Chasing Science Culture

My career has focused on explorations in science and technology as a distinct feature of contemporary culture—from early work with light, lasers, aviation and space development to scientific exploration, digital imaging and most recently nanotechnology. In my work I aspire to meaningful fine art with a healthy awareness of the mediating role that visual images can play in scientific and public understanding. I have always been intrigued by physics, by looking out on the expanse of space, but would not have imagined taking an interest in chemistry or focusing in on the extremely small, until my science-studies group read Bill Joy's striking article "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" [1].

In my courses on digital imaging, students often wondered, "Will computers take over the world?" I used to laugh, confident in the fact that we build, program and power these helpful tools. Then, slowly, a collection of eminent scientists such as Stephen Hawking began to express similar apprehension. Joy articulated the concerns with a compelling argument about how technology pervades our lives, along with recent advances in nanoscience. He also described how this new research and curiosity was keeping him up late with enthusiasm for his work.

Out of that science-studies group developed a small cross-disciplinary team of scholars—humanists, social scientists and scientists interested in the societal implications of this rapidly emerging technology. Our aspiration was to understand, evaluate and inform ourselves and the public about the possible benefits and liabilities of this emerging science. A few years later, we are working on our third National Science Foundation (NSF) grant totaling close to $3 million in funded research—for Nanotechnology in Society Network Node: Imaging, Scientific Change and Public Understanding of Emerging Nanotechnologies.

The NSF used to tell me that I had my own endowment (the National Endowment for the Arts), and the underlying assumption was that a humanist could not be involved in supported research without an attachment to a principal investigator from the sciences. Now humanists and artists are being embraced as a distinctive asset for the dissemination of scientific information to the public, and there may be hope for more meaningful collaboration between the two cultures.

My focus has been on the role of images from the nanoscale and how algorithmic microscopy is changing what it means to see. We have developed a functional typology of images and are working on the establishment of conventions (Color Plate B No. 1) for the way images are altered to assist in seeing/understanding information. These manipulations are so tempting and have become so commonplace that the typical resultant images often mislead more than they inform.

My own studio work involved three-dimensional environments with complicated imagery incorporating multiple generations of past artwork as the surface texture of the objects. The imagery thus became smaller and denser. I am now able to put molecular shapes in the inks that are the same shape as the objects being rendered (Color Plate B No. 2). These molecules then leach off the surface of the image. One not only sees the work and leaves with a visual memory, but physical reassertion of the shapes remains with the viewer as well.