0 comment Wednesday, May 28, 2014 | admin
"A time-lapse taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night. This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica. Visible cities, countries and landmarks include (in order) Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Phoenix. Multiple cities in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, El Salvador, Lightning in the Pacific Ocean, Guatemala, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Lake Titicaca, and the Amazon. Also visible is the Earth's ionosphere (thin yellow line), a satellite (55sec) and the stars of our galaxy."
Labels: Blue Marble, Earth, International Space Station, Iss, Satellite, Space, Universe, Video, Youtube
0 comment Sunday, May 25, 2014 | admin
This weekend I went to visit my home city of Manchester, and was intrigued by the title of the exhibition "Dark Matters" at The Whitworth Art Gallery.
I have just finished reading "The 4% Universe" by Richard Panek which explores the idea of dark matter and dark energy within our universe.
The artist Daniel Rozin absolutely steals the show as the first "Dark Matters" exhibit you see on entering, is "Snow Mirror". Silk thread hangs from the ceiling and gives the impression of pretty fairy lights, it is only when you face the installation that you see yourself mirrored in the thread.
I was impressed to say the least, but my mind was blown to pieces when I saw "Peg Mirror" in the next room.
There is a camera placed in the centre of the "mirror", and the pegs oscillate to imitate the surroundings.
I can't begin to understand how Daniel Rozin has created these amazing installations, and for that reason I am absolutely fascinated with them.
If you're in Manchester before the 15th of January 2012, you should definitely check out this exhibition! If not, check out Daniel Rozin's website.
Labels: Artist, Daniel Rozin, Manchester, Mirror, Peg Mirror, Richard Panek, Silk, Snow Mirror, Technology, Thread, Video, Whitworth, Wood, Youtube
0 comment Saturday, May 24, 2014 | admin
Last week, the artist Heather Barnett came to Central St Martins to talk about her work with slime moulds.We were introduced to her work and taught how to look after our own Slime Mould pets.Unfortunately, my slime mould pet died instantly after an incident on the central line, which was a real shame as I was looking forward to nurturing it.
Potentially, I could have nurtured my slime mould to grow and survive for months, feeding it carbohydrates and keeping it in a dark, damp environment.I could have conducted experiments to see which food the slime mould prefers.
This is a time lapse video which Heather Barnett made to experiment with the likes and dislikes of the slime mould.
If my slime mould had survived, I could have set a maze for the slime mould to complete.The slime mould figures out the fastest possible route between food sources, after exploring each possible direction.
Efficiency in nature has become interesting to me as I continue to study soap bubbles and films. Soap bubbles are similar to the slime mould if you consider efficiency, soap bubbles use the least amount of surface area in an enclosed shape (a sphere). Both soap films and slime moulds have been known to find the quickest point from A to B, when simulating road networks.
Slime Mould Road SimulationSoap Film Road Simulation
Interestingly, slime moulds are considered to have memory, learning to stay away / retreat from threats.These intelligent organisms are fascinating insights in to how nature can work to achieve maximum efficiency as an end result.
Pictures by Anita, Slime mould made by Heather Barnett.
Here are some pictures taken from Slimoco, the Slime Mould collective website, where you can learn to make your own slime mould and share your experiments.
Potentially, I could have nurtured my slime mould to grow and survive for months, feeding it carbohydrates and keeping it in a dark, damp environment.I could have conducted experiments to see which food the slime mould prefers.
This is a time lapse video which Heather Barnett made to experiment with the likes and dislikes of the slime mould.
If my slime mould had survived, I could have set a maze for the slime mould to complete.The slime mould figures out the fastest possible route between food sources, after exploring each possible direction.
Efficiency in nature has become interesting to me as I continue to study soap bubbles and films. Soap bubbles are similar to the slime mould if you consider efficiency, soap bubbles use the least amount of surface area in an enclosed shape (a sphere). Both soap films and slime moulds have been known to find the quickest point from A to B, when simulating road networks.
Slime Mould Road SimulationSoap Film Road Simulation
Interestingly, slime moulds are considered to have memory, learning to stay away / retreat from threats.These intelligent organisms are fascinating insights in to how nature can work to achieve maximum efficiency as an end result.
