hanwDESMA9: Week 8 | Nanotechnology + Art

Week 8 | Nanotechnology + Art | Blog

As science and technology dominate our daily life and way of thinking, inevitably, our aesthetics has revolutionized. Nanotechnology, one of the most significant rocket sciences, not only changed our way of living in terms of medical, mechanical or other scientific subjects, but also broadened our vision into the nano world that one could never perceive with naked eyes.

Nanotechnology helped us to observe and discover the world on a nano scale through touching and hearing. For instance, Boo Chapple, one of the pioneer in nanotechnology and art fields, applied nanotechnology in acoustic practice. Through the nature of bone matrix, Boo Chapple was able to manipulate the piezoelectric signals in a specific vibrational patterns, and thus the desired audible sound is played from the bone. And the bone itself plays as a speaker to enlarge the scale of sound. By doing so, people could obtain the feel of nanostructure through acoustic senses, the nanoscale objects are experienced in a human scale through interactions.

Nanomandala is a joint project done by artist Victoria Vesna and nonscientist James Gimszewkski. Mandala is a symbolic painting from Tibetan buddhism; Vesna and James projected the video consisting of the mandala onto a disk of sand with 8 feet in diameter. Through the video, Vesna and James zoomed in the mandala within a nanoscale and people could then feel the nanostructure of mandala through sand grains; and each grain of sand corresponds to a specific particle of nanostructure. The project provides people with a way to feel the “enlarged” scale of nanostructure by touching and vibrating sand.