The cartoons are a-coming
I am finally getting somewhere with a set of nanoparticle cartoons.
Part of the residency is to create some form of online journal with tales from nanoparticles. Nanoparticle perspectives if you will. The idea is to communicate in a simple and humourous way about the change in a material's properties when it is reduced to the nanoscale.
Take copper, for example, a lovely soft jam pan making metal that adorns pubs and caravans, and sea-sick passengers wrists. As a nanoparticle it becomes explosive – imagine an exploding jam pan, it would be lethal and very, very sticky. (BTW: have a search for the chemical symbol of a copper nanotube, it amuses the researchers no end.)
So I've been asking the research staff and PhD students at Cranfield University some questions: "If you were a nanoparticle which one would you be?" "What is the particle's greatest strengths and weaknesses?". On the basis of this feedback I'm creating a set of characters that will feature in the comic strips. It's easier said than done. Scientists are very particular about representation of fact, and for an artist who is used to using artistic license to the full (it goes with the job) this isn't very compatible.
How accurate do I need to be to conveying scientific concepts through artwork? How much can I leave for the viewer to fill in the gaps? How can I encourage anthropomorphism of these materials when to do so would give them characteristics they actually do not have? Does this matter?
I had a breakthrough with PJ who grasped what I want to do and even wrote who his particles' nemesis would be if it had one. Great.
"I am silver, I am bismuth, I am carbon, we are sub-tiny and not to be relied on, our behaviours will baffle the brainiest Prof and as for containment -we're always wandering off. Your Newtonian principles mean nothing, nitto, nada to us, and we don't go in for this gravitational fuss. We are Brownian, we bump and we turn, we stick and we burn, we have our rule set which you want to learn. You want to control us, make us collide, make us act, make us stand in line? You'll be lucky because try as you might (and try you will) our special properties will put up a fight."
