Smart Arts

Just a few weeks ago I found an old Canvas magazine from the New Zealand Herald and the cover story was called, ‘Where Science Meets Art’. Of course this grabbed my attention so I pored over the article. In Auckland a month or so ago, there was an exhibition showcasing artworks that were the result of a collaboration between artists and scientists. 15 artists were paired with 15 neuroscientists and were instructed to create artworks based on their interpretations of various kinds of brain research. The exhibition was called, ‘Do You Mind?’ and you can view the organiser’s blog here.

It is very exciting to me that while I continue with my interaction and collaboration, there are similar efforts out there in Auckland to bring together the two industries. The goals of our two projects are the same. Both efforts want to bring artwork to the public to raise the profile of the area of scientific research. We have been allowed into a world that the ordinary person has no access to and would most likely never gain access to. We can toil and struggle in the lab. We can discover these new things and report back to the public with our findings in a way that the scientific community doesn’t.

A major difference in our projects is that the artists from, ‘Do You Mind?’ only witnessed the research and interacted with the neuroscientists. In my project I am actively using the very same technology, materials and processes that the scientists use. The technology is my artwork. I am making the science a part of the final visual experience, rather than doing a drawing or a painting of my interpretation of the research. However, the end result is still the same. Our audience has become aware of another part of our world that we had not entered before.

The artists in the neuroscience project describe the separation of the art world and the science world. For most artists this is a fact. Art and science do not collide. Visual artists generally gravitate towards a way of expression like painting, sculpture, performance art or video art. These types of artistic expression are not experimented with in a lab. Scientists usually do not express their ideas in a visual interpretation. They may map out 2D and 3D imagery to see how something could work or take measurements of weight and force etc but their efforts are geared towards answers and fact based on experimentation, not subjective expression.

I am drawn to the obvious example of Leonardo da Vinci who had many skills and was talented in a number of fields. He was not only a master painter but an inventor, engineer, geologist and anatomist. Da Vinci is merely one man of many of his time who were more than capable of artistic pursuits as well as scientific ones. Not only was he a thinker in both fields, but he could combine his talents for one goal. For example, all of his knowledge of the anatomy, space and perspective combined to create perfect paintings.

Since Leonardo’s time until recently, the gap between art and science has widened. People have become masters of only one field, not many. With my project, and the recent project with the brain research, this gap is becoming smaller. It’s an exciting time.

Farewell Tocky!

From Left: Emilio, Tocky, KatyPie and Kit.

Since almost the beginning of our project, Tocky has been a major part of our team. Recently Tocky was given an opportunity to pursue his creative dreams in London. So from Emilio, Kit and I, congratulations Tocky and thank you for all of your contributions to the project. We have all greatly enjoyed working with you.

Tocky is a part of the bio engineering lab at the University of Auckland. He was very helpful to me and I am super thankful for all the lessons in learning to use the technology and materials.

Tocky you will be missed by all of us and we hope to make you proud with our final results next year. Good luck with all of your endeavours and we hope to see your amazing work on the world stage soon.

-KatyPie

A visit from Maori TV

Kia ora friends.
In January we had visitors from the production company, Adrenalin Group, come to see us at the bio-lab. They had heard on the grapevine about our project and wanted to interview the team to see exactly what we're up to. Last Friday on Maori TV, the show aired. Click here to see the episode:

Our item is 16 minutes into the show. Enjoy.

Also click here to check out the bio-engineering team who were also interviewed and were featured on the show some months earlier.
Both episodes are a good watch and very interesting.

As an update on the project, I am drawing away and we're having some tools designed and built so we can create the magic. So nothing too artistic to show as yet but it's not too far away.

Happy watching. Yay for Maori TV.

-KatyPie

We're Back!

Wow it has been a loooooong time since the last blog post. A very long time! What have we been doing since February 25th? Well, let me tell you . . .

Kit, Emilio, Tocky and I were very busy for a month or so trying to secure funding for the next stage of our project. After lots of report writing and a video presentation we were able to secure the funding from CNZ and MoRST to ensure we could keep creating and experimenting. So thank you very much to those funding bodies for making this all happen. And congratulations to the other teams that made it through to this next stage. Please follow the links on this blog so you can see what each funding body is all about.