Pictures by Anita, Slime mould made by Heather Barnett.
Here are some pictures taken from Slimoco, the Slime Mould collective website, where you can learn to make your own slime mould and share your experiments.
Labels: Anita Chowdry, Bubble, Efficiency, Heather Barnett, Intelligent Organism, Maze, Network, Road, Simulation, Slime, Slime Mold, Slime Mould, Slimoco, Soap Film, Youtube
0 comment Monday, May 19, 2014 | admin
I just wanted to stop by and share this amazing video of the artist Amy Shackleton painting using a very interesting technique. Amy's technique utilizes the force of gravity, by rotating the canvas and letting the paint drip downwards to create each line.
Labels: Amy Shackleton, Gravity, Paint, Painting, Physics, Science, Youtube
0 comment Sunday, May 11, 2014 | admin
Yesterday I went to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich to listen to a lecture by Dr Omar Almaini from the University Of Nottingham.
The talk covered the nature of supermassive black holes, why we think that they exist and how to discover them which was fascinating.
However, as an artist, I was moved by the visual data that Dr Omar Almaini provided along with his talk.
This video shows a cluster of stars hidden behind the black dust of the milky way. The camera used to capture this information was specifically designed for this purpose, as scientists were fascinated to discover if there was a black hole lurking in our galaxy.
For scientists to determine if a black hole did exist in our galaxy, the scientists would need to track the movement of stars. If the stars were found to be moving around, then this would become evidence of a black hole in our galaxy.
Dr Omar Almaini described this clip as "pure unadulterated data straight from the telescope". This video shows that stars are in fact orbiting a central point of gravity within the space of a few decades, so most scientists now believe that a dormant black hole does exist in the Milky Way.
Using this definition of "dormant", there are no collisions of planets / there is no fuel for the black hole to emit any kind of radiation. It is also rather unlikely that we will get sucked in to the black hole any time soon!
Using this data, scientists have been able to make models of the stars orbiting the black hole as a visual aid. (Towards the end of this clip).
I am always impressed by any super-intelligent professor who can simplify complex ideas for consumption of the general public, so I found the talk by Dr Omar Almaini very educational.
I will leave you with an excerpt from "Physics Of The Impossible" by Michio Kaku, on the scientist Albert Einstein.
"What was the secret of his genius? Perhaps one clue to his genius was his ability to think in terms of physical pictures (e.g. moving trains, accelerating clocks, stretched fabrics) rather than pure mathematics.
Einstein once said that unless a theory can be explained to a small child, the theory was probably useless;
that is, the essence of a theory has to be captured by the physical picture; the mathematics would come later".
The talk covered the nature of supermassive black holes, why we think that they exist and how to discover them which was fascinating.
However, as an artist, I was moved by the visual data that Dr Omar Almaini provided along with his talk.
This video shows a cluster of stars hidden behind the black dust of the milky way. The camera used to capture this information was specifically designed for this purpose, as scientists were fascinated to discover if there was a black hole lurking in our galaxy.
For scientists to determine if a black hole did exist in our galaxy, the scientists would need to track the movement of stars. If the stars were found to be moving around, then this would become evidence of a black hole in our galaxy.
Dr Omar Almaini described this clip as "pure unadulterated data straight from the telescope". This video shows that stars are in fact orbiting a central point of gravity within the space of a few decades, so most scientists now believe that a dormant black hole does exist in the Milky Way.
Using this definition of "dormant", there are no collisions of planets / there is no fuel for the black hole to emit any kind of radiation. It is also rather unlikely that we will get sucked in to the black hole any time soon!
Using this data, scientists have been able to make models of the stars orbiting the black hole as a visual aid. (Towards the end of this clip).
I am always impressed by any super-intelligent professor who can simplify complex ideas for consumption of the general public, so I found the talk by Dr Omar Almaini very educational.
I will leave you with an excerpt from "Physics Of The Impossible" by Michio Kaku, on the scientist Albert Einstein.
"What was the secret of his genius? Perhaps one clue to his genius was his ability to think in terms of physical pictures (e.g. moving trains, accelerating clocks, stretched fabrics) rather than pure mathematics.
