In Particular

Pencil on Paper – it's war

The results from the ESEM imaging (see previous post) were interesting, but a little adrift of my expectations.

Looking at the images the gentle process of marking paper with pencil is turned into something destructive. The paper clearly putting up a fight against the sharp point of the pencil, which in turn gouges the paper like wolf claws in deer flesh.

…… add here

Looking closer, seeing less

Yesterday I had a 2 hour session with Matt Kershaw and TP with an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM) which can enable us to view up to x5000.

ESEMs focus a beam of electrons in a scanning motion over a sample placed in a sealed chamber. A vacuum is created in the chamber and water vapour is added. The electrons penetrate the sample (a tiny amount, say 10 micrometers) and stimulate the ejection of other electrons (Secondary Electrons) from the sample, which are amplified in the water vapour environment. The secondary electrons are counted by an electron detector and this information is converted into an image viewed on a display. It's complicated and I barely understood, but that's the gist. The most important thing is that what we see on the screen is a combination of a hardware sensor and a software translation of moving electrons into a black and white image.

In preparation I made 8 cardboard slides each with pencil marks from the entire range of Faber-Castell pencils and then some. From 6H to 9B, plus charcoal and wax pencil used for writing on glass. Each slide was a different quality paper ranging from very smooth (professional tracing paper) to super rough (crepe paper). So 8 different papers, 20 different pencils, 3 different marks per pencil = 480 samples. In 2 hours. I didn't really think that through and we managed to look at about ten, plus some marks made ad hoc on a little aluminum stub (so we could tilt the sample – my slides were too big).

I was hoping that the equipment would reveal landscapes of graphite and clay, boulders of charcoal, great crevices formed torn by the hardest pencils, sprinklings of dusty rubble at the edges of lines, mountains made by single dots.

Mostly when we mark with pencil on paper it's a purposeful action, a dynamic set of movements that build a bigger picture. In using the equipment I was interested in looking closer at the pencil mark to see how complex the simplest of artistic processes is from a very close-up perspective, whether the dynamic nature of making the mark was clearly apparent in the debris left behind, and if it would even be recognisable as a pencil mark.

I hadn't considered the interaction between pencil and paper, or the elemental ingredients of the samples.

More following…

"As I prepared my samples thoughts nudged at me, what would they look like, what would we see, what if we discover, something new, something free from the norm, something quite beautifully strange? What if this pseudo-experiment is so out of the range that the magic we find is the first of it's kind? And the thoughts they went on and I let them, I let them push the excitement along. I wondered if the scientists feel this, if this is what they get, when they prep for the next most amazing experiment yet…"

Art and Science Talk at Imperial

Yesterday I gave a talk to a bunch of post doc researchers at Imperial College. They were all scientists that had been and will be working with school children (ages 8-11) to enthuse about and teach science. The workshop was one of many organised by Wayne Mitchell (Cranfield Health) and he invited me to talk about how art can be used in the understanding of science. My work often manifests itself as abstracted representations of scientific processes so that made sense, and I really enjoyed thinking about the differences and similarities between art and science methodologies in preparation for the talk.

As there were only ten or so people in the workshop I decided to do something I usually do but backwards – I showed a piece of work called The Lake (2005) and asked them to guess what it was without me explaining anything up front. No one guessed exactly what is was (a sound and animation work that was generated from 16 fish tagged in a lake), but it sparked an interesting discussion and some new ideas. This completely proved the point that presenting scientific data in a non-obvious manners sparks curiousity and wonder. Conveying complex systems and/or biological processes is possible in a way that is accessible (for want of another word) and allows each visitor to explore the concepts behind the work further to the depth they want to.

When The Lake was installed at Tingrith Fishery children of all ages loved it – I think this was because it gave them space to make up their own stories and theories about what the shapes were doing and why. Science enabling creativity :)

Two other people spoke at the workshop – my friend Dr Pink talked about his event organising org Rusty Promotions and a science communicator called Ian Dunne. Interesting both. I learned that sperm whales hunt by sonar, and when they find their prey (generally giant squid) they emit a super loud noise to stun the squid stupid and then attack. I've met people like that in East London.

Actually maybe not true about the whale after all: http://scienceline.org/2008/05/12/ask-locke-whale/…

(This article contains this quote "This was a a lovely idea killed by data". I think I've just found the title of the nano works.)

The Lake http://www.juliefreeman.co.uk/lake

Dr Pink http://www.rustypromotions.co.uk/

Ian Dunne http://www.ianbdunne.co.uk/

Hacking printers, losing brain

It occurred to me today that I think it would be possible to misuse the networked printing system across the campus by outputting statements from the printers to the people that use them. Most people always look at what comes out as they wait for their print.

I wonder if I could access all the printers on the network – my mac seems to sit outside of the PaperCut system anyway so it might be possible. Wouldn't it be nice if you found a bit of paper and it had a special message on it?

500 pages that all say "I want to but I can't"

"No one asks me about the weather"

Pictures of other photocopiers with their doors open. CopierPorn.

Or maybe I will use this to promote the work when it gets exhibited. After a little test or two…

Sheesh. What am I up to? Is this what happens when your studio is an open-plan office. You start making photocopier jokes? From a storage cupboard to a Tatiesque workers greenhouse. I think I am missing my old studio. A lot.

Purple Gloves

I know that having the chance to witness a nanoparticle experiment in the lab is a great opportunity to learn, so it's probably not really OK to be dazzled by something as simple as a pair of very purple latex gloves.

More to follow…

(probably)

Very lovely gloves though.

"Are you really being serious? Taking it all in? Are you learning from the masters, or have you been off-topic on the gin? Because it seems to us, it appears to us, it looks to us, like – you are coasting flat out in neutral, clutch down, gear agnostic, mildly out of control. And we're not very impressed when the point of you being there IS NOT BEING ADDRESSED. On the surface, to the naked eye, you know -outwardly at least, it seems a little tiny bit like you are taking the p*ss."