So now the hard part is over (the report), another hard part is still to come. We have big ideas and I mean big. We want to create an artwork that is large in scale. Right now we are planning and designing brand new rigs and tools so that we can make each working element of the artwork hopefully about 1metre squared. That's big as far as I'm concerned. We've enlisted the help of an IRL intern, Eric, to design the rig. I'm very excited that we can solve some of our manual and time consuming fabrication problems. Thanks Eric!

Before I forget, some of the team from the Biomimetics Lab at The University of Auckland went to the annual EAP conference in San Diego in March of this year. Along with all of their important discoveries and experiments, they took some of my EAP paintings with them to show the crowd. I am pleased to say that one of the paintings did survive the long journey and they were able to actuate it for the audience. We were all happy with how well the small artworks were received and I hope this will inspire some of the visiting scientists to take the idea back to their own countries and start something similar with their local artists. Artists can definately offer a new perspective and new ideas to this kind of technology.

Until next time . . . !

Kit's Personal View

First of all, I would like to start by apologizing for a very belated blog entry. It seems like it was yesterday, when we got the grant from Creative New Zealand. Time really flies!

Now, I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Chee Kit Wong, or more commonly known as Kit. I am a research scientist within the Engineering Innovation team at Industrial Research Limited (IRL) in Auckland. IRL is a crown research institute with a focus on research and development in science and engineering.

As Katharine has already explained, we are a research collaboration that is funded by Creative New Zealand through the Smash Palace Fund. The objective of this funding is to foster linkages between artists and scientists. Essentially, the team consists of three main members: Katharine Ngatai aka KatyPie, Dr Emilio Calius and myself! In addition, we are also supported by Mr Tokushu Inamura. We have very different backgrounds and interests; and therefore play very different roles within the team.

Katharine, being the artist, is our creative brain. If you haven't seen her work, you should. She has some amazing pieces! Emilio is an expert in smart materials and is a colleague of mine at IRL.

As for me, my interest is in the application of spatial reasoning for the development of intelligent robotic systems. Particularly, I am interested in how humans and animals do not acquire precise representations of their surroundings but yet, still able to navigate successfully. This is very different from traditional robotics research in navigation and mapping, where every environment must be represented precisely. If you are interested to find out more, visit: http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10292/427

I see my involvement in this project as being twofold. Firstly, to address the electronics requirements of the project; and secondly, developing the software to control and provide life-like interactions with the viewing public. I envisage that I will utilise a lot of my prior experience in information extraction and interpretation from sensing devices; and at the same time, develop new knowledge in human machine interactions.

Prior to this project, I have not had any experience with Dielectric Elastomers. To be honest, the whole smart material domain was very foreign to me. I really did not know what to expect! One of the first things we did was to visit the Biomimetics Laboratory at Auckland University. We were given a quick tour and were shown some of the pieces that were created by the students at the lab. I have to admit, I was astonished. I have not come across actuators that are so life-like. More importantly, the pieces are very compact, mainly because the pieces are themselves the actuators! Instantly, Katharine and I saw why Emilio was so interested in applying this material for art.

Dielectric Elastromer Actuators (DEA) are very different from traditional actuators. One important difference is the fact that DEA actuates itself, whilst motors and other traditional actuators are used as means to provide actuation. Traditional actuators are clunky and often, and consequently, the size of any design is restricted by the size of the actuator. For DEAs though, one can construct as big, or as small an actuator as one desires, at least in theory. And because the material is of non-rigid characteristics, its looks and movement is extremely life-like, as one can see from the video images in Katharine’s blogs.

However, it is not easy to work with the DE materials. A lot of the processes are very manual and hence, very time-consuming. At times, this can be quite frustrating as it takes so long to make a single piece. In some instances, we have to develop the process ourselves! However, we learn something new all the time and that is very rewarding.

