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.