Einstein once said that unless a theory can be explained to a small child, the theory was probably useless;
that is, the essence of a theory has to be captured by the physical picture; the mathematics would come later".
Labels: Albert Einstein, Dr Omar Almaini, Michio Kaku, National Maritime Museum, Physics Of The Impossible, Stellar Motions In The Galactic Centre, Supermassive Black Hole, The Milky Way, Video, Visualization, Youtube
0 comment Saturday, May 10, 2014 | admin
Reuben Margolin creates sculptures that are inspired by waves in the natural world i.e. ripples on the surface of water, the movement of caterpillars, the wings of birds.
The sculptures are finely engineered, and are complex to make. If one component of the machine does not work, the entire movement of the sculpture will come to a halt.
For me, Margolin captures the elegance of the natural world, which comes from a true understanding of science and nature. Margolin draws a series of equations accompanied by sketches of his final piece, it is hard to understand where the art ends and the science starts.
Labels: Birds, Caterpillar, Kinetics, Materials, Movement, Moving, Natural, Nature, Recycled, Reuben Margolin, Sculpture, Video, Waves, Youtube
0 comment Saturday, May 3, 2014 | admin
As part of my MA Art and Science programme, we were able to have a detailed tour around the Wellcome Collection and in the Wellcome Libary.
I was at first astounded at the amount of the online resources that the Wellcome Collection provides, there is a Wellcome Film youtube channel which has over 300 videos uploaded.
There is also a huge database of images on the Wellcome Images site, which has a great selection of anatomical drawings, illustrative diagrams, lithograph prints, scientific photographs and much more!
Here are some things I personally found interesting on the tour:
BBC Source
This is an exhibited created by Gunther Von Haagen, it is a very thin slice of a human body, plastinated in the typical Haagen way.I was particularly interested in the curious way the slice has been presented, between two pieces of glass in a suitably clinical way.
source
This exhibit is the "Library Of The Genome", a publication of a human DNA sequence. The books you see here contain 3 Billion characters (genetic bases) which have been printed and published in to a volume of books. Apparently, to recite the sequence character by character would take approximately 56 years!To think that each human has a completely different DNA sequence is mind-blowing.
It was also interesting to learn that Henry Wellcome preferred to display his collection in a Darwinian style, laying out each specimen side by side.
Other things that caught my imagination include:
- Death Masks that were carved while they were still on a tree, so that "tree spirits" could animate the face.It's interesting that nature has been allowed to alter the work.
- Hair used to illustrate weeping willows inside a piece of mourning jewellery.
- Anatomical Flip-Diagrams which can be found on the Digitised Collections.
I was at first astounded at the amount of the online resources that the Wellcome Collection provides, there is a Wellcome Film youtube channel which has over 300 videos uploaded.
There is also a huge database of images on the Wellcome Images site, which has a great selection of anatomical drawings, illustrative diagrams, lithograph prints, scientific photographs and much more!
Here are some things I personally found interesting on the tour:
BBC Source
This is an exhibited created by Gunther Von Haagen, it is a very thin slice of a human body, plastinated in the typical Haagen way.I was particularly interested in the curious way the slice has been presented, between two pieces of glass in a suitably clinical way.
sourceThis exhibit is the "Library Of The Genome", a publication of a human DNA sequence. The books you see here contain 3 Billion characters (genetic bases) which have been printed and published in to a volume of books. Apparently, to recite the sequence character by character would take approximately 56 years!To think that each human has a completely different DNA sequence is mind-blowing.
It was also interesting to learn that Henry Wellcome preferred to display his collection in a Darwinian style, laying out each specimen side by side.
Other things that caught my imagination include:
- Death Masks that were carved while they were still on a tree, so that "tree spirits" could animate the face.It's interesting that nature has been allowed to alter the work.
- Hair used to illustrate weeping willows inside a piece of mourning jewellery.
- Anatomical Flip-Diagrams which can be found on the Digitised Collections.
Labels: Anatomical, Anatomy, Art, Death Masks, Dna, Gunther Von Haagen, Hair, Library Of The Genome, Mourning Jewellery, Plasticization, Sequence, The Wellcome Collection, Wellcome Collection, Youtube