BY CYNTHIA LEE
UCLA Today
Staff
Nanotechnology has inspired both dreams and nightmares
— the promise of new biomedical, manufacturing and information
technologies that will dominate the 21st century juxtaposed against
the fear of imagined dangers and science-fiction hype epitomized by
micro-robots gone wild.
Helping the public to access the bewildering
nanoworld and, at the same time, exploring the impact of this
emerging science on culture, Victoria Vesna, chair of the Department
of Design | Media Arts, and chemist Jim Gimzewski have collaborated
on projects that merge art, science and technology.
Recently, the two unveiled to the campus the core of
their collaboration, “Zero@wavefunction: nano dreams and
nightmares,” which premiered at the Biennial of Electronic Arts in
Perth, Australia, last August. To make the invisible nanoworld
visible in a metaphorical way, Vesna and Gimzewski created Buckyball
Shadows, a playful projection of glowing, computer-generated
buckyballs, which appeared giant-sized projected on the side of
Young Hall during a demonstration Jan. 29.
The virtual balls respond to shadow via sensors.
Casting giant shadows against the wall, people reached out to
“touch” the balls which contract and move just as one can imagine
molecules might when manipulated by a nanoscientist using a scanning
tunneling microscope.
This key instrument, with its probe made of a single
atom, allows nanoscientists to perceive the presence of atoms, not
by sight, but by touch, explained Gimzewski, a nanoscientist for
nearly three decades. “Fingertips replace eyes in the nanoworld,” he
explained.
Participants who interact with these virtual
molecules may experience on an emotional level how he connects with
the molecules he works with in his mind, he explained. “I hope these
projects will give people a sense of the wonderment and
interactivity we experience in science.”
Gimzewski and Vesna began collaborating after
meeting in 2001 at a UCLA conference, “From Networks to
Nanosystems,” co-organized by Vesna.
“He was very enthusiastic, and also very
understandable,” said Vesna. “A lot of times, science can be
off-putting. You feel you need a translator. But Jim is very visual;
the visuals he provided gave me a way to experience some of the
ideas he was talking about.”
Media arts also can be difficult to
comprehend: “A lot of my work gets very involved because it is so
esoteric and technological,” Vesna said. “But because it’s also
visual, there’s something for people to grab on to.”
There were other parallels: Both work in emerging
disciplines that are constantly being redefined. And both fields
cross traditional academic boundaries and encourage non-traditional
linkages.
While Gimzewski has always been interested in art
and culture, Vesna has experimented extensively with areas that
might fall within the chemist’s realm: tensile systems and shapes
such as the tetrahelix, hexagon and the buckyball, a ball-shaped
carbon molecule, reminiscent of a geodesic dome.
“What we are trying to do is not only make
nanotechnology more accessible to people, but also to pose a lot of
questions about how this impacts our culture,” said
Vesna.
“Shadows” and several other interactive seed
projects, which can be seen at http://notime.arts.ucla.edu/zerowave,
will be expanded in “Future Echoes,” a 10,000-square-foot exhibition
to open Nov. 23 at LACMALab. Joining them is Katherine Hayles,
professor of English and Design | Media Arts and a leading scholar
in electronic literature. Graduate students from all three areas are
involved in the project.
The three faculty members are part of the Center for
Social Interfaces and Networks Advanced Programmable Simulations and
Environments, which promotes “a culture of digital adventure”
through collaboration and experimentation.