Thats all from me, for now. My next blog will be on latex. Yup ;-)

Questions

Several weeks ago our team was lucky enough to be invited to participate in a television show on Maori TV. The show is called 411 and it investigates science and technology stories from around New Zealand. For me, it was a nerve racking experience being filmed and asked a lot of questions. I tend to freeze and then once I am thawed out, I ramble! As tense and stressful as it was for me, it was also great to have 'outsiders' come into the lab and see our work. It was nice to see the crew's reactions to what we are doing. Here are some of the questions I was sent before filming that day:

Questions for Katy:
- Where did the idea for the project come from?
Kit contacted me through his sister in law, my friend. He was looking for an artist to collaborate on this Smash Palace project funding he had found. We met several times, discussed what we do etc. We like what the other person had to offer and so then Kit started showing me what type of robotic scientific things were possible. I latched onto the EAP thing pretty fast because the YouTube clips were pretty exciting. When we knew that was the direction we were interested in moving towards, Kit got Emilio involved.
The artwork ideas have come from what I do and how we could involve my ideas together with the technology.

- What benefits does technology like this give you as an artist?
It allows me to use new materials I never would have considered using. It allows me to realise the dream of making the kowhaiwhai move like I have always wanted to do.

- What challenges are there in combining art and science like this?
Many. I am not very scientifically or mathematically minded. I have a creative mind. It has been quite a struggle to get my head around the ideas, the materials, and the possibilities. So many things. I have to spend a bit of time on the computer. I break a lot of the materials before I can even start painting them. Science is used to trying a million types to get the right thing. I am used to planning with things I know, like wood and plastic so I know in advance that things are going to succeed. This is not the case with combining my art with this science. There are so many failures and it makes you stronger and persevere harder when you fail. But it can be very frustrating.
Also, I need to adhere to the integrity of the art idea. The concept is important for me. I don't want to create something that is scientifically astounding if it is not going to add to or develop the concept in any way. It is a struggle for me to maintain the integrity of the concept while trying to use the technology in a different way.

- What’s been the process?
The process has been me, meeting with Toki our technician October and November, simply learning the materials, technology and the lab environment.
Now that I feel that I understand EAPs I can begin to concentrate on the art ideas more fully.

- What are you conveying through the artwork?
I feel that the artwork I create and the designs I use are beautiful. I want to see them move, and jump off a 2 dimensional surface in some way. Traditionally, kowhaiwhai was painted on rectangular rafters in meeting houses. Last century we saw kowhaiwhai and other Maori designs leaving the sanctuary of the meeting house and entering the everyday world. There is kowhaiwhai on crockery, clothing, etc being involved and appreciated outside the meeting house. I have wanted to inject colour, new materials, light, 3dimensions etc with my designs. The ultimate for me is to make the designs move and throb and pulse with a life of its own. I have always wanted to make it so much more dynamic and take it to places I never thought of before.
The designs themselves contain stories while some are abstract and open to interpretation.

- What’s in the future (for combining art/science)?
In our future we hope to make more artworks and have an exhibition. We would also like that exhibition to travel around the country. In combining these two things, we may develop some breakthroughs in the technology.
Science and art are never too far away from each other. Maybe this is a return to the old days, when in the Renaissance for instance, artists were painters, sculptors, scientists, inventors, engineers etc. all in one. This may inspire me to continue with scientific influences in my artwork.

So that was another insight into how I am getting on with the project so far. You can see me, KatyPie, and my team members Emilio and Kit on the 411 programme coming in April or May!

Parts of a body

It’s been really great looking back at all the video footage and photographs I have taken so far. I have only put several videos on the blog because they take so long to upload. After not looking at them for a while and then coming back to them with fresh eyes you see new things. For instance the DEMES videos. There is the one where I had 3 DEMES fixed to one plate. We had them moving at different times to create a ripple effect. Now that I look at it again it looks like fingers of a hand stretching outwards then curling inwards again towards the palm. It would be cool to make five of them and slightly change the triangular shape of the DEMES to make them look more finger-like. In this way you can imagine how cool it would be to create a whole body that moved or something like that.

