (100nm font size), prizes claimed very soon after. Similarly Drexler & Merckle founded the Foresight Organization, which came up with the idea of an assembly plant on a molecular scale.

Gimzewski also highlighted the changing perspective that nanotechnology provides.  Because atomic physics is not bound by the rules of conventional physics, conventional laws like gravity, surface tension, size, and weight do not necessarily apply to nanoparticles.  Unsurprisingly, manipulating these unique properties has translated itself into art.  This is exemplified in artwork from the Romans, where a cup seems green on the outside, but if you illuminate from inside, it glows, due to coloration from nanosized gold particles.  Similarly, plate glazes and stained glass windows also used nanoparticles to exhibit unique visual properties.

Much of nanotechnology, on the surface, seems strictly grounded in hard science, with no room for the interpretation of art.  Much of Gimzewski's lectures focused on the technology that allows for the study of nanparticles, from ATMs to STMs, from nanotechnology in chemotherapy to nanoclay that keeps beer carbonated. These lectures also highlighted the practical applications of nanoparticles, from fighting diseases, to making our clothes, vehicles, and streets self-cleaning.

However, this knowledge helps artists to better understand and visually represent the concepts that they base their artwork around. As Gimzewski stressed, the entirety of life and natural order relies on self-organization and heirarchal structures.  Such is seen in "On Growth & Form" (1945), which highlights the fractal nature of trees, snowflakes, and shells. Similar principles are also exemplified in the Blue Morpho Butterfly, whose nanoparticles create extreme flash that can be seen from a mile in the air. These butterflies have christmas tree-like structures that manipulate light on the nanoscale so that they reflect back color much more effectively than pigments can do alone.  Overall, such principles can also be used in technology, possibly helping scientists self-assemble organs or tissues, but also in art, through the designing of beautiful 3D DNA crystals and micelles.

As a whole, I also think that the basic building structures of life see parallels and equivalent structures on the massive scale of globalization. NPR just wrote a beautiful article titled "When Cities Become Science, Where Does Art Fit In?" about consolidating advancing technology and efficiency with the culture of art.  In the article, Dr. Ian Wilson draws the comparison between microtechnologies and massive scales of society from the perspective of imagery, stating that "the connection between art and the medical philanthropy is imagery.  Street murals enhance life.  Medical X-ray imagery preserves it."

Sources:
"Feynman.com - Richard Feynman Online." Feynman.com - Richard Feynman Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.feynman.com>.
"Micro & Nano Technology." Nanoparticle Formulation, Fabrication & Delivery Services. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.particlesciences.com/services/micro-nano-technology/>.
Gimzewski, J. "Nanotechnology + Art, Pt. 3." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 23 July 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzXjNbKDkYI>.
Frank, Adam. "When Cities Become Science, Where Does Art Fit In?." NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 28 July 2014. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/07/26/334038347/when-cities-become-science-where-does-art-fit-in?>.
Thompson, D. On Growth and Form. 2 ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945. Print.