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Newman's Microscopic Text This week’s lectures and readings focused on the history of nanotechnology and its recently increasing applications.  One of the more fascinating things that I thought we covered in the lectures was the two competitions offered by Richard Feynman for the advancement of nanotechnology in 1959.  The first was to build a miniature motor that could fit inside of a 1/64 inch cube and the second was to reduce the size of a page of a book to a 1/25,000 linear scale (CalTech.edu).  The first cash prize of $1,000 was awarded relatively quickly to William McLellan in 1960, while the second prize took 25 years until Tom Newman completed the task using an electron beam in 1985 (Kornei).  Such advancements in nanotechnology have obvious application in the artistic and literary world, with new art being created out of nanostructures. I also found the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope in the 1980s to be particularly interesting within...

Film and Textile This past week, I attended Jeanine Oleson’s “Production of Copper” exhibit at the Hammer Museum.  The exhibit consisted of four parts: a video where four characters explore caves and mines, a TV screen showing the production of copper, a large floor textile, and a clay speaker.  All four of these items are connected by copper wires; however, only the wires between the TV screen and the clay speaker were visible.  The wire was not your typical electrical wire, but much thicker, with around 1/4” diameter.  It was interesting to see the wire actually come directly out of the TV screen, not the back side, with the remainder of the screen working as it normally would. Unfortunately, I showed up to the longer film that was being shown on the projector with about 5-10 minutes left, so I was unable to comprehend fully what was going on.   I was able to ask some questions about it to a Hammer employee, however, she told me that she had seen the ...

This week’s topic focused on neuroscience and the brain, an obvious connection with art as all creativity stems from the mind.  In the same way it was covered in my previous post on medicine and art, early art with respect to the mind focused on the anatomy of the brain.  Stemming off from anatomy has been the study of neural pathways through the usage of fluorescent proteins in the Brainbow process (Cai et. al).  These fluorescent proteins allow scientists to track “axons and dendrites over long distances”, allowing for much greater understanding of the intricate anatomy of the brains of several species (Harvard.edu).   Brainbow of Transgenic Mice Also connecting neuroscience with art are many drugs that invoke “trips” that cause the user to hallucinate in various forms.  One example of such a drug is LSD, which was invented by Albert Hofmann in 1938 (Smith).  While creating the compound, Hofmann accidentally ingested it, recalling later that he...

Last week I was able to attend the keynote address for the Chemical Entanglements: Gender and Exposure Conference.  The keynote speaker was Florence Williams, a writer and editor of various newspapers, and her presentation focused on the topic “The Burden of Breasts: Gender, Chemical Exposures, and Changing Bodies”. While there were some artistic elements to her address, it largely centered on the chemical effects (which lead to medical issues) that many everyday products have on the human body, specifically women’s breasts.  After hearing of studies into the alarmingly high amounts of PBDEs, compounds found in flame retardants, found in breast feeding moms in Europe, Ms. Williams decided to send in her own breast milk sample to a European lab to see how her levels compared to those of European moms.  What she, and other Americans found out, was that levels of PBDE found in the breast milk of breastfeeding American moms was ten times higher than that of the average...

This week’s topic, biotechnology and art, involves more recent and controversial art, as living organisms are used as an artistic medium.  I found one of the more fascinating works of art discussed this week to be that of Stelarc, the man with a “third ear” implanted into his arm.  While the implanted ear was made of material commonly used in plastic surgery, his own tissue has morphed with the ear so that it is now a fully living part of his body (McCafferty).  In the future, Stelarc wishes to have a small microphone inserted into his “third ear” so that the entire world can listen in, with this worldwide connection being the artistic value that Stelarc sees in his implanted “masterpiece” (DailyMail.co.uk). Stelarc's Third Ear The more controversial side of BioArt comes in the genetic modification of living species, such as Kathy High’s work with transgenic mice.  High was able to genetically modify certain mice by including foreign genetic material and w...

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