Thanks for all your great comments and feedback about what you see on this blog. I also need to point out that nothing can replace what you see with your own eyes. The videos are great but you really get the greatest understanding and impact from the work when you see it actuate in front of you. Take ‘Red Breeze’ for example. If I had the time I could look at that for so long. See the different rhthyms of the movements and watch the muscles contract and expand. It is quite hypnotic. Then while you are watching all the components moving, you can imagine that they are parts of a body. Parts of one whole. I imagine lungs expanding, inhaling and exhaling. A heart pumping. Eyes blinking. This is what I see. I see a living body that needs all of its parts to function in order to live and breathe.

Speaking of blinking eyes, here is an article Emilio found that shows the latest success for artificial muscles:
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/newsroom/newsdetail.html?key=3626&svr=http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu&table=published

As far as I can tell no one in the lab has tried to do a layering of planer DEAs. For me the movements of the layers of VHB has greater impact and they tell a story about the parts of the body that are working together to create this artificial life.

As you can probably tell, the team is very keen to get these artworks out to the public so you can see them and appreciate them with your own eyes. This is something we would like to bring to you as soon as possible!

Triumphs and Failures

Wow it has been a crazy couple of weeks. There have been days of complete failures and some days of amazing successes. Both are necessary and helpful for getting the ultimate end result that we are looking for. One day I stretched 33 (!!!) pieces of VHB before I managed to secure a frame on it. No exaggeration.

The things that I have been concentrating on are three paintings that are very closely related to the kind of artwork I usually do. I felt that I needed to truly develop and incorporate this new material into the work I am known for. This way my audience can see a true progression and understand how my work has gotten to the point that it’s at. So if you’ve looked at my website or you know my work, you can see in the photos that I am lasercutting my original designs in acrylic but these designs are part of a framework that holds the VHB membrane. On this membrane I am painting with the grease and the grease will actuate when connected to the power box. Combining the static, colourful and solid designs with the wet, black, ‘living’ grease makes for an intriguing artwork.

Here is a photograph of ‘Red Breeze’.

You can see that I have a central red design which represents a breezy light wind. Behind is another layer in fluorescent yellow of the reversed breeze design. Layering the frames adds another dimension to the work. The acrylic and the VHB are transparent so we have alot to look at and explore in the small work. On the front red frame I have a solid black shape at the top and a positively lined design at the bottom. Here I am exploring the thickness of the lines. These two shapes behave differently when actuated.
Behind on the yellow frame I have painted the grease on the negative area of the design. The positive lines are transparent. This will also alter how the membrane behaves once actuated. Unfortunately I had painted another negative design in the bottom right corner. You can see where the VHB has retracted back to the edges of the yellow frame after tearing. It has left smears of the grease on the side when it broke. Unfortunately I never got the chance to actuate the whole thing before it broke.

Here is a photo of the broken work and the sketch of how it should have looked.

This work is still successful for me because as well as spending time making the frames, designing the artwork, painting and putting it together; I wanted to come up with a frame idea that looks like what I have made in the past and it hides most of the cables, clips and copper. To me these things are a distraction to looking at the artwork. They also indicate the process behind the artwork. I think it is nice to have an element of mystery behind the mechanics of the piece. You really get a sense of wonder when you look at it and don’t know how it works or why. It really does look like a thin clear skin that is mysteriously animated. It’s not a computer or tv screen, its not a robot or clunky machinery. So what is it? That is what I hope the viewer will ask.

Here is an example of the front red frame actuating alone.

Here is the artwork with both working layers. Excuse the camera work. Here the work is connected to the power box which is being controlled by a computer to get the three components moving at different frequencies. The voltage for all is the same at 2250 volts.

Welcome to 2010!

Kiaora and welcome back!
The hardest thing I did today was enter the lab again after a months absence. The reason I found it difficult was because I was worried I would have forgotten everything I had been taught so far in the lab. But it is amazing how things just come back to you!
I've been absent from the lab over December to fulfil my job obligations and to allow myself to focus more on creativity. While I thoroughly enjoyed my training in the lab, i felt creatively restricted. I felt I couldn't confidently bring forward an artistic idea, without soon finding out it would be impossible to create. Now however, I do feel confident that I know the possibilities and the limitations of the material. This knowledge has allowed me greater exploration of my concepts and ideas.
So now I am more aware of how to create, my problem is, 'what to create?